Yesterday when my class got into a chant (call and response) they remembered entire lines from a Matava story we did in the fall. I couldn’t believe it.
The community we have built in that one class of sixth graders is deep. It is real community based on real shared fun based primarily on Matava stories and the Invisibles (my two big guns in this work) over the course of the year.
Unlike in so many years past, now I don’t want to leave my kids in two weeks. Every one of them has become special to me and they to each other. It is because the pedagogy I have been using of stories and the Invisibles has brought me into genuine relationship with them and we have formed a true community – because of the way I taught them.
There would be no such community had I taught them using the outmoded grammar methods of the past. The students feel strong and capable as a result of the way they have been taught. Now we don’t even want it to break up as we go back to our different countries, some for the summer and some forever.