Invited to the Table: Re-Imagining the High School Classroom
Help me give my students a tabletop space to collaborate with their fellow historians, invent new ideas, interact, and explore historical artifacts! Let's re-imagine what a high school classroom is "supposed" to look like!
I love that my students are often surprised by their enjoyment of learning! Many of my students have made it through years of education and still, think they "hate school". Often I've found they've never really tasted of the delight of learning something new and intriguing.
Teaching history often avails itself to an invitational teaching process.
Unlike some conventional classroom experiences, my students are invited to be active in their learning. They explore, investigate, collaborate, and invent. Honestly, they can be incredibly bashful about this process at first, but slowly and surely I've seen time and again that once a student's interest is sparked they accept the invitation and are surprised about how much they "love" history!
In reality, it's not that my subject area is superior but rather that learning is intoxicating and joyful! To see my students come alive intellectually is one of the greatest joys of my life!
My Project
Would you want to be invited to explore, collaborate, and investigate? Wouldn't you need space to make that happen? So do my high schools students! This is why we need some activity tables for our classroom.
Typically, high school students sit in individual desks situated in rows to learn material that is given to them on an individual basis.
My dream is to have my students configured in a new way, a collaborative way using tables that would invite them to actually interact with each other, manipulate material, and become a part of the lesson. Currently we use what we have to try to create work spaces to accomplish this, but bared stationary desks complicate this! A table and chair option would open up a world of classroom configurations and provide for endless flexible seating options!
I want all of my students to be "invited to the table"! Would you help me make this happen by supporting my project? You can sponsor your own table, go in together with a group of friends, or contribute what you can! These students deserve a place to work, think, and create!
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 Ms. Harris and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
