So a week or two ago there was a knock on our door. It was one of the many "did you vote yet?" campaigners. I informed them that we were in the know, had voted, and maybe it was time for them to come to their "senses". Hm, how many senses was I really talking about? Well, initially I had always referred to the main "5 senses"........................you know the ones we learned way back in elementary school.......and then we had that conversation in Ed Tech class. Sense of class? Common sense? Really, there seemed to be many senses...even some which are still being thought up of. Okay, so more than 5 senses...maybe 9, maybe more? So how to work with these in a classroom? Think about all the senses at work in the process of learning. Movement activities verses seeing vs hearing vs....etc. The list goes on. Students need to receive information using as many senses as they can.....why they even use their sense of time..."Is it lunch yet?" So forward we go...bottom line...we have many more senses than the five we learned about a long time ago. Imagine.....changing the paradigm. Who would have thought?
Hi Mike-
ReplyDeleteIt is an interesting thought- about all of the senses involved in what we do in classrooms. Some students are easily overstimulated with sensory overload while some are easily bored if there is too little action. Both cases make learning more difficult because the students are focused on their own inner senses and miss sensory cues used to perceive what is going on- for instance, a fidgety student has a hard time focusing on listening for long periods of time. We need to take into consideration the inner focus our students have so they can focus on other things.Maybe our students need more exercise and/or down-time to avoid dulling the senses or to relieve sensory overload instead of sitting at desks all day.
Word play. How lovely. Since your senses sense what I'm sensing, I'll leave it at that.
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