Dr Eastman's Journey

A fitting closure to our unit on personal meaning was to watch the documentary about Dr Cres Eastman. He is our classmate's grandfather who helped us launch our inquiry into beliefs and values. Seeing his journey of helping others because of what he strongly believed in again provided a opportunity for learning. We spoke and asked why it was important to have inquired about beliefs and values.

This I Believe and Value

Based on their reflections about the way they interact with others, BOPDs formulated a statement about their beliefs and values, and created a poster for sharing. Following the example of the series that we listened to called, "This I Believe", students also shared about what is most important to them. Their entries contain honest and actual snippets of their lives at school and the statements that they make are meaningful. We have engaged in thinking back over our learning during this unit of inquiry.

Reflection log and rubric

As a performance task on our current unit, we have been thinking about how our values and beliefs influence our actions. To do this, we have been keeping  a log of our interactions which we then reflect on. Using our traffic light assessment, we created a rubric to set guidelines for the learning experience. It has provided a chance for authentic dialogue and problem solving in our class. It has also given us a chance to share our ideas and to acknowledge that we control our actions. It's been a meaningful experience for us, one which we intend to practice throughout the year.

I Value

After playing Beliefs and Values Theater, we thought about our values - the ones that we hold close. We wrote these on our mailboxes and we expounded on them for our first post on student blogs.

Wonder

Last week we wrote fables that held a value at the end of the story. More than one student illustrated the moral stating, "Don't judge a book by its cover" so Ms Montilla started reading this story to the class. We read and spoke about the first page and what our expectations are from the story. We also shared other values like, "Be happy with what you have" that connects to the story. BOPDs have been enjoying listening to Ms Montilla read the story chapter by chapter. A few students even noted that their siblings also like the story.

Wonder, by R.J. Palacio

Beliefs and values theater game

BOPDs have looked at how values and beliefs drive one's actions. Toady we started by watching a short video about confidence and how what we believe affects our performance. In this game, we watch a scene knowing the setting and the characters. We need to guess what the characters believe or value based on their actions and words. An example of a setting was having dinner for a cousin's birthday and here the belief statements that each character acted out:
1) I believe that I should be thankful for the food I have;
2) I believe I can be honest about the food;
3) I believe in finishing the food that I have on my plate.

Everyone enjoyed the role-play and we were able to make connections from actions to beliefs and values. We later gave examples from our own interactions in school and how actions reflect our beliefs and values.

Who am I?

BOPDs watched a video about Personal Meaning that gave us an idea on what our first post could be for our student blogs. Most of us decided to talk about our values and say something about ourselves. We also spoke about the procedure of blogging, and viewing it from home.

Perspective and empathy

We looked at the photograph of Nelson and activated our knowledge, biases included, about what we think about him. Ms Montilla read his life story to us and then we compared our lives using a Venn Diagram. We shared our diagrams with classmates and created a gallery located inside our classroom. As we created the gallery, we shared what we learned from thinking about Nelson.

The photo  and story of Nelson is found in the book "Where the children are" by Gizela Gonzalez

A story about what's important to me

BOPDs used a story mountain planner to create a fable based on a value that they believe. Using Storybird and their own accounts, they illustrated the value through a short story using animals as main characters. Each student chose a value that was particularly meaningful to them and then utilized their writing skills to weave a fable.

Fables and values

Ms Montilla introduced fables by reading the story of The Turtle and the Hare. Students recognized the elements of a fable and connected the message to the way we reply to questions in our classroom. our guideline is depth not speed. Fables center on a value or a moral that is illustrated through a story.

Paul

We have begun listening to a series of stories about Filipino children. We use a Venn Diagram to show a comparison of our lives with that of the person on the photo. BOPDs are eager to create their own diagrams to have a one-on-one comparison of lives with the next people in the photos. In the end, we looked at the information and asked what learning took place. One student said he learned that we are lucky to have our families and house. A teacher said she learned to be grateful.

What's behind the picture?

How can we ask ourselves questions to help us understand something?

Through the story, "Zoom" BOPDs used their eyes to tell what's happening and yet they realised that sometimes they do not see the whole picture. There's a story lying behind a picture and it may be different from what one sees. Students worked in pairs to write their thoughts about a picture. They wrote what they thought, what they believed, what they wonder about. We came together as a class and focused on one poster and in the end, Ms Montilla read the story about the boy on the photo. His name is Paul and he is one of the many children from the book, "Where the children are".

Sharing beliefs

BOPDs synthesized their ideas about belief through a routine called "1-2-4". We started out writing our reply to the question, "What is a belief" and then paired up with a friend and shared our definitions. In collaboration with that friend, we looked for a way to put our definitions together to come up with one. In the end, a pair shared with another pair. Through this routine we noticed that some found it easy to combine their definitions because their ideas were similar, while others had to dig deep and explain their definition to come up with one.

I Believe

The story of Molly Lou Mellon opened our discussion about beliefs. After talking about the story in detail and sharing evidence from text, we wrote down our own beliefs and tried to make sense of it. We sorted them into groups and we continually add on from what have started.

Mapping our thoughts

Students reflected about the story they heard earlier in the week entitled, "Molly Lou Mellon" by mapping her beliefs and actions. The central thought was her belief and students wrote down in cards what actions she took because of her belief.

Beliefs and Values, Hearing the story of Dr Eastman

We had the extreme pleasure of meeting Dr. Cres Eastman, a renowned endocrinologist who has traveled all over the world taking action for his beliefs. He believes that every child has the right to normal brain development so he discovered a growing problem of cretinism in Tibet, he decided to do something about it. He also happens to be the grandfather of one of our classmates so it was such a wonderful opportunity for us to hear his story. His talk provided a chance for students to make connections about beliefs and values. He generously shared his time, ideas and advocacy and encouraged third graders to join him in taking action in preventing brain disease by simply checking their salt at home.  We could not have asked for a better real world connection.

Stand tall for your belief

We tuned into beliefs when we listened to Mrs Phillips' read a story about a girl who stood tall for her beliefs.  We broke into two groups and searched for the meaning of the word 'believe'. Some used Google, another couple looked up the word in a dictionary, and yet another wrote a definition based on her own experiences. We focused on different parts of the story and cited the pages and pictures to prove our ideas.