I was inspired to take up the #blimage challenge today by Rachel Challen (@RKChallen) and a post she made here. I’ve been trying to write more frequently and I think #blimage serves as an excellent prompt.
But what the heck is #blimage?
To recap, #blimage started as a challenge from Amy Burvall (@amyburvall) and Simon Ensor (@sensor63) to the always entertaining Steven Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) on Twitter. The idea was to take an image and craft a blog post around it. (at least I think that’s right)
So here I am…
Everything is awesome
Everything is cool when you’re part of a team
Everything is awesome
When we’re living our dream
– Tegan and Sara, Everything is Awesome
I have a 5-year-old and I can say, with reasonable certainty, that I watched the LEGO movie more times than any other film in 2014. However, it wasn’t until this #blimage challenge came up and I saw the picture of the assembly line of LEGO mini-figure heads that I thought much about how this could relate to learning.
If you follow the song lyrics above, two things stick out to me (aside from it being awesome).
- Teamwork is emphasized as the primary construct that makes everything “cool”
- Self-efficacy is highlighted as a means of realizing the dream of “awesomeness”
I love that the song almost explicitly endorses team-based, collaborative learning, but moreover, I really like that the song, and movie as a whole, embraces the idea of the #growthmindset and continuous improvement. After all, that’s one of the main points of LEGOs, to build, destroy, improve, repeat.
Why don’t more of us approach our classrooms like this? Why is it so difficult at times to adopt team- or project-based learning? Aren’t classroom experiences more rewarding when they are inclusive of all students? Shouldn’t we be doing more of this to prepare students for the real world?
Which gets me back to the last line of that lyric, “When we’re living our dream.” (my emphasis)
The LEGO mini-figures pursue their own version of harmonious coexistence as a result of achieving their own dream. Each finds pleasure, and thus awesomeness, in their own pursuit. This is highlighted from the beginning of the film when Emmett, unsure about how to live awesome-ly, attempts to follow the instructions to “always be happy”.
That makes me think about the student experience. Each student is unique, yet we often teach in a way that pretends each student can and will learn the same, or are even motivated to learn what we’re trying to teach.
If we’re just doing it the same way as before, in a one-size-fits-all way, there’s no chance for us to build an awesome experience for our students because each has THEIR OWN dream. Each individual has his or her own ideas about what would make the learning experience better, what would fit his/her needs, how things can truly be made awesome.
But that takes time. And energy. And someone to care. We need more teachers who accept the differences of learners, who recognize the need for team-based work, who care about instilling a sense of self-efficacy in students.
And we really need more teachers who truly believe that,
Everything [students] see or think or say is awesome!
To keep the challenge going, I’ll offer this image in honor of Mick Fanning surviving a recent shark attack. Anyone dare to take up the challenge?
Image by Andrea Esuli
