Meaningful involvement of learners in classroom activities

Prescribed media for the week:

Effective pedagogy - teaching the whole child
Applying mindfulness to mundane classroom tasks

Something else, which is a little off topic but good none the less:
On catching the train

As the title of the post suggests, today is all about the meaningful involvement of learners in classroom activities.

Let's start with a quote from On catching the train by AG Gardiner. (Memo to self: read more Gardiner.)

"Any peg will do to hang your hat on. The hat is the thing."

I think that, especially with CAPS ruling the school as it were, that achieving specific aims at the end of the lesson can cloud the whole business of education, i.e. we as teachers may be so focused on getting through whatever is in the syllabus for the day that we forget that education is about more than just getting through the facts of the subject. Education is also about sculpting learners into young adults. This is what Effective pedagogy is hinting at. Teaching should always aim to be holistic. This implies that teaching, education, can't be a one way street. If we are going to sculpt young adults, we have to sculpt them to, for example, know that their opinions matter. And how can we do that if we don't show them that their opinions matter? How do we show them that their opinions matter if we don't listen to them in class? If we don't involve them in what happens in the classroom?

Applying mindfulness to mundane classroom tasks makes this point, even though the point is hidden behind the whole mindfulness business. The task of moving the tables out of the way was something the teacher hated because it was noisy and destroyed the calm atmosphere she wanted in the classroom. With a little though and creativity she transformed the activity into one that made the atmosphere suitably Zen for her needs. That's all great. But what I found cool about the lesson is that she then asked for learner input into the lesson. She asked the learners how they felt after completing Table-Moving 2.0 and comparing it to how they felt after Table-Moving 1. This is the important part - she allowed the learners to express their thoughts and feelings. She also showed them that their opinions mattered to her, because she wrote them down and used them in subsequent lessons. The learners noticed this. Table-Moving became meaningful to them, because the teacher paid attention to what the learners were saying. Table-Moving became important to the teacher, because she involved the learners in a meaningful way.

The hat's the thing.