This week’s #EdublogsClub prompt is about challenging situations, and at the end of a long weekend where I’ve spent more than fifteen hours putting together an inquiry-based project magazine on Canva, it seems an appropriate conversation to have. It has definitely been a challenging weekend.
I know many of my colleagues who would … well, they would just look at me in that way they have, gently scolding me for spending so much time on work when it is truly gorgeous outside. They’re not wrong …
… but they’re not right either.
Yes, this weekend has been overwhelmingly school-focused. Canva – at least, when you’re attempting to recreate in magazine format the steps for a semester-long cross-curricular inquiry project – has a steep learning curve. Perhaps that wouldn’t be the case for someone who isn’t as visual a person as I am (or who is more so), or for someone who has less of an at-times debilitating tendency towards perfectionism … but for me, it was a long and frustrating journey.
And yet – now that it’s done – I look at what I’ve created and think, “Wow.” I sent it to another teacher involved in the planning process for our unit (my student teacher, in fact – she is teaching the class for the first five weeks of the semester, and then I’ll be taking them back, so we collaborated with my Science/Math colleague on developing the unit), and she called it “visually stunning.” That felt pretty good.
We have a tendency to think of challenging as a bad thing – she’s a challenging student, it’s a challenging situation, where “challenging” is a synonym for “difficult.” Maybe it’s time to reclaim the word, where it symbolises something that is demanding and formidable, certainly; but also “stretching, exciting, stimulating” (Google definition and synonyms).
So yes. I had a challenging weekend … in all the best ways.
February 18, 2017 at 11:26 am
Love your perspective on Challenging and completely agree with you! Challenges help shape us and let us know who we truly are.
February 23, 2017 at 1:15 pm
Thanks Tara! I think sometimes that the best learning we do is the learning we find the most difficult … though inspiring that willingness to face challenges in my students can be difficult sometimes. One of the ways that I try to do so is by taking on things like this project – learning and opportunities that are difficult for me but that can make such a huge impact on who I am as a person and as a teacher. How do (or would) you help your students understand that a challenge isn’t something to be feared but something to be embraced?
February 22, 2017 at 6:01 pm
Thanks for your post. Canva sounds cool – I just signed up for it to check it out. Do you have a public link to your project? I’d love to see it as a model!
February 23, 2017 at 1:17 pm
It’s been an incredible program to use – with a learning curve, definitely, but I focus on how much I think my students will be engaged by this over a stapled package of the handouts. 🙂
I don’t have my project public yet – I’m still working on perfecting it. When I do, though, I’ll share a link here.