It’s the start of a new academic year and my second year in teaching. Over the past year my classes had been learning, but occasionally they’d also been doodling.
These were collected after having been left behind. They’re charming to look at but they’ve also taught me a few things, lets consider their doodles first.
The Doodles
What do they teach us?
Doodles are very interesting, take for example these 17th & 18th century doodles. Whilst being artifacts they’re also an insight to the thoughts of the people of that time.
My students doodles aren’t as old but similarly they provide an insight into what students think about and for anyone involved in education what they think about are things we should take into account.
Whats popular
Taking the drawings directly what does the fox say, scooters, YouTube, fashion, animals, music, video games and the list goes on.
The overriding theme that always remains popular is themselves. These doodles show and represent something about themselves.
So if we can link our teaching and learning to their lives, in one way or another it could become much more meaningful.
Kids are kids. Sometimes they’re funny sometimes they’re mean
These are only a selection. Some were hilarious and others not so nice. What it goes to show is that whilst also learning subjects students are also learning to interact with others.
In some instances they get it wrong, which is fine they’re learning. Their pride and emotions certainly come into play everyday.
So if we can demonstrate appropriate ways of interacting the students have at the very least a model to reflect on.
Students change and grow
An observation that all the doodles came from my students in lower years. This could mean that my older students lose their creativity however that seems unlikely given the tremendous amount of things they create.
The students who created those doodles above last year aren’t exactly the same coming back into my classes this year. As the years go they will change and grow.
So we need to be ready to adapt to them. We can’t approach each year identically neither for each class or each person.
What this means
Of course these are just doodles but the students who drew them are young people. Their doodles show that I’m working with an incredibly diverse and interesting set of young people.
The challenge remains to link what we teach to them, demonstrate appropriate ways of interacting and be ready to adapt to them.
