Joy of Learning

So I do not know about the rest of you but EDD430 is not my favourite class as the some of the material, though necessary to know, is not 'joyful'. However, I just read a really good article that was assigned for our class monday morning. For those of you in my class you have probably read it, or at least saw the link he sent us. But really it was a worthwhile read, and if you are going to read one thing this semister for 430 do this one.

Anyway, the article is very applicable to us social studies teachers because it talks about how to bring back joy into the classroom, and into learning. I think we can all agree that our subject area has a stigma attached to it as being, dare I say, boring. We all enjoy learning, and our subject, otherwise we would not be here. But for some students, school is something they have to do, and they lose the joy of just learning. Allowing our students the freedom to be creative, to have some choice, and to find sub-area's within our subject that they are interested in can go a long way to bring joy into learning. The article is an easy read, and for the most part feels like common sense. But I think sometimes we all need a reminder that it is the little things that can bring joy back into the school environment.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/sept08/vol66/num01/Joy_in_School.aspx