Tweet: Migration: since the dawn of man; part of our past, present, and future; experience it as never before by reimagining its study here: http://tinyurl.com/853q5je
Elevator Pitch http://portal.sliderocket.com/AEUON/Copy-of-Human-Migration-Elevator-Pitch
In the following discussion, I argue that the use of certain tools related to creativity to approach a topic such as human migration can bring substantial benefits to students. Please note that although I am specifically discussing using these tools in teaching about migration, they can just as easily and profitably be used for any subject or topic. Please also note that I am not here advocating changing what we teach, but simply enhancing how we teach.
By using various tools of creativity, specifically (but not limited to) reimaging, patterning, abstracting, analogizing, embodied thinking, modeling, and playing, teachers can help students gain a much richer experience of any and every subject. The use of these tools does not end simply in a deeper understanding, however. We must teach students not only to know, but to be creative, to invent. You can know something without being able to use it or apply it; you can understand something without being able to invent something similar yourself. Increasingly today, it is not enough to know, not even enough to understand. The synthesis that can come about as a result of using these tools to gain a deeper understanding can at the same time lead to new ideas. Also note the importance of using these tools across the curriculum; synthesis occurs not just within a subject but often across subjects. Insight comes in part by thinking of things in different ways and from different perspectives. These tools can and do lead to just such thinking.
Traditionally, when we study about migration, we spend most of our time looking at numbers and places and directions and causes; we consider countries and trends and flows. Statistics are essential to boil down the numbers, which are considerable and might otherwise overwhelm. They allow us to get an overview that is invaluable in grasping the enormity of migration. Note that all of these tools are used by a wide range of professionals in their everyday work, and often yield important results.
As important as numbers are, they only tell part of the story, and they fail to capture a student’s attention. Using the tools mentioned above, however, can deepen and transform a student’s understanding; it can bring about whole new ideas and levels of understanding. Migration is a complex, complicated, varied topic. How do we approach a topic of such great depth and complexity with high school students, where any number of factors limit what we can do? One approach is to look at broader themes and patterns within the area; to, in effect, simplify by generalizing. While this can be dangerous – we can miss important aspects and can end up with an unsophisticated understanding – it can also allow us to tackle and begin to get a grasp on a field that might otherwise require college level work. That is a good place to start. Once we have done that, we can get students still closer to the real issues.
Patterning is the process of recognizing patterns in order to make meaningful connections, and then extending the pattern, applying to other aspects of the subject. Migration has patterns that can be used to help students make important connections. For example, immigrants often settle in the same place: think of the enclaves all over New York: Chinatown (there are Chinatowns all over the world); Williamsburg (Jews); Flushing (Koreans); Jamaica (Africans); Brighton Beach (Russians). Such patterns can be extended to other aspects of migration, helping students to see relationships where they otherwise might not, and thereby better grasp the issue. We can similarly apply patterns that we see in international migration to domestic migration, or patterns that we see in one country’s migration to another. Without looking for and applying these patterns, students will miss important aspects of the topic.
Migration can be also reimaged. Sometimes numbers are the best way to grasp what happened; sometimes maps are a better way. Students encouraged to reimage will almost certainly find more ways to view migration, be it an overview or details, and in the process expand their understanding (and maybe even expand ours). Reimaging lets us view migration from different angles and perspectives.
The Internet is full of sites that have already taken migration statistics and reimaged them, turning them into graphics that wow, but that also reveal a lot of important information and give a different perspective. These are a rich source of information and perspective, and already give us an important leg up on our understanding.
Another approach, known as abstracting, is to try to understand the essence of a topic, to reach in and pull out what truly defines it, or explains it, or describes it, so that the understanding is the opposite of generalized; it is lasered and focused. This is not an easy task, but it is worth the effort if it leads to better understanding. An abstract might be an image, or a poem, or a song. The form of the abstract is not nearly as important as the effort involved in the process, and the students’ resulting understanding, which can then be shared with other students. A class full of students all producing their own abstracts of any subject has the potential to start a serious and fruitful discussion.
Closely related to abstracting is analogizing, the process of making analogies between one thing and another. Migration is like waves; immigration is like a magnet picking up steel shards; emigration is like an explosion. Such analogies can lead students to thinking about migration in a different way, and can lead them to making connections that might not otherwise be obvious. Often, analogizing gives us insights by causing us to look at our topic in the same way that we normally look at the other end of the analogy, in other words in ways that we would not normally view it, and that can lead to sometimes better, but certainly different, understanding.
