Issue 17
Engaging Lower 6th Students By David Brown Mention Detroit to the elder generation and they might think of Motown. Mention Detroit to the younger generation and you are likely to get a blank face staring back at you. So how do you possibly engage students to learn about a far off city that few have heard of? The key, is Eminem! I find that as a Geography Teacher, the key to engaging students learning about new places is to grasp their imagination in the first 5 minutes of a lesson. This is a crucial time and it is important to try and place yourselves in their shoes and think, “what is it that would make them excited and enthusiastic about learning?” Understanding the causes and consequences of urban dereliction is an important aspect of the OCR course and I believe that the best example in the world of this, is Detroit. Back in 2002, Eminem starred in the film, 8 mile, which was set in Detroit. Virtually all students love to listen to music and more often than not, they ask if they can listen to music when working in my lessons. Over the past few years, I have used music to my advantage to engage pupils and I am always pleased with the benefits. This time around, I set the movie soundtrack of the film, ‘Lose Yourself’, against a series of images and statistics exploring the issues of urban dereliction. The students were instantly interested and the discussion and follow up work was all of a very high standard. There are times when it is not possible and appropriate to use music in lessons, but when you can, the results can be fantastic.
What should we encourage children to do in the classroom?
https://ugc.futurelearn.com/other_assets/learning-guide/the-crowdsourced-guide-tolearning.pdf