Imagine this. You are a fourth grade student. You are participating in a lesson on leadership. Your teacher asks you to close your eyes. She asks you, "if you could chose a color to represent 'leadership,' what would you chose?" Now open your eyes. What color came to mind? What makes you say that?
Since we have embarked on a building a culture of thinking at our school, students are routinely asked to think metaphorically and to justify their thinking. Students are asked to represent big ideas and important themes in something they read, saw, or heard by choosing a color, symbol, and image that represents the essence of the idea. In Making Thinking Visible, Ron RItchhart says "metaphors are a major vehicle for developing our understanding of ideas as we connect something new to something we already know by identifying similarities and making comparison." This thinking routine is called a Color-Symbol-Image (C-S-I) and is great for helping students build comprehension and begin to develop the skill of thinking metaphorically.
When facilitating thinking routines like a C-S-I, I am always amazed at the depth of some students' thinking. Today I was amazed at one of of my student's response:
When I think of leadership, I think of the color green. I think of the color green because green is a color that is a mix of two colors: blue and yellow. I think of a leader as being yellow, always bright and sunny and positive. This leader comes across someone that is sad or "blue" and he or she helps them feel better. The resulting color of the "mix" is green.
Leadership isn't a solo endeavor. It really is about taking care of others, as well as, taking care of ourselves! Wow.
When facilitating thinking routines like a C-S-I, I am always amazed at the depth of some students' thinking. Today I was amazed at one of of my student's response:
When I think of leadership, I think of the color green. I think of the color green because green is a color that is a mix of two colors: blue and yellow. I think of a leader as being yellow, always bright and sunny and positive. This leader comes across someone that is sad or "blue" and he or she helps them feel better. The resulting color of the "mix" is green.
Leadership isn't a solo endeavor. It really is about taking care of others, as well as, taking care of ourselves! Wow.