Enrichment Ideas

Enrichment just for enjoyment?

Are you enriched enough yet? Have you fulfilled every notion that you are a well-rounded individual having experienced every opportunity available to you? In the continuous assessment of self, we find ourselves pitching back and forth in search of new encounters and ways to make ourselves feel sated.

Of course, as teachers, we are never happy. Not in the sense of emotional wealth but in the sense that we are always looking for a different solution or ways to advance our practice. Some vocations are reliant on seeking new opportunities for one self but teaching is a vocation that insists on the duty of care (both in learning and safeguarding, personal responsibility and dare it to be said, the baggage of the students which we teach, encounter, problem-solve with and look to help improve. Added to this merry band of conundrums, is of course to assist with the satisfaction of our department members, colleague community and family here in Bahrain or further afield. It’s a wonder we have any time to think about how we enrich our lives with the various items which we carry let alone a learning experience for students.

To avoid it becoming another buzzword or worse still; something that can feel like a bolt-on creating additional workload for the purposes of an end product or outcome, we need to consider what Enrichment means.

I’ve worked in schools where “Enrichment time “ was given as a section of the timetable at the end of the week. An extension of the class ‘Golden time”, students were able to go swimming, participate in board games, art/craft, football or even gaming on a Friday afternoon. All sounds great and three-quarters of the student body would strive to be included in this but measuring its effectiveness in reflection would always be the same. Some teachers would lead with gusto whereas similarly to how the students felt, some teachers would see it as an opportunity for the students to be distracted with something and allowed them marking time. Hardly enriching.

Looking at the register lists for these activities though would often be a bigger telltale than observing the class in action. The students would often opt for the same type of activity every half term whereas the teachers would be rotated (ensuring it wasn’t a popularity contest). Using this as an indicator of learning preference, the problem solving, strategy, teamwork and collaboration aspects could be used within a lesson and therefore embed enrichment opportunities.

Enrichment in this sense can determine that instead of the class task being taught linear where a number of students will understand and learn by the predicted outcome, the activities of the task (same outcome) can be differentiated to enable students to take the opportunity of a learning activity which challenges and motivates their interest. For example; learning by doing, a Geography lesson that is data focused can be particularly tricky for someone who is not ‘numbers’ driven’.

However, with the creation of a map and flags displaying the density of population in places and seeing the relief of the map (for those more adventurous- feeling the relief if it is a map created from papier-mache) then not only can a student visually display population but they can also use the map and its aspects to explain why the data may reflect population etc. Creating a papier-mache map for one lesson sounds extreme however when creating resources such as these, it is important to think of how that resource could be used/adapted to fulfil other learning outcomes in the year better still could it be used by your whole school department in some way?

Enrichment goes beyond the classroom as we know, opportunities for it are all around us. Interactive display boards act as billboards for learning and with careful consideration to the traffic which goes past them can offer learning points to all; how many people remember the slogan, “Always Coca-Cola” or even recently “Fiber for 5bd” (STC) just from regularly passing?

Opportunities for Enrichment can be found with a little exploration. In her book “The Hungry Mind” (3.9.2015) Susan Engel states that “We see curiosity as exploration when actually curiosity happens as a result of expectations being violated”. A student expecting to learn in a certain way becomes comfortable and in a sense, they stop being curious whereas a student who finds surprises within their learning or makes discoveries through exploration is much more likely to achieve higher or at their pace because they have invested in the journey for beyond the outcome.

Beyond BSB lectures break the BSB bubble and act as a link to the outside world and where the possibilities of learning can lead you, Extra-Curricular activities , whole school project focuses, celebrations of learning and opportunities to enhance and make day to day learning journeys memorable all lead to Enrichment.

A recent bookshop find for me was Roald Dahl’s “Never Grow up” - there’s a copy in my office for anyone that wants a read. It’s a reminder of all the enrichment opportunities we experience as children and how as adults we can sometimes forget how we created our own happy childhood memories. In a similar fashion to enriching the curriculum, it reminds the reader of the touch, taste, sound, sight and smell experiences we have and for me the sobering thought of the power we have as teachers to give or take this away.

So back to our question. Are we enriched enough yet? Use your passion, weave your interest, discover and explore learning and develop your curiosity into how you enrich your curriculum and you will find that enrichment does not just end with your students but helps achieve it for you too.

Nick Belcher