A few years ago when I was teaching in a middle school resource room, I noticed how many lacrosse sticks were leaning in the corner (I was a sucker for letting students store stuff that didn’t fit in their lockers in my room). Why were so many LD/ADHD boys (the majority of my students) playing lacrosse?
At first, I thought it was the coach; he was a true charismatic. However, the draw of lacrosse remained even when the coaching staff changed. Why? I kept attending practices and games to see if I could figure out the appeal. What was it about lacrosse that attracted these boys?
After more primary research (interviews with my students) I came to a conclusion. There wasn’t anything special about lacrosse. Instead, it was the timing. See, most of the middle school kids were soccer players. Many of them were obsessed with soccer, playing on two or three teams at a time. Soccer culture starts early here in NC, with some kids joining Soccer Tots at 18months old! By the time they are six or seven years old, these kids have developed some serious skills. At this age, the developmentally delayed child may still be learning to run without falling along with mastering left and right. The soccer teams quickly leave such kids behind.
Lacrosse, on the other hand, isn’t available around here until children are eleven or twelve years old. By that time, the kids with developmental delays have mastered the skills they were still struggling with at age five (that’s why we call them delays, btw). Lacrosse puts everyone on an even playing field.
The challenge is, how do we continue to provide opportunities to level the field at multiple places in school? Can curricular innovation help us provide more entry points? There are so many times that we need to provide a new entry point for students. Development is one reason; increased maturity and changes in affinities are others. I believe that a strictly leveled curriculum discourages students from re-entering any field in which they’ve previously struggled. And yet, the basics of lacrosse hardly differ from soccer. Move the ball down the field and get it in the goal.
I am starting to believe that a project based program of study can do this better than any other model of curriculum. Every time you solve a problem, you move on to tackle something new. New entry points and re-leveled playing fields abound!
Sarah,
Brilliant post. Some really good ideas. Looking forward to reading more as your ideas develop.
Fred
I got the below as an email response, but I think these are points worth pondering so I’m stripping out the senders personal info and am posting it here:
Reads well, but you lost me at the end of the penultimate paragraph:
The challenge is, how do we continue to provide opportunities to level the field at multiple places in school? Can curricular innovation help us provide more entry points? There are so many times that we need to provide a new entry point for students. Development is one reason; increased maturity and changes in affinities are others. I believe that a strictly leveled ?? curriculum discourages students from re-entering any field in which they’ve previously struggled. And yet, the basics of lacrosse hardly differ from soccer. Move the ball down the field and get it in the goal.
One thing I’ve been pondering about PBL is how to identify the prerequisite skills and knowledge base that a given problem assumes/requires.
PS–I got permission to post the above before I put it on.