What’s the best way to get kids excited about education?
It’s a question teachers and parents usually ask themselves.
When you watch kids play, they usually bring a lot of excitement and creative energy to their ideas.
But how do you translate that to a structured education?
Allentown’s Swain School is toying with an innovative idea to do just that.
The school put classes on hold for a week so the kids could do innovative hands-on projects like building a speaker.
The kids learned how to do it and then put their hands to the test. And the speakers really work!
Andrew J. Katz, associate head for academics at Swain School implemented the program for 5th and 6th grade students.
"Kids are learning to work together. They're learning to be creative and they're learning to fail, which is something I don't think we do often enough in school."
Katz feels this type of hands-on learning-- things like discovering the science of ice cream and building a friendly monster-- are things that can have a lifelong impact on middle school kids, especially girls, who sometimes shy away from math and science at this age.
"By shifting the model and providing them with opportunities to get their hands dirty with real science, technology, engineering and math programs, I think we can do a better job at capturing their attention," says Katz.
Leili Thomas is in 5th grade and says she learned a lot by creating something unique. "In science we just learned about sound waves, and I think this helps us get it stuck in our brains even more," she says.
Aedryss Benkrid, in 6th grade, discovered the science behind making ice cream, which was harder than he thought.
"The best part was that you had to read the steps and you had to do it yourself. It's not done for you, so you actually found out how to make it," says Benkrid.
They call it Innovation Week and hope the kids and the teachers walk away energized.
"At Swain, we're doing a lot of this, but I think this really pushes that agenda a little bit and really lets teachers and students feel ownership over their own learning," says Katz.
Administrators at Swain say they are so happy with the program, they hope to expand it next year.
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