On Tuesday we talked about the power of complex, sophisticated and authentic student work and quoted the guru of beautiful work, Ron Berger saying:
Once a student creates work of value for an authentic audience beyond the classroom — work that is sophisticated, accurate, important and beautiful — that student is never the same. When you have done quality work, deeper work, you know you are always capable of doing more.
All this week students kindergarten through 12th grade at my school shared their work publicly. Today I’m sharing photos from those exhibitions as a celebration of what students are capable of. I hope some of these photos make you pause and say in an incredulous tone “7th grader (or 1st graders or 10th graders) did that?” Kids of all ages can do important and meaningful work – check out these images for some inspiration!
2nd graders can write well-crafted stories that include scientific facts and record them to create an audiobook (not to mention to stage readings for a packed audience!).
3rd graders can take professional-quality photos by studying the elements of design and photography and using them to create a museum exhibition about the history of San Diego.
5th graders can design a park that takes into account budget, student preferences, and criteria from a real world client.
6th graders can write 200 page historical fiction novels for publication that are based on an 8 point story arc and creatively incorporate historical facts.
7th graders can laser cut the history of math and science on to a functioning Rube-Goldberg device.
