by Margot Locker
“Why is it important to like what you are learning about?”
This is one of the first questions Amy Maturin, a 1st and 2nd grade teacher at Unity Charter School in New Jersey, asked her students as they started a unit on “Citizenship in our Community.” Incorporating several GoodWork concepts into her instruction, Amy’s first lesson tackled the subject of engagement. She began with reading a story about 6 year-old Kyle who thought he was “horrible at school” before finding a passion and applying it to all of his learning.
Amy Maturin and her mother, Jo Hoffman, are both educators in New Jersey. We first started speaking with them this past summer (Jo contributed a blog – see link below): their enthusiasm for the GoodWork material was evident, and their commitment to work with us to create a version of the Toolkit to be used with younger students was exciting. We all share the belief that the GoodWork concepts can and should be introduced at a young age and yet those of us on the GW team have yet to have the find to devote to this new project. Together, we’re working to make this idea a reality.
Amy created a unit on Citizenship, embedding three, 3-day GoodWork specific lessons (one on each of the 3 E’s-Engagement, Excellence, and Ethics) within the unit plan. She is just finishing out the lessons on engagement-a concept difficult for students of all ages to understand, let alone 6 and 7 year olds. After reading Kyle’s story to her class, Amy led her students through a brainstorm about why it is important to like what you are learning about. Students’ answers ranged from “because it is fun,” to “so you understand better.” The next activity introduced the idea of an “expertise” to students, helping them to understand that often their skills with a particular activity has to do with how much they enjoy it. Each child made a chart (see picture) of his or her expertise, helping students grasp the connection between enjoyment, being good at something and feeling excited to participate. It was here that Amy was really able to focus on the idea of engagement as an important tool both in and outside of the classroom.
Amy will next begin a series of lessons on excellence-including asking students to consider excellence as it relates to engagement and using their expertise charts to think about working hard and the qualities of GoodWork.
We are looking forward to the next lessons in Amy’s classroom, and the next lessons for us in this new venture. If any readers are interested in participating and helping to test out and develop elementary school GoodWork materials-please let us know!