Blog Post 3 : Reflection
To start off, I watched Stay Close, a 19-minute documentary about Keeth Smart, an American fencer from Brooklyn. The film follows his journey from struggling as a young fencer to becoming the world-ranked #1 fencer and eventually winning a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The second reading I looked at was Buehl’s Chapters 1 and 2, which focus on how students need to learn how to think and learn within different subjects instead of simply memorizing information. The third reading was Fisher and Frey’s “Rigor Is More Than Hard Work,” which explains that rigor is not simply about giving students harder or more work. Finally, I looked at Wickens, Manderino, Parker, and Jung’s “Habits of Practice,” which focuses on students actually participating in the practices of a specific discipline.
To be completely honest, I think the biggest idea that connects these readings and the film is that learning and success are not simply about getting something right the first time. Stay Close shows Keeth Smart experiencing failure, setbacks, grief, discipline, and other obstacles throughout his journey. He did not start out as the obvious future Olympic athlete. During his senior year of high school, other people from his fencing club made the World Championship team while he did not. Instead of giving up, he decided to become the underdog and continued practicing harder and longer.
I think this is important because success does not always happen immediately. Keeth’s story was not simply practice and then success. There were failures, setbacks, personal tragedy, and more obstacles along the way. Even while becoming more successful, he experienced serious difficulties, including the illness and loss of both of his parents and a serious blood illness. To me, this makes the film more meaningful because it shows that becoming successful does not mean that life suddenly becomes easy.
The film also focuses a lot on mindset. Keeth changed the way he looked at himself after not making the World Championship team. Instead of allowing that experience to define him, he used it as motivation. The film shows how perseverance, discipline, family, and having people believe in you can play an important role in someone's journey.
The readings also made me think about learning in a different way. Buehl explains that students need to learn how to think and learn within different subjects. Reading a history document is different from reading a science experiment, a poem, or a mathematical proof. Each subject has its own language and ways of communicating ideas. This means that simply being able to read does not automatically mean that a student understands everything they encounter in a specific subject.
Fisher and Frey also make an important point about rigor. To be completely honest, I think the title says a lot by itself: “Rigor Is More Than Hard Work.” Rigor does not simply mean giving students more difficult assignments or more work. The reading explains the difference between difficulty and complexity. Difficulty can involve the amount of effort and time something takes, while complexity can involve background knowledge, multiple steps, and deeper thinking. The reading discusses fluency, stamina, strategic thinking, and struggle as different types of tasks.
The part about struggle stood out to me because the authors explain that students can benefit from productive cognitive struggle when they have the appropriate support. This connects back to Stay Close because Keeth also had to work through difficult situations instead of immediately giving up. Both the film and the reading show that difficulty can be part of growth, but that does not mean people should simply be left to struggle without support.
The final reading, “Habits of Practice,” focuses on another important idea. Students should not only learn about a subject; they should actually participate in the practices of that subject. The reading explains that different disciplines have different ways of knowing, doing, communicating, interacting, and participating. For example, mathematicians reason, justify, represent, prove, question, and communicate. This means students should have opportunities to participate in those practices instead of only memorizing information about them.
I think this changes the way we can look at learning. Someone can know facts about a subject without necessarily knowing how to actually participate in that subject. The idea of “habits of practice” focuses more on students doing the work of a discipline and becoming active participants in their learning.
Overall, I think Stay Close and these readings all show that learning is more than simply getting the correct answer or becoming successful immediately. Keeth Smart’s story shows perseverance, discipline, failure, and continuing forward even when there are reasons to quit. Buehl explains that different subjects have their own ways of thinking and learning. Fisher and Frey show that rigor is more than simply making work harder. Wickens and the other authors explain that students should actually participate in the practices of the disciplines they are learning.
If I had to take one main idea from everything I read, it would be that growth takes participation, effort, thinking, and perseverance. Whether someone is learning a new subject or working toward a major goal, simply memorizing information or doing more work does not automatically lead to success. People need opportunities to think, practice, make mistakes, reflect, and continue moving forward.
However, if you have a different way of looking at these readings or the film, I would love to hear it!
Sources
Stay Close. Documentary film about Keeth Smart.
Buehl, Doug. Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, Chapters 1–2.
Fisher, Douglas, and Nancy Frey. “Rigor Is More Than Hard Work.”
Wickens, Corrine, Manderino, Michael, Parker, and Jung. “Habits of Practice.”
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