New Ideas

I was teaching fifth grade and was disheartened when I realized what little geography my students knew, especially world geography. As part of a social studies unit, I decided that I would create a Pirate unit, built around some of the same tenants as Sid Meir's PIRATES game. (For those that know what I'm talking about, I'm dating myself, especially when I say it was on the Commodore 64).

I digress.

So, I spend a ton of time on this unit, have kids pick their country, their type of ship, their trade and I have a big map on the wall with everyone's starting place. It was a cool, initial set up. Problem was, it sucked. The unit had no real form of assessment and I really never started the project with any "end in mind".

I scrapped it after two weeks of grief. Kids were relieved. I was bummed. Never touched it again.

I remember this story because it was new idea. It was a cool idea but it forced me to learn that without detail, any idea can wither and die, like the PIRATES unit. Take, for example, our brain rules experiment we're doing as a staff. Cool idea. Lots of research to back it up but . . .

Heaven is in the details, right? So what is the end in mind with this project? Ultimately, it's to help us become better at everything we do, from teaching to empathic listening to deeper relationships because we fully understand more than we did before the project started. I'm excited about the knowledge we're going to learn and the process.

Here's to new ideas.