Innovation is a term that fits in nicely with today’s technological world.  However, it has been around a very long time.  Of course, we called it by another name: invention.  Yes, I learned as a child that “Necessity is the mother of invention!”  

    I’ve been working around the clock for the past three weeks trying to innovate a way to run my first-grade classroom in centers.  I taught this way for eighteen years with great success. Many teachers came and visited my classroom to watch it in action.  Most could not believe a first-grade classroom could run so efficiently and well with such excellent results.  I was even asked to travel to teacher education meetings to teach educators how to do such organizational teaching in their classrooms.

    What is my problem at this time?  Why have I not been able to carry out such a method right now?  As I have been analyzing the situation, I have drawn a few conclusions.  Students today have about a five to ten-minute attention span while those students I had in the past had an average of a twenty-minute attention span.  To carry out center rotations, all students must be occupied for at least twenty minutes or so in order to complete the assigned work.

    When students work in centers, they must keep their attention focused on the tasks to be done in that particular center.  Today, if even one computer is activated, all heads turn in that direction, and students are immediately mesmerized…getting nothing done but staring into the computer’s screen across the room.  Even when each student will get a turn at the computers, no one is willing to delay their desire to be on the computer “NOW!”  I must admit that this particular battle for their minds drives me crazy!

    One other problem that presents itself is the ongoing desire of students to get immediate praise at the precise moment they desire, or to have immediate repetition of the directions which they have forgotten.  Either situation calls for me to stop working with the group of students in teacher time…just to answer their questions or acknowledge their need for immediate gratification.  Maybe this is due to children not getting enough personal time with parents as technology demands the time of family members every moment of the day (phone, email, internet, TV and streaming, etc.).

    Am I trying to do the impossible?  I don’t think so.  I know that I was able to rotate center work with 30 students on five different levels. Now I only have eighteen students and only three levels of instructional abilities among these students.  So, tomorrow I will once again try my new methods from the “First Grade Center Playbook” which actually doesn’t even exist.  However, I’m from Missouri, the Show Me state, so I will not give up, yet!  

    Before I go to sleep tonight, I will prime the pump in my brain by reminding myself that I must have it all together before 8:15 a.m. in the morning.  Hopefully, my brain will connect the right neurons while I sleep and give me the brilliant innovation by 5:00 when my alarm rings.  In this case, “necessity is the mother of innovation!”…I hope.      Kay