Minds are Working!

Students amaze me at this time of year!  The beginning portion of the year they are all about putting the "right" answer down and filling in what I tell them to put where ~ it drives me crazy!  I work on them for months to just try their own answers and thoughts so we can see where they are and where we need to take them from there.  This is the time of year they begin doing that more and more and they take chances without fear of being "wrong!"

As the students are working on reading response journals right now, Brooklyn wants to know if she can still respond on a book even though she hasn't finished reading it.  Of course she can!  As I begin to explain to her why, she cuts me off and says, "Because I can respond on just a chapter right?"  SHE'S GOT IT!  Of course she can respond on just a chapter of a book, or even just a paragraph.  There are many ways to respond and you don't have to be finished with a book to have some sort of response to it.  I love that she could reason her own question out.

And then there's Joey questioning the reading response poster wondering why a section is listed the way it is.  Truth be told, I don't know and he's right, it doesn't make sense!  The fact that he analyzed the chart and realized it was a little wonky is great critical thinking on his part!

I love seeing this in students and it reminds me of something I heard yesterday while listening to the tv. Kids today need to learn to "fail" because we learn from our failures.  When our kids don't know how to handle "failure" then they don't learn from it.  Too often we want our kids think they can do anything the first time around, which makes them more worried about trying new things.  I love getting the chance to make these kids get out of their comfort zones and try new things ~ I love it more when they aren't "successful" the first time because I get to show them that it's okay and let's think on what we can do differently on our next attempt.  It teaches them you won't be perfect at everything; but as long as you try, it's not a failure.  The only failures in life are the things we passed on trying because we were too scared.