Katz – selecting a project topic

I have written about how to select a topic, and which topics work, and the topics may a big difference to the quality of the work and to the children’s motivation.  And I have made a list of criteria, it should be something children can interact with directly, observe directly, that’s one, it should be something worth knowing more about, and I feel strongly that we should encourage the children to ask questions about things around them, where do they come from, who does what?  How do they do it, what do they use, and so on and so forth.   

And if, one of them, that one of my local teachers did, across the street from her school were these grain elevators, the children had never looked at them, they passed them every day, nor had the parents, by the way, nor had the teachers.  But she had to do a project, she was in my class, what they learned about grain elevators, how you fill them, how important it is to do it right otherwise the corn inside will explode, and their drawings are absolutely wonderful, and the other thing, again this is a Reggio learning, they drew them the first time they went to see the, went outside the school to look at the grain elevators, then three weeks later, draw the same things.  And the drawing differences are enormous.  And then, they sit down and look at their own drawings.  This is a time one drawing, this is my time two drawing, I left that out the first time, but I got it in there now.  I didn’t know there was that until the second time I went there, and so on.  That’s developing the intellect, to look closely and ask, “What is it for, and what is it,” in their own environment.   

So, the quality, the topic is an important element, by the way, sometimes a topic works well with this class, but next year that class isn’t interested. That happens too, that happens in Reggio too.  The other thing, to think about, is sometimes a child will say, “Well okay, they’re studying cars,” or something, which is a good topic, but I’m not interested in that,  and the teacher has to learn how to say, “Well I’m sorry you’re not interested in that, and I hope the next project we do will be something you’re interested in, but in the meantime, go over there and help Annie and Jim with what they’re doing,” you won’t hurt children that way.  They will learn that everybody’s interests, even though they’re not always shared, are treated with respect, and that’s something to learn.