I’ve spent the better part of the last two weekends helping my fourth grade son complete a series of “hands-on” activities designed to teach him about the southeast region of the United States. These activities were developed by a well known publishing company (not to be named here) whose materials were described by their distributor as “…developed by teachers with hands-on classroom experience. All of the materials are developmentally appropriate, educationally sound, and fun! They are committed to simplifying teachers’ lives by providing them with resource materials that save time and enrich the classroom experience.”
I’m not so sure about that.
For this assignment, my son could choose to complete either three, five, or seven activities corresponding to “grades” of good, great, and grand respectively from a list of 12 possible options. Acutely aware at age nine that more = better, he opted to tackle the following seven exercises:
- Construct a model of a Mississippi riverboat using a shoebox.
- Visit a local department store, read the labels on clothing and home furnishings, and make a list of ten things made from cotton.
- Make a chart that lists the capital cities of each southeast state, each city’s population, the year it became the capital, and the number of senators and representatives serving in each state’s legislature.
- Choose a southeast state. On poster board, illustrate and label one mammal, reptile, bird, fish, and amphibian that is native to the state. Write one fact about each animal below its illustration.
- Make a pictograph of the yearly peanut production in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, and Virgina using the scale 1 peanut = 100,000 short tons.
- Cut pictures of textile products from magazines and create a collage.
- Produce a television commercial for a beach resort in the southeast.
These “fun and educationally sound projects” became something of a family affair that required a considerable investment of time and small measure of money. As such, when we finally finished the seventh and final activity this afternoon, I felt it prudent to ask him what he had learned from each of the exercises. Here are his initial, unedited responses:
- Shoebox Riverboat: The cheap spray paint you got was crappy; next time buy the good stuff.
- Cotton List: Most clothes are not made in the USA.
- State Demographics: Do I have to remember all those numbers?
- Animal Poster: Florida has some pretty boring animals.
- Textile Collage: Sports Illustrated doesn’t have a lot of pictures of clothes.
- Peanut Pictograph: Peanuts can have one, two, or three nuts in the shell.
- Television Commercial: It’s important to smile when doing a commercial.
His remarks, albeit brief, clearly had very little to do with the history, geography, politics, economy, or culture of the southeast; the activities did not engage his mind on the topic of study. Dissatisfied with his comments, we talked further about the projects and reviewed some of the skills he had utilized in completing the assignment. His second attempt at reflection was a bit more encouraging:
- Shoebox Riverboat: Flickr is a good place to find pictures on the Internet.
- Cotton List: Google Earth can show me where those countries are that make our clothes.
- State Demographics: Government websites are good for getting information about states.
- Animal Poster: Google Image search is another good place to find pictures online.
- Textile Collage: Dictionary.com can tell you the definition of words you don’t understand, like textile.
- Peanut Pictograph: Excel is handy for converting pounds to short tons.
- Television Commercial: Editing video is pretty easy and my sister and I now I have a video on YouTube!
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I don’t know what grand will translate to in the teacher’s gradebook, but I suspect that a brightly painted boat, neatly organized pictograph, a simple but pleasant commercial, and the rest of his creations will earn him an “A” regardless of whether or not he actually learning anything about the southeast. After all, there were no learning objectives or assessment rubrics included with the assignment. The skills that I made a point of introducing/reinforcing with him will, I suspect, go largely ignored. Even worse, many of these projects, if done without the supervision of a conscientious adult, could actually instill some very bad habits; none of the exercises that involved research required students to cite their sources.
As a former science teacher, I’m all for “hands-on” learning but it must be “minds-on” as well, and the onus for making an activity educationally meaningful should not be left to parents. While I enjoyed spending time with my son and seeing his mind at work (he is far more visually creative than I ever realized), I fear that the ultimate take-away for many families will be that good craft skills yield high academic marks; talent with a paintbrush or hot glue gun should not define learning.
That said, and on behalf of my son’s fourth grade class, I would ask those teachers who use pre-made materials that “save time and enrich the classroom experience” to please reconsider the value of assigning dioramas, copy-paste research, and poster board displays. While there may be value in those activities, it won’t be realized at the typical kitchen table. Dig deeply into topics of importance, incorporate practical skills into the teaching of content, and don’t equate quantity and quality.
In short, think less about students’ hands, and more about their minds.