Interdisciplinary Learning

                Why is there not more interdisciplinary learning and lessons in schools? Why if as educators we worry that one subject will be taught more than the other or not taught at all, but we do not try to teach two subjects or multiply subjects together? Maybe because as teachers we tend to isolate ourselves and then when we ourselves do not have the knowledge we are afraid to ask for help from a fellow teacher that does. Or is it that we lack the skills or support to even structure our classroom and learning in this way due to standardize testing requirements and measures? From my readings and thinking, interdisciplinary teaching and learning helps not only students become more engaged in the classroom to real life scenarios but teachers as well as students are more creative in their thinking while learning about their own strengths and weaknesses.

               

                I am taking a class called Middle Level Learners, in which my group and I just finished a lesson plan to present to the class next week involving art and writing. Many of us had to go out of our comfort zones to complete this project and depend on each other. The learning that I experienced from a teaching perspective was great. My group was comprised of two experienced teachers and two less experienced teachers. Because of this mixture the experience teachers brought a lot of knowledge and structure to the lesson while the less experienced teachers brought new ideas and perhaps a more creative way of thinking. In doing this lesson together the students are not the only ones to benefit but the teachers as well. We were able to be critical of each other but in a helpful non-intrusive way to improve our teaching skills as a whole.

               

                As a teacher I want my students to be able to think creatively and solve problems as most of the time in life problem solving is not black and white with one straight answer but sticky, and foggy with lots of gray areas.  As a teacher one of my goals is to help prepare students for decision making in their future through critical thinking. If I as a teacher do not provide them with opportunities that involve questions with more than one plausible answer how well am I really preparing them for the future; not very well.

               

                Greene says in her article Imagination, Community, and the School, “As teachers, we cannot predict the common world that may be in the making; nor can we finally justify one kind of community more than another. We can bring warmth into places where young person come together, however; we can bring in dialogues and laughter that threaten monologues and rigidity.”  For me Greene is telling me that as a teacher I need to help students think creatively and in doing so it will create a sense of community more so than with structure and rigidness.  I see from her article that in education as a society we drill students about facts and answers to questions without possibly preparing them for the times when the answers are not factual or when there isn’t even a right or wrong answer to a problem.

               

                Can I create this kind of a community in my classroom while still keeping on track with standardize testing measures? I feel that I would be waging a war for my students day after day. The saying, “all’s fair in love and war” comes immediately to mind. Is this what teaching will be like; having to balance what I want to teach and what the students are interested in to be engaged, with what is expected I teach and they learn? An article titled Integrating Technology, Art, and Writing: Creating Comic Books as an Interdisciplinary learning Experience written from a study on a student summer program, by Edwin S. Vega and Heidi L. Schnackenberg from Plattsburgh State University, makes some important points about engaging students in their learning. First they notice from a survey on how students felt about the summer program that when students design or create things that are meaningful to them some of the “most powerful learning” occurs and say later on that the students were having so much fun that they do not notice all these new skills they are learning to complete their projects. Also from the students survey, when asked if “the course information will help me in the coming year”, the students who were older and closer to applying or going to college gave a lower rating. The authors thought this interesting in perhaps that the students see college as an institution in which creative and unique interests cannot be explored. Where in education did we imply this to those students that later on in life creativity and unique interests are unimportant? In the conclusion of this article/study the authors say that perhaps it is from the growing initiatives such as No Child Let Behind, which impacts a more strict curricula which then indirectly or directly has teachers impressing upon students to “stick to the program” to be successful in school. This idea then may carry on into college as well.

               

                This to me is very depressing; that a student’s perspective, from how we as teachers are teaching and the standards and expectations we set, is that creativity and the unique interests they have are unimportant. As educators this subject just exemplifies why it is important to let the public know what we as educators and students are doing in the classroom; to let the community see that by doing these interdisciplinary lessons and projects with students they are growing more and expanding their critical thinking and problem solving skills more then by worksheets, quizzes, and exams as a way of assessment.