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A Look Back: We Shouldn’t “Empower” Students – Instead We Should Create The Conditions Where They Can Take It OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay
I saw a tweet, that has since been deleted, about “empowerment.” If you look up the definition of “empower” in most dictionaries, it will say something like this: give (someone) the authority or power to do something. I don’t believe you can “give” power to anyone, just as you can’t “give” agency to students or motivate them. However, as I said in the tweet (and which I borrow and modify from Sir Ken Robinson), we can create conditions in which they can grow and flourish. That since deleted tweet prompted me to tweet this:
It received a number of responses, including this question:
I sent out a couple of quick tweets in response:
What are actions you take to create conditions for students to gain and exercise power in your classroom? You might also be interested in: The Best Resources On Student Agency & How To Encourage It The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change Best Posts On “Motivating” Students
ADDENDUM: See Guest Post: Ways To Create A Student-Driven Class
     Armstrong & Aldrin Walked On The Moon In 1969 On This Day – Here Are Teaching Resources WikiImages / Pixabay
From the Associated Press: On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon after reaching its surface in their Apollo 11 lunar module.
You might be interested in The Best Sites To Learn About The Apollo 11 Moon Landing and The Best Resources For Learning About Neil Armstrong.  It Would Be Chaotic, But I Think “Choo Choo Words” Could Be A Fun Learning Game To Play With ELLs
Choo Choo Words challenges the player to create words out of letter “tiles” quickly enough to “lay tracks” for a moving train. Unlike many online word games, I think this one would work for ELLs because you can create simple words. I could see students in groups being given five seconds to create words on mini-whiteboards as they watch the screen. That should give the teacher enough time to submit the “best” word to create the most track. I’m adding this to The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom.  A Look Back: “The Lessons Our ELL Students Taught Their Schoolmates – Downloadable Book Included!”For the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful. This post first appeared in 2019.
 Mojpe / Pixabay
Editor’s Note: Guest Post: What ELLs Taught Our School In A Week-Long Empathy Project is a very popular post by Pam Buric, the writer of today’s post, about an annual project students do at our school – ELLs write about their lives and share them face-to-face with other students. That post includes a detailed explanation of the process, including downloadable student hand-outs and student stories. Pam’s class did it again this year! I’m adding this post to The Best Resources On Helping To Build Empathy In The Classroom – Help Me Find More By Pam Buric Living Books I believe that everyone has a story that is compelling, thought-provoking, relatable, awe-inspiring and empathy-inducing. A couple of years ago, my EL students wrote their stories and shared them with other students and their teachers in our school library. My seniors did the same this year, and were asked by Mai Xi Lee, the SEL coordinator in our district, to share with educators at the 2019 CASEL Cross District Convening. My students were so nervous, afraid that adults wouldn’t listen to them, or worse yet, wouldn’t hear them. We worked on their stories for several months in the midst of applying to college and filling out the FAFSA, both time-consuming and stress-producing necessities. We talked a lot about inducing empathy and compassion in their readers and practiced using specific words to do that. They produced draft after draft as they tweaked their stories, struggling to find the precise words they needed to express themselves. The outcome is amazing. The adults listened and HEARD the students. But the most significant result was in the students themselves. Their joy at the end of the experience has lifelong reverberations. They understand that each one has a voice that deserves to be heard. The found their voices. They continue to be heard. They are published authors! Please, enjoy the stories of these fine, resilient young people. You can download the book, put into book form by Mai Xi, here.  “An American Mosaic” Is An Impressive NY Times Interactive
The NY Times has published an interactive called “An American Mosaic.” With it, you can identify what ancestry people use to identify themselves in any American community. I’m adding it to: The Best Sites For Learning About Immigration In The United States The Best Tools For Analyzing Census Data  More Recent Articles
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