Who knew there were that many definable steps to brushing your teeth? I sure didn’t. Or, maybe I had never thought about it before. Brushing my teeth is something that I’ve done without direction for years. It almost comes second nature as was mention in the reading. So many of the day to day things we do on a daily basis we do without thinking about them.
I have often joked that my car could make it work without me. Most people who have worked at the same place for any amount of time. However, giving someone else directions to your job just might come with some difficulty. Because it comes second nature, you don’t think about the slight left you make on to Heckenbleckner St. you just know there’s a patch of flowers there that you enjoy every morning, well the morning when you pay attention.
The same is true of the academic content we attempt to relay to students. Adding two mixed numbers comes without thinking to me. It’s when I have to write down a list of steps for that child that learns best from written order list that I realize “how much” work I’ve actually done in less than a minute. However, to that child that finds math hard and fractions terrifying they see the ENTIRE list, and all the heartache that goes with it.
Now, those 11 ingredients and 11 steps to a martini, that might be well worth the wait and work. :o)
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1 comment:
First of all, the title is very interesting. I agree that if we had to break everything down into steps we would realize how overwhelming instruction could be for certain individuals. We are the subject matter experts or will be eventually. When I perform certain tasks or trouble shoot for my teachers it comes without much thinking. During my staff development sessions I had the bad habit of saying “simply”, which I ultimately dropped from my staff development vocabulary. The steps and instruction is not easy for everyone and everyone learns differently. Individuals learning something new are just like the student you described. The steps have to be written down or broken down into smaller steps in order to understand. I agree that the martini steps are worth the wait, if done properly.
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