.png)
By John Brandon Middle School at Parkside 2015
In the last 10 years, the role of a teacher in the classroom has undergone dramatic transformation. The days of the teacher standing at the head of a classroom delivering monotonous instruction has been replaced with the need to interact, guide, and facilitate the acquisition of knowledge for their students. This renewed focus on student-centered teaching has been widely acknowledged and implemented by educational preparatory programs across the nation. Through student-centered lessons, teachers endeavor to bring forth an intrinsic interest in the content being presented. In the education realm, we call this engagement. This engagement drives imagination and in turn induces the creative process necessary to produce higher ordered thinking skills. Research has shown that when the student is engaged, they make a psychological investment into leaning on their own, thus creating the ideal climate to generate life-long learners.
Although the rhetoric of engagement is appealing, its materialization has surfaced as a daunting and laborious task for educators across the world. Teachers are in constant competition with technology, music, and other distractions that easily influence the minds of our youth. Some educators have sought overcome these barriers by infusing music and technology into their daily lesson plans, however many traditional teachers still struggle to bridge this gap.
Poised to contribute an answer to these overwhelming barriers is the S.L.A.M. initiative created by Hakim Crampton. This program delivers the level of rigor mandated by the English Language Arts state standards while training students in the skills of inference, prediction, critique, and analysis. Most importantly, the methodology is cultivated by something every student recognizes: rhythm and diction.
Mr. Crampton has very intelligently discovered a way for students to realize the true power of their words. Through poetry and wordplay, they navigate a landscape shaped by topics that are culturally relevant, which naturally induces engagement and ensures that students receive stimulation for the brain and for the soul. S.L.A.M also embodies the pedagogical approach of constructivism created by educational philosopher Jean Piaget which advocates letting the student generate knowledge from an interaction of their experiences and their ideas. Because of its wide range of tools, there is also the potential for use in different subject matters. Without compromising compulsory material, and introducing research based theories, the S.L.A.M. program engages students in every lesson, bringing meaning back to education that fosters the growth and development of our youth, and activism in our community.
Comments