A constant challenge for any teacher is finding a way to make the curriculum come alive for students. Allowing them to see that school is not just about words on a page is a very important goal. As John Dewey said, "Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."
The affordances of teaching in a rural Southwestern Wisconsin school is that my students are kind, parents teach the value of hard work, and the community supports the school.
Ours is quite literally an "agri"-culture. Many of my students come from farm families. These students are amazing because they often start their day well before I start mine to do their share of the farm chores. These are the same students who spend their summers showing animals with the local 4H. The agriculture tradition at my school is something of which we can be extremely proud.
The limitation of growing up in a small town is that my students have fewer chances to attend other cultural events. Due to time, distance, and budget constraints many families in our community are unable to provide their children with a fine arts experience, such as attending a play in our capital city. I believe that a well-rounded education includes these kinds of experiences.
My Project
If we are able to make this trip a reality, anticipation will begin to build in early December. We will read and study the play version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, written by Israel Horowitz. Many students are familiar with this story because of the many movie adaptations that have been created. There are two enduring understandings I will help my students to achieve as we read the play. First, I want them to understand the time period and context of the setting. Second, we will make sense of how a playwright adapts a novel into a dramatic version. I know my students will be authentically motivated to learn if they know we will soon see a real live performance of the play.
On the day of the trip, we will load the buses to Madison and many students will visit the Overture Center for the Arts for the very first time. The show will begin at 10:00 A.M. I can almost feel the magic that my students will experience firsthand when the lights come up on stage.
Like many schools around Wisconsin, our field trip budget is non-existent.
Any trips must be funded by our students. For this reason, we hesitate to plan field trips because of the strain on families. Many parents, not wanting to deny their children any experience, will pay the sum, even though it may be very difficult to come up with the money. Of course, many families simply cannot afford such trips. All of my students deserve to experience the fine arts without the financial strain.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Hurt and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
