When teachers arrive at Miquon, they often bring wonderful new ideas that are likely to keep going, at least for a while, after those teachers move on. “Life Skills 101” is a multi-week activity that began in Erica’s 5th/6th grade classroom some years ago. Students are asked to consult with their family and come up with a three-week plan in which they will learn a new skill that is likely to be useful in their later lives when they are living independently. Sometimes they already have the beginnings of that skill but plan to improve it significantly. They keep a weekly journal of their activities and also a chart on which they record the time spent each day. Some students choose a task that they work on several days each week; others may work only on weekends. At the end of the time, we ask them to give us a brief presentation — a talk, a slide show, a demonstration, or whatever seems appropriate and interesting.

This year, as in previous years, students selected many different things as their life skill. Family members were often quite involved in teaching skills and providing supplies and transportation, which we appreciate very much. Five students worked on house-cleaning in some form. Bathroom cleaning was decidedly unpopular but acknowledged as necessary. One chose to clean and de-clutter his room in anticipation of having his house go up for sale, and he also worked on designing the room he hopes to have in his new home. Six students chose cooking. One of those noted that he was specializing in learning the kinds of things he will want to eat when he is away at college “because my father won’t be able to drive there and cook for me every day.” One student painted her young cousin’s bedroom, working with her grandfather as her mentor. Another student decided to learn to travel independently to several useful destinations, taking on the challenges of dealing with buses and trains as well as using an app to track the schedules of both. A couple of students learned to do the laundry. One remarked that he not only learned to fold but also put his own clothing away for the first time. One learned to plan meals,  set a spending limit, make a shopping list, and go to the store for what was needed.

When students made their presentations, we talked about some of their insights and opinions as well as their skills. Ones who had tackled a very messy room observed that it would be much less of a job to keep things neat and clean now that the big cleanup was over. Several spoke of enjoying time spent with family members as they learned from them. Several expressed new-found appreciation for the time and effort that their parents spent when they were tackling these jobs. Many thought they would go on doing these things because they could see how important they were to family life.

The presentations were uneven, but we could see progress in many ways. All of our students talked to their audience instead of reading from the screen or from a detailed page of text that they had prepared. The slide shows that some students chose to create were highly visual and served as a structure for their talk without having many (or, in some cases) any words. Some had organized their talk well, telling us without any prompting what they chose and why, what they did during the three weeks, and what they learned in the way of new skills and perhaps some new insights.

We could also see that there is still some work to do. It was obvious that some students had not reviewed their journals carefully (or at all) to remind them of some of the details of their activities. Some had not practiced their talk aloud and found themselves groping for language and fluency. One had photos of his efforts but didn’t know how to get them into his slide show and didn’t ask for help. Some had forgotten that there was a presentation expected, even though a note about it was written at the bottom of their daily time sheet and should also have been recorded in their student planner when the project began.

We reminded everyone that there was at least one more presentation in our plans before we will have reached the end of the year, which is their personal project. That self-selected learning activity takes place in the month of May and, like Life Skills 101, is shared at the end with their classmates. Students were urged to think about what went well with the presentations we just completed, in their own sharing and/or those of some classmates, and what would need more thought and preparation next time. Our emphasis was on learning from this experience and using that learning to move forward. We expect to see many wonderful presentations when the personal project ends, based on the growth that we were able to observe this time around.