Last week Mike Zamansky (blog at C'est la Z Twitter @Zamansky), who is the head computer science teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, tweeted about asking his alumni to send in SWAG to decorate his classroom He asked for logo goodies from companies the alums work at, started, or have a major stake in. And they delivered. He’s used these goodies to decorate his classroom What a great idea.
I know a lot of schools like to do things like display banners and the like from colleges and universities that their graduates attend. Guidance departments are prime locations for this sort of display. I wonder how many students actually notice such things though. And university is still fairly short term. What I like about this idea is that the display is in a classroom that is directly related to the careers that are highlighted. There is a more closer connection between the students in the room and the alumni who are sending the stuff back for the display.
I think this idea has applicability for a lot of classrooms. Showing students a tangible sign of success in the field they are studying in the classroom can be very inspiring. What do you think? How do you decorate your classroom or lab to inspire students?
2 comments:
We're having fun decorating but the I think the reason it's going over well is that we've already built a community that spans the years where the older Stuy CS graduates (hopefully) still feel a connection to us and the current ones relate to the older ones.
The kids see a Google engineering shirt and they know that the guy who wore it was sitting in their seat just a few years ago.
I agree with the community building. Any program that builds a community that lasts past the high school years is way ahead of the game. It benefits everyone.
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