Lynn's class

What can I say, last semester I spent several evenings a week in her classroom (yes the children are still there late after school) and it really is a community of learners. I want to add to the ‘community of learners’ definition from Larson and Marsh that trust and normalized power is only the beginning. From that trust, and normalized power emerges highly aware learners. I would also dare to call them a community of questioners, participants and students who are quite conscious of not only what they are learning but how they learn. The feedback from my lessons were from the students, not Lynn. I learned that I should always ask students what they thought of a new lesson. What would they change? What worked for them or didn’t? Sometimes teachers, in a well intended effort to establish authority and power, would not dream of sharing how they teach and ask for feed back. But, I have found this is a critical part, the congress and the end, that allows students to establish their own control over what they learn as well as make me a better teacher. Like the museum suggestion, every student has the right to say what he or she thinks about what they are doing in school.