Photo by Felipe Giacometti on Unsplash
Have you been watching the Winter Olympics? Have you seen moments which would serve as great life lessons?
I watched the Summer Olympics with excitement. The event seemed to be so inspirational after a year with covid-19. As I watched, I noticed many moments of humanity, teamwork, and resilience that would play out very well in the classroom. So I put the idea in the back of my mind.
With the start of the Winter Olympics, my colleague and I decided to create a unit around the Olympic experience. We are teaching the history of the Olympics as well as geography and culture of the host country, China. To incorporate more disciplines, we invited the math teachers to instruct on medal counts, and the science teachers to share the physics of some of the sports. We also invited the physical education teachers to get involved.
Yet as I watched clips of the Olympians, I saw lessons that reached far beyond our content. I decided to take time during each class to show small clips of amazing feats and discuss them with the kids.
We have been struggling with our students’ grit this year. For some reason, we cannot get our students to understand school requires work. Students are not completing homework, not bringing supplies to class, and not putting any detail into their assignments. Many days, I feel like the students think school is a place just to be silly. We are halfway through the fifth grade transition to middle school, and our students are still acting like third graders in many senses. They are not willing to put effort into their learning, nor do they see a need to do so..
When I saw Shaun White’s third snowboard half pipe run clip on Twitter this week, I knew I had the perfect piece to address the students’ lack of effort. I showed the clip, and of course, the students marveled at his 1620 rotations 13 feet above the pipe. They “oooed and aahhed” his performance and loved his exhilaration at the end of the run. I had them in the palm of my hand.
I asked students to write their thoughts to the following questions, “Aside from snowboarding skills, what skills or traits did Shaun White need to complete that run? What skills did he develop?” Students dove into writing. I allowed them to brainstorm silently for a few minutes before I held a larger class discussion.
During the discussion, they were so engaged. Their responses came flying at me. Trust in himself. Courage. Bravery. Commitment. Grit. Dedication. Perseverance. Patience. No joke, all of these words came out of their mouths. This was great! They played right into my trap. I had them in the palm of my hand!
I paused and allowed them to take in all of their responses in silence. Then I said, “Do you think any of those skills apply in here? Do you think you need any of those skills in the classroom?”
I saw the wheels turning. Their heads nodded slowly. Hands started to raise. We may make mistakes, but we have to try again. We have to do our homework. We have to study for tests. We have to write our homework down. We have to work with our partners on projects even if we would rather do something else. We have to take risks, like when we raise our hand. We have to… Brilliant. It was brilliant. This conversation was panning out far better than I ever imagined.
I said, “Do you think Shaun White just woke up one morning and said-Oh I’m going to go do some 1080s on the half pipe today? And then just did it?”
They all laughed and shook their heads. They shouted out, No he had to practice! No, he had to try and try and try again! No, he had to learn how to do it first!
“How many times do you think he fell down before he was able to accomplish that feat? How many times do you think he needed to practice those stunts?” I wondered out loud.
Oh, he had to practice that over and over again! Ms. Smith, those snowboarding stunts are hard–you really have to work at them. Yes, he works hard every day.
I smiled. “How can you be like Shaun White here at school? What can you do?”
Hands raised immediately. I succeeded!
Now, I hope they will apply the knowledge.