Chapter 2

I can relate to Zeba’s experience of seeing students’ performance diminish even at the elementary level. Often times, students are excited to get outside for recess and spend time with their friends that they do whatever they can to finish their work beforehand so they don’t have to finish it during recess. However, I really don’t think the other problem of crushing creativity is as much of a difficulty at the elementary level, especially at the younger age. I think students at this level are intrinsically motivated enough that they take pride in their work and want to have the best result out of anyone else in the class, especially when it comes to creative projects.

One thing I will have to focus on when I have my own classroom is turning work into play for my students, which is part of the definition of the Sawyer Effect. I feel like it will be my job to find a way to turn the students’ work into “play.” This doesn’t necessarily mean playing games all the time, but just making lessons interesting to students so they want to work. I believe one of my practicum teachers did a great job at this. This teacher had individual and group work during her math lessons, but she always found an activity to tie into the topic. Some of the activities took up more time, such as making a paper chain to measure students’ height, but other activities were simple tasks, such as having students make a maze with dominos and then adding up all the sides that connected. I got to see many different ideas and activities from this teacher that will help me turn work into play for my future students.