This is part of a series of inquiry-based provocations for essential elements of the PYP and the Learner Profile. For more, click here.
As with many other character traits, cooperation is one we clearly value, but how well do our students understand it? For them, is it just the absence of fighting? Or is it something more? This week’s provocation is meant to help students investigate it further for themselves.
Resource #1: What Is Sustainable Development? by World’s Largest Lesson (I plan to begin SDGs provocations after I finish the PYP ones!)
#2: Head Up by Film Bilder
#3: This Too Shall Pass Rube Goldberg Machine by OK Go
#4: Simon Senek on Intensity vs Consistency by The RSA
Resource #5: Flora & the Peacocks by Molly Idle
Resource #6: Officer Buckle & Gloria by Peggy Rathmann
#7: It’s Mine! by Leo Lionni
Provocation Questions:
How does cooperation work?
In what ways must we depend on each other in order to cooperate?
Why is cooperation sometimes hard? How do we overcome obstacles?
How do cooperation and sustainability connect?
What is our responsibility to cooperate with one another as families? As communities? As a planet?
How is creativity enhanced when we can cooperate?
How is productivity enhanced when we cooperate?
How is cooperation connected to relationships? To vulnerability & trust?
When we have lofty visions of students taking the wheel at their own learning, it can be devastating when they seem to reject that agency. It’s understandable why this happens; after all, most have years of training that only teachers make the important decisions regarding their learning, & it’s difficult to reverse that dependency.
However, I believe there are still layers to that rejection that can be valuable for us to try and recognize. Often, it may be that they need to develop more skills (see the self-management skills provocation). Maybe they need to better see themselves as inquirers. Or, perhaps, they simply need to have their sights elevated in general as to why personal ownership over learning is so important. That’s where this week’s provocation comes in. As always, I would love to hear how this goes with your students in the comments below!
Resource #1: Cogs by AIME Mentoring
Resource #2: The Power to Create by Matthew Taylor & The RSA
Resource #3: What Adults Can Learn From Kids, TED Talk by Adora Svitak
Yes, a personality quiz. But I promise it’s not one of those “which celebrity is your soul-mate” kinds of quizzes — it’s generally based on Don Lowry’s work to help people understand themselves a little better, and might help students recognize their existing strengths to take the wheel at their learning.
This is part of a series of inquiry-based provocations for essential elements of the PYP and the Learner Profile. For more, click here.
When we’re asked what makes us feel successful as parents, I’ve noticed that our answers often involve our kids’ choices. But as I reflect, I can’t help but wonder if that is a perilous decision. After all, what if we do everything “right” and our kids still don’t “turn out” as we expected? Or worse still, what if our kids ultimately define success differently than we do? Might we then condemn ourselves to a life of stress and perceived failure?
Because we only truly have control over ourselves, hinging our sense of success within may prove more beneficial. And teaching our children to do so will in turn help them to take more ownership over the course of their lives.
To me, this is all tightly woven with being balanced. My days feel most scattered when I have neglected important roles, and they feel most successful when I have managed to give each the attention necessary. This week’s provocation is intended to help students consider what it means to find balance in their own lives, and to recognize what a lack of balance looks like.
A humorous and more direct connection to “balance.” I like how it addresses how we sometimes take ourselves too seriously in seeking balance.
Resource #3: Nuggets by Filmbilder
This video gets into the heavier topic of how drugs cause dependence. However, its representation can be expanded to anything that causes us to have extreme dependence, causing a lack of balance and self-control in our lives.
Resource #4: Yelp: With Apologies to Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” by Tiffany Slain & Let it Ripple Studio
The “looking for an info fix” here might add an interesting element to this discussion. I am a huge proponent for teaching kids the potential for good within tech use (rather than just teaching them not to do bad things); however, even with the most positive perspectives, might the result still be negative if balance is not part of the conversation?
Resource #5: Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson & Kevin O’Malley
If you’ve missed this spunky twist on an old tale, it’s worth checking out! Adds a great element of what it means to be well-rounded.
Resource #6: Moon, by Alison Oliver
My 8 year-old was very clearly able to see that Moon’s to-do list was seriously out-of-balance. Investigate with your students what else our to-do lists should include to live balanced lives.
Provocation Questions:
What does it mean to live a balanced life for you?
What does it mean to have balance in your family?
How does balance impact our quality of life?
How does balance impact our societies?
