Hacking Our Schools

Photo  by: Thomas Hawk

When watching Logan LaPlante’s TED Talk and reading Bud Hunt’s blog post on hacking schools, there is a lot brought up that most teachers do not think about. Happiness is very important for students. This makes me agree with LaPlante and Hunt. There are ways to help students be happy within our schools. This can be done improving school lunches, offering new classes and technology, and creativity.

 

Having a well balanced diet is able to affect people’s mood. If we put bad food into our bodies then our bodies will feel bad. By eating healthy food our bodies will feel good. By improving the school lunches students will be consuming healthy foods which will have two big results. First will be students consuming the proper nutrients. The second is the good feelings students will have.

 

New classes are able to inspire students to try new things. Coming from a small school there was not much in a variety of classes. Thanks to the Distance Learning system (DL), the school was able to bring in different classes which added in a new variety. New classes bring in opportunity for a chance of new information and creativity. It might also become a students new interest or hobby.  

 

We are a very technologically based society, so why should we not incorporate it into our schools. Technology is able to assist students in finding information, or allowing them to have access to their textbooks online. Technology also allows students to connect with other people, some of them might be five miles away or five hundred. These connections or resources will help students feel more in touch with others.

 

Creativity within the classroom is key to happiness. Creativity is typically not allowed in the typical classroom. Most of the time the liberal arts is taken for granted and not thought of as important. For example, dance could make certain students happy, but do to budget cuts dance was removed as a class. This could hinder the creative happy minds students need to have. By allowing students to utilize their creativity, they will become happier.  
These ideas are going to impact my future teaching. As future teachers we have already be taught that student safety in the classroom is important. So why should we not include happiness in this? I think this could be a very essential change for our school system. Even some minor changes could make a huge impact on the lives of our students.