Fifth grade teachers, under the leadership of a skilled colleague, are guiding students to completion with their Global Changemakers Projects--projects that include reading, research, writing a fictional interview, creating a digital poster, illustrating a portrait, dressing in character, and performing as part of a human timeline of global changemakers from the past to the present.
This project continues to grow over the years, and every year it's amazing to witness the affect that these global changemakers past and present have on the young lives of fifth graders. As I read several interviews this morning, I was struck by the powerful interpretations children were making as they pretended to be both the interviewer and interviewee in the reports. Children's invitation to take an up close and personal view of these extraordinary people and the amazing lives they have lived, struggles they have encountered, and perseverance they have experienced is truly transformative. I read children's words carefully, words they wrote about Edison, Malala, Elizabeth Blackwell, Madeleine Albright and so many more.
This is education at its finest--learning that integrates the arts, technology, reading, writing, conversation, and performance, education that plants critical seeds in these children's lives, seeds that will help to develop greater intellect, perspective, questioning, decision making, and positive living. Onward.
