Skip to content

What’s in #YourJar ?

It’s a blog game

called #YourJar

 

This is a blog challenge for everyone to join in with- whether you are a learner or teacher (and that covers pretty much everyone!) this one is for you. Chrissi Nerantzi proposed the idea as an in-person activity for the 2016 UK National Teaching Fellow’s Symposium. It worked well in person, and it will work well online too. Here’s the challenge:

Everyone gathers three things to put in a real or figurative jam jar. This is #YourJar and the things in it represent some aspect of your learning or teaching. (If you were in a conference setting, everyone would put their jars on a table, labelled with names on the bottom, and people would select a jar that looked interesting and then seek out the person to find out the story behind the objects.) For this blog topic game everyone can post a photo of the jar, or of three things in a glass if you have no jar – and then you describe them. Explain and say why you have chosen those things? You can be as intuitive or erudite as you like.

Here’s my jar: 
IMG_5953
And what’s in it?
IMG_5955

A flint axe head that my husband found in the field next to his parents house before we were married – because learning is hard work, and it has been around for a very long time – longer than I have for sure! It’s sharp, useful, and has been held by many, passed around, and many have benefitted from it- but it’s not perfect and it is almost no good by itself. It needs to be used and used skillfuly.

IMG_5954

Next, the bouncy ball – It’s not the smallest size – it’s a medium one (and it was mine from when I was 8 or 9) and it’s an interesting one. Fun, but cared for – not used recklessly, and when you examine it, you can see really interesting patterns inside. It is transparent on the outside – nothing is hidden, but you can’t quite see all of it at once. To see more you have to study it, look closely, hold it up to the light and take time to follow the twists and turns of the paths taken. You can see the history in it.

IMG_5956

Lastly, the hard candy – it’s a ‘Jolly Rancher’ (mmm!) which is a silly name, but that’s part of it too. The flavour is grape – and that is one that we don’t really find in the UK. It’s a bit different, but you know, grape sugar goes into your blood fastest – straight to the point, and the way to understand it is to actually eat it, and then it’s gone. It isn’t the sort of thing you can hold onto- but you can savour it, it is intense, and it makes a lasting impression (it will turn your tongue purple).

So there’s my jam jar!

I look forward to reading about #YourJar I will update this post with a list of people who take part and links to your blog posts and tweets…

Maha Bali’s playful teaching jar

@Ronald_2008 Jar tweet, and his blog post HERE

Kevin Hodgson (@Dogtrax) Jar

 

2 thoughts on “What’s in #YourJar ?”

  1. I loved reading your explanation and stories around your jam jar – just what I would expect from you in the best possible sense – imaginative, creative and energetic. Here goes for the jam jar (in Costa now so cannot send you a picture).

    My first object is one penny – these are so unimportant and insignificant that people leave them at the self-service machines at supermarkets. There is an old adage – “look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves”. There is an obscure Old Testament text in the minor prophets that says, “Who has despised the day of small things?” (Zephaniah, I think). The penny is small and mundane but if you are ever short of one pence and cannot make a purchase because of this you will feel the real power of the penny. So I have adopted the penny as an important symbol linked to “The tipping point”. Sometimes just one more word, one more effort, one more push can make all the difference. And often it is something very simple that you do or say that can transform someone else’s experience (or vice-versa).

    My second object is keys, and I link this to personality – of the factors in the Five Factor Model of personality is Openness to Experience. This is operationally defined in terms such as curiosity, exploration, investigation, imagination etc. I link this to a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling and his six, honest, serving men: “I keep six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew; there names are What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who”. Keys are questions that unlock the doors of knowledge and understanding. Of course there is Einstein’s famous postulate that he never taught his students – he only created the conditions in which they could learn. I do not pretend to be that good but if I can arouse interest in the subject in a manner that triggers at least some supported independence, then something worthwhile has been accomplished.

    The final object is a box of matches (was easier than a box of candles). The idea is that it is “better to light one candle as curse the darkness”. A full box of matches suggests that lighting a candle is something that we must keep on doing all the time. “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might gain” – this is from the bard himself, although I heard recently that “man shall not live by bard alone”! A candle can be a smile, a joke, an encouraging word, an acknowledgement, something that inspires confidence in another (formative feedback) etc.

  2. Pingback: What’s in your jar? « Ron Leunissen

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.