Paper Clips and Teaching

I had a hard time thinking that paper clips could help get subject matter across for a group of students. But, after watching the documentary Paper Clips, I think that it all depends on the effort put in by the teachers and the students desire to learn.

The teachers throughout the documentary use a constructivist approach to teaching. The constructivist approach to teaching is a more learner-centered approach to knowledge. It emphasizes students actively constructing their knowledge and understanding. In the documentary the teachers kind of step back as the children collect all the paper clips for their project. By letting the students actively work in the processes of counting the paper clips, sending out letters, and making posters the students gain the knowledge the teachers wanted them to know, but also have a hands-on experience and fun! The teacher's attitude towards this Holocaust project also helped the students to gain a sense of worth through their project. The teachers were just excited to learn about this subject matter and had an open mind so the students also had that same sense of learning.

Another reason this project worked really well was because it was very age-related. The students who were Middle School age were actively engaged throughout the whole project. This was a good project for the Middle School, because usually at that point in schooling the whole hands-on approach to learning is thrown out the window and tests & papers take over. I think that is a reason why the students gained so much more from this project and experience. They wanted to learn about it and it was fun for them. Usually at this age there are not as many projects, but with this on the students got to delve right into the work and they led most of the learning. And in the end they are teaching more students about the Holocaust, because they know so much and know now it is an important subject to know about.

Overall, I think the use of paper clips to teach students about the Holocaust was a wonderful way to get students excited to learn about the subject matter. More teachers could improve their lessons by thinking a little outside of the box, and letting their students "get their hands dirty" in the subject matter they are learning!