Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Making airplanes, being successful

One day it was my turn to teach a 4-H group at camp.  There were about 30 children in the class to make airplanes.
To prepare, the night before I went through my house and picked every type of paper I could find to
make airplanes.  There was some paper provided but so often that is the same old thing.  One paper I picked was cupcake papers.  I tried several times to make an airplane from it.  I had no success so this was a good choice to let the brain create. 
I like to teach a class on something I do not do well.  This encourages students, especially children, to try something new.  I told the students, age 9 to about 14 or 15 that I could not get the cupcake paper airplane to work and did not know if it would work. 
Three of the older boys in class assured me it was alright because I was right it just would not work.  Their Dads worked designing airplanes.  The best airplanes were made by a couple of the younger boys using the cupcake papers.
My purpose was not just making airplanes.  I told them to never let someone tell them they could not do something just because the other person could not understand how to do it.

1 comment:

  1. What a brilliant idea - and different perspective, to teach something you do not know!! That way everyone is leaning, not just the students!!! Janie - you are so awesome! Thanks for that idea! That is kind of like our candy making yesterday - I had no idea how to do it...but, Toby had a GREAT desire to learn. In order for him to learn, I HAD to learn!! I think I am gonna try to start teaching more things I do not know much about! Causes me, as teacher, to dig deeper in order for them to better understand!

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