"Both Vygotsky and Feire saw learning as a social act in which teachers and students dialogue and create knowledge together, rather than teachers filling the students with content and information as if they were empty vessels."
Bored or frustrated students always cause problem, all of us know that. Coming up with interesting topics everyday is demanding and sometimes impossible if there is a strictly prescribed curriculum by the government as in my case. However, even in this bad scenario there is a way out. I found it easier to cope with the unmotivated students by giving them choices in their assignments and tasks in class. I also included them in decision making about what and how they are going to learn in a specific unit. We started constructing a collective knowledge. All the students were engaged and willing to take part in some of the guided learning process. Of course, I was not aware of the fact that I could do it despite all the challenges and meanwhile I was desperately struggling to get the attention of some students in collaborative tasks. I watched an interesting TEDTalk where a teacher was giving away some hints of "how tos" for my class. I was inspired and I got down to work. I designed inquiry stations for different learning styles and assigned students to each station in rotations. The last station was "What I want to learn more about is....". Honestly, I wasn't expecting that many questions, but it happened. Even the most reckless students were trying to be part of the projects that they wanted to start. I keep on trying new strategies and I feel more confident in co-constructing their learning now.