Ever had a thought come to you that just makes you say, “Oh man. Duh.” Just had that happen thanks to Denis Sheeran.
He wrote an fantastic blogpost about Fidget Spinners. Basically, he was seeing tweets and comments about how these must be banned. Well….that wasn’t flying for Denis, so he set out to share how they could be utilized by kids and teachers in math. Brilliant!
Here comes my, “Oh man. Duh.” moment.
Is our first response to something that grabs kids’ utter attention to say NO to it?
Anyone who has been around education for any length of time has seen this before. Some weird thing pops up that kids just go nuts about. And lots of schools immediately shut it down, ban it, make it a discipline issue.
Why? It’s easy? The thing is dangerous? The thing will distract from other learning? Maybe.
Might we change our first thought to, “Boy howdy. Kids really are digging this thing. Can we figure out how to capture that level of engagement and tie it to some authentic learning?”
Like Denis did with math and Fidget Spinners. I bet we can. I know we can.
We just need to take a breath, pause, and have a different first thought.
Oh man. Duh.
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Author: Jnelson
Jeff Nelson
Fife School District
Assistant Superintendent:Teaching-Learning-Innovation
39 years as an educator.
16 years teacher
3 years assistant principal
12 years principal
8 years Assistant Superintendent
BA, Washington State University
MAEd, Washington State University
Previous member of AWSP Legislative Committee
Previous member of UW Tacoma PEAB, Administrative Certification
Established and maintained Fife’s first website for 7 years
Present work includes establishing the first Teaching/Learning/Innovation department in the Fife School District. Examples of responsibilities include: teacher/administrator professional development, assessment, TPEP, curriculum/materials review, 24 credit requirement, technology levy leadership, teacher/administrator bargaining.
Initiatives underway in Fife, as a result of new TLI Department: AVID, OER, Curriculum and Materials reviews, Student Perception Pilot with CSTP, Google Expedition
Cofounder of Educational Internet Communications, LLC. Marketed and sold one of the first online grade checking programs in the US. Consulted with Seattle Educational Internet Company for 2 years.
jnelson@fifeschools.com
twitter.com/jeffnelsonTLI
View all posts by Jnelson
The Lighting of a Fire 
I don’t think schools should be so quick to say”No” to things like these fidget spinners just because they might be a distraction. By making it not allowed – they have already made the problem even worse. But by taking control and allowing students to use them while they work, you have limited the temptation.
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I agree. And even more, figure out good educational ways to include the use of them!
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