Sweet Learnings

Small Group Work:

Christensen, L. 2000. "Sweet Learning." P. 23–26 in Reading, Writing, and Rising Up. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Part I:

I have adapted Christensen’s (2000) ‘sweet learning’ activity.

Sweet Learnings

My parents taught us to dream beyond Lambert Street. I learned expressions, like: what the samhill is wrong with you; believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see; don’t pee on my leg and tell me that it’s raining; Rob Peter to pay Paul. My Mother taught me how to enjoy doing homework and to always read beyond the assigned page numbers. She enjoyed my homework more than I did.

We would go on drives to the airport to see planes take off and land; to the countryside outside of the city limits; on surprise rides to amusement parks. Brother-in-law Bill taught my mother & I how to drive a car. My Father taught me how to fish and to make spaghetti & meatballs and how to make Italian sausage by hand. My Father helped me remember how to spell the word, friend ending in end. Street names and how to navigate the city, I learned from my Father. How to negotiate the emotional realm, was my mother's domain.

This story is about what I learned from my mother this one spring day when I was in second grade.                                                                             Feather Story.

We all know what makes a good story naturally. Who are the best storytellers?

·         Dialogue-Character’s voice and language

·         Setting & blocking-place of the story and how movement unfolds

·         Interior Monologue- what character thinks and feels

·         Authentic Experience-smells, tastes, sounds as if the listener were there

·         Character Description

·         Figurative language

·         Flashbacks

INVITATION to YOUR SWEET LEARNINGS

Think about the sweet learnings in your own life where people in your family taught you and contributed to who you have become today. These are the stories you share with your children

 1.

We will take some time for a guided imagery to recall and reflect on these memories as if in a movie.

You are traveling back home (or another comfortable place to you) as if in the speed of light, there you find yourself, surrounded by those familiar sights, smells, and sounds. Your eye catches something familiar and you walk over to it and remember a story about it. Then you hear a familiar voice talking, my you haven’t heard that voice in a long time. How does that voice make you feel? Sit for a while and look over all the things in the room or go walking around. Each item you touch or with each thought brings a deluge of feelings, smells, tastes as if you are reliving it. Settle on something- a thought-an object-a sound and take time to focus on that memory. Let your mind wander to relive that experience. Enjoy! Now it is time to say thank you for the visit and goodbye. Say your parting words of farewell, knowing you can always return whenever you like. Return from your travels just as fast as you arrived; we are back in your space with your friends. Settle on a remembrance of something you learned as a sweet learning and write about your remembrance in your journal. 

2.

Share your stories with a partner. Listener take notes on what sweet learnings took place. (What learning took place, what were the conditions, where did learning take place?)

Share the collective text of our stories-commonalities-themes (Who did you learn from; watching, listening, doing; what could we learn from these experts in your families?)

“Because I live in a society that honors the wealthy and tends to hold in greatest esteem ‘high status’ formal knowledge, I must find ways to honor the intelligence, common sense, and love that beats in the hearts of my students’ families” Christensen, 2000, p. 25).