Exploring the animal life in local stream, studying adaptation of the animals, investigating pollution, working out speed, depth and capacity of the water and, in one case in our province, exploring the river from its source on the mountain to the sea. This is the stuff of real learning.
Creative teachers have always placed developing authentic realistic and first hand experiences followed by creative expression through the arts central to their programmes .Important to such teachers was the need to provide opportunities to develop all the innate gifts and talents of their students. Today the emphasis being imposed by the government is on literacy and numeracy and, along with the conservative nature of most teachers, this has lead to less real in depth inquiry. And it needs to be made clear that creative teachers did not ignore literacy and numeracy but rather did their best to integrate it into their studies or at least to make it personally relevant to the learners so as to develop a positive attitude for such areas.
Even with inquiry being popular in schools as encouraged by outside experts it seems the emphasis is more on showing the process and not the in-depth understanding of the students of the content chosen. As someone has said , 'it is all recipe and no cake'. In earlier days pioneer creative teacher Elwyn Richardson warned that 'a study with no content is a study at risk.'
Today it is vital that teachers 're frame' their literacy and numeracy programmes so that , as much as is possible, they contribute the skills and knowledge required for students to be able to dig deeply into any content they are studying. It is all matter of emphasis. In depth content will call upon all the isolated skills often being taught out of context (and thus easily forgotten).
Jerome Bruner wrote wisely that teaching was 'the canny art of intellectual temptation' and teachers who appreciate this , and the innate curiosity of students, keep their eyes out for ideas to tempt their students with. They also tap into their students interests and concern and seasonal environmental experiences.
And they know the value of doing fewer things well.
With this in mind the following is a list of possible themes, topics, challenges that might be useful to tempt students with - topics that naturally involve a number of learning areas. Interested teachers can add greater depth to any of them. Many would fit under Learning Area Strands.
1 Animal companions - our relationship with certain animals, their welfare and habits....
2 Barriers -all about edges, frames, borders, boundaries - and things that stop us.....
3 Camouflage - how things merge into their surroundings in nature and man made.....
4 Changes - chemical, changes, life cycles, seasonal, cooking , fashion, art eras.....
5 Colour - colour mixing, meanings in colour, rainbows, how we use colour....
6 Dirt - what is it? .Different kinds of soils and rocks. Dirt and germs....
7 Faces - family resemblances, portraits, face maths, emotions, , face protection, masks..
8 Feet - types of feet, bones, what we put on them, specialised coverings, shoe fashions...
9 Flags and trademarks - countries, companies, logos, designing, history of....
10Food - where it comes from , how sold, preserving, healthy food, when it goes off...
11 Funny things - importance of humour, jokes, why we laugh ...
12 Inside/Outside -bodies, x-rays, openings, windows , doors...
13 Layers and cross sections - x-rays, fruit, cakes, buildings, skeletons, maths...
14 Life and death -life spans, wars, birth, seeds and fruits, extinctions, life after death...
15 Light - light sources, the sun, importance for plant growth, neon, electricity, shadows...
16 Looking - optical illusions, telescopes, perspective, memory and observational art..
17 Me - my appearance, dreams, things I own, habits, family tree, signature, interests...
18 Miniatures - replicas, scale models,working small, modern technology.
19 Money - history of, designs,counterfeiting, alternatives....
20 Pairs - things that come in twos, fingerprints, twins, shoes, binary numbers,symmetry..
21 Noises - sound effects, silence, scary noises, deafness, drawing sounds...
22 Reflections - mirrors,,distorting mirrors, refraction, mirror writing, history of mirrors..
23 Reproductions - of art work, printers, copiers, cloning, animal/plant reproduction...
24 Shadows - making shadows , sun dials, shadow puppets...
25 Surprises - surprise titles, surprise endings, birthdays, puzzles, jigsaws....
26 the Bush - plant life, animals, ecology, planing natives...
27 Time - old things, clock science, time lines, geological, memories, museums...
28 Wear and Decay - preservation of things, food and people, rust.....
29 Wet and Dry - keeping dry, melting ice, puddle evaporation, fountains....
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