Can students appreciate what the migrant experience is like? It is not something we traditionally think about when studying migration (As stated above, most teaching focuses on the numbers and flows, etc.). We know from many people in various fields that embodying, the process in effect of putting yourself in someone’s (or something’s) shoes in order to better understand that person or thing, can lead to insights that are otherwise difficult to achieve. Imagine getting students to think and feel what a migrant thinks and feels, to approach that experience. The result will be that, in addition to analyzing the data, students will gain a new appreciation for the actual experience, and so end up seeing migration from both sides, and this can and should lead to a whole different level of understanding.
Fortunately for students of migration, many American families have in fact moved – some from one state to another, others from another country to the US – and so some students can start to feel what it is like. This may be a start for the class, i.e. find a schoolmate who has moved – whether from another state or from another country – and ask them what it feels like; find an adult in the community who has migrated and ask them. At the same time, consider what it would feel like to travel long distances, by train, on foot, with all of your belongings, crowded together. We can even reproduce in a small way that feeling of being in a crowd right in the classroom. Some students will have experienced that when attending a concert, though they almost certainly will not have made the connection (a concert is a normally a fun experience).
Yet another powerful tool is modeling. Modeling is the process of replicating or re-creating the crucial aspects of a thing or idea in order to better understand it through having more control over it, and can help us gain an otherwise unachievable level of mastery. We use models constantly – a mind map, an outline, a family tree are all models – and can use them in the pursuit of deeper understanding of any subject. It may mean using existing models, or it may mean having students create their own.
As part of any discipline, modeling teaches and requires many skills – observation; imaging; abstracting; pattern recognition; knowledge of materials; scaling – and thus demands higher order thinking. Modeling also helps the learner make connections between the parts of the whole or between the subject at hand and the larger world, and that is where it is likely to help students with migration. One possible way to model migration is to look at the individual elements of a person’s migration story, and then follow through and see how that element relates to their story; then see how other similar elements relate to other migrants’ stories.
As serious a subject as human migration is, that does not mean there isn’t time for some play. Indeed, play can be a valuable tool in learning. Play allows us to express ourselves in a safe environment that doesn’t have the rules we normally associate with our more serious activities. This is true in class and out. It is the suspension of these rules that brings about new thinking and new ideas and discoveries that you would not, perhaps could not, find under normal conditions. When you play, you not only suspend the rules, you also remove the goal and the pressure; there is no aim in play, and the absence of a goal frees your mind, and that again can lead to finding what otherwise might remain hidden. There is no ‘right way’ to play – and that is so radically different from every other aspect of our lives – and that fact, too, leads to the discovery of the unlikely. Play also serves as an essential learning tool for children.
It is not difficult to turn an academic subject into play. In a migration game, students would become migrants. Each country might have different features; students would, without complete knowledge of what awaits them, attempt to migrate from one country to another; once there they would find out what awaits them (good and bad) and then decide whether to stay or migrate again. Students would make up additional rules, such as how many times one can migrate, whether they can migrate to the same place as someone else, etc. Half the class would start out as migrants, and the other half as Customs and Immigration officers. They would decide how easy or tough to make it for the others to migrate (hopefully remembering that they would soon be on the other side). Then they would switch. There is no right or wrong in the game, only discovery. Throughout the process, which has no particular goal, student may discover elements of migration they might not otherwise see, and it may give them a sense, despite the game being fun, of what it is like to migrate.
I have discussed some specific tools here – reimaging, patterning, abstracting, analogizing, embodied thinking, modeling, and playing – as a way of deepening student understanding of migration. These tools, and others, can similarly be used in any discipline to help students more fully understand any subject. Indeed there is a strong argument to be made that they should be used in all subjects.
Can human migration be taught without availing ourselves of these tools? Of course; in fact, it normally is. By using these various tools, however, we considerably increase the likelihood that students achieve a deeper level of understanding by being able to approach the topic from different angles and in different ways through the creative process. Children are naturally creative; too often school discourages creativity. If we instead encourage it, and use it to help students approach subjects, we are tapping into a skill set they already have. We open up the possibilities of students discovering aspects of migration, or any subject, on their own and in their own way, and that can be powerful indeed. We, as teachers, just have to use our own imaginations, enhance our teaching, and unleash these tools.