What are the consequences of a lack of balance?
What role do humor and flexibility play in seeking balance?
What changes might I make to achieve greater balance in my life?
This is part of a series of inquiry-based provocations for essential elements of the PYP and the Learner Profile. For more, click here.
Giving students an opportunity to inquire into what it means to be a thinker is valuable at any point throughout the year; when starting a new unit, when working on how to display thinking, when refreshing the concept of metacognition. For the PYP, this can be used for both the Learner Profile attribute of Thinker, as well as the Learning Skill of thinking.
Resource #1: Obvious to you. Amazing to others by Derek Sivers
Resource #2: Nature by Numbers by Cristóbal Vila(This is math-based, of course, but I love the broader applications to thinking here — how did Fibonacci’s thinking originally unfold?)
#3: How to Figure Out Any Day of the Week for Any Date Ever by It’s OK to be Smart via TheKidShouldSeeThis (great example to see how we can be great thinkers, too).
Resource #4: reDesign Skills (these are teacher activities designed to promote thinking skills, but especially for older students, I wonder what would happen if you allowed them to take the lead on one of these for their classmates?)
reDesign thinking skills
Resource #5: What Do You Do With A _____ picture books by Kobi Yamada
Provocation Questions:
What is the connection between thinking and organization? What is the connection between thinking and courage?
What is metacognition?
What kinds of mindsets help us as thinkers? What kinds of mindsets hurt us as thinkers?
How people change as thinkers over time?
How does being an active thinker impact our lives? How does it impact our communities?
This is part of a series of inquiry-based provocations for essential elements of the PYP and the Learner Profile. For more, click here.
We constantly talk about providing our students with skills that allow them to think, act, and choose for themselves. In the PYP, such skills include gross/fine motor skills, organization, time management, safety, healthy lifestyle, codes of behavior, and informed choices.
It’s important to regularly provide our students opportunities to discuss & cultivate those skills. This week’s provocation is designed to get the conversation going.
Resource #1: 3 Ways to Start, by New Age Creators
Resource #2: What Matters to You by Jorge R. Canedo E.
Resource #3: Why Incompetent People Think They’re Amazing by TED-ED
Resource #4: Arat Hosseini’s Instagram account run by his father (I especially loved the Arat’s father’s comment in the second video).
This is part of a series of inquiry-based provocations for essential elements of the PYP and the Learner Profile. For more, click here.
It’s funny, really, how we sometimes altogether remove our own voice from our communication. We water it down in the attempt to look like everyone else. We apologize needlessly. We shy away from owning our strengths and what makes us unique. So if you use this provocation into what it means to be a communicator, I challenge you to bring voice front and center into the conversation with your students!
Resource #1: Obvious to you. Amazing to others. by Derek Sivers
Resource #2: Ballet Rotoscope
Resource #3: Citius, Altius, Fortius by Felix Deimann (similar to above, but equally thought-provoking!)
Resource #4: Barcode Band by W88N
Resource #5: The Big Bed by Bunmi Laditan (lots of fun, but pay attention to the way this savvy girl makes her case)
Provocation Questions:
What is the role of voice in being a communicator? Why is your unique voice important as you communicate?
What does it mean to be a communicator? What are the different ways in which we communicate?
What is the role of communication in our society? How does it impact your family? Community? World?
What is our responsibility to be communicators? What is our responsibility to own our voices as communicators?
What is difficult about being a communicator? How do we overcome?
How is perspective important as we communicate? What is the role of listening?
What kinds of conversations do you think OK Go music videos would generate with a 7 and 3 year old?
How about relative size of instruments to produce different sound? “What are they hitting to make music?”
The concept of sponsorship & investment. “Why are are they making such a big mess in that airplane?!”
The idea of stop motion.
(Be sure to check out their behind the scenes of the Upside Down & Inside Out music video. I especially loved the line: “The whole song is sort of around the idea of letting the unfamiliar feelings guide you rather than trying to figure everything out all the time.”)
When the Internet brings us that which truly inspires, do we share with our students? When we do, our roles evolve from consumers to creators as we co-construct wonder with kids. Who knows how the story of the mom who built a house via YouTube videos, or the boy who invented a device to help kids trapped in hot cars, influence the paths our kids take?
Access to one another’s stories is perhaps the most defining feature this technological era. Let’s leverage those stories to inspire and embolden our kids to the ever-greater possibilities of our day.
