“I wanted to see how familiar my students were with the proverbs and whether they had ever heard them from their grandparents or parents,” said former teacher Carol Jones with the St. Rose School in Lima, Ohio.
Mrs. Jones incorporated this lesson to blend not only as a catalyst with reading instruction, but also as a fun activity for her students to integrate writing with artistic expression. Although she learned through this experiment, not many of her students were familiar with the proverbs, “I found it interesting to see what my children came up with to finish the sayings,” she said.
Aside from the writing and art, the lesson was enhanced with humor, and gave the teacher some extra insight on how her students think about life. “I loved how they recreated [these] proverbs from the past,” she said. Throughout history, traditional beliefs and sayings from our forefathers have been a way of keeping the future connected to the past.
When asked of Jones what other could come out of this lesson, she said “Maybe my students will come up with their own profound proverbs to pass down to their offspring and future generations, and they did:
An apple a day . . . keeps you awake; You can lead a horse to water . . . but he won’t go; A friend in need . . . is a friend that is sick; It is better to be safe . . . with your parents than taken by a stranger; Waste not . . . your food but eat all of it; Don’t count your chickens . . . because you’ll be sorry; One picture is worth . . . a football shirt; He who laughs last . . . is sorry; You can’t teach an old dog . . . because he’s lazy; Two is company . . . and better than one; Don’t put all your eggs . . . in the garbage can; When the cat’s away . . . she’s going to school; If at first you don’t succeed . . . go to work; Eat, drink and . . . sleep; and The bigger they are . . . the better they are.
Do as teacher Jones did using the spoken word theme with a writing and art project to improve her students’ Reading skills, which expand vocabulary, spelling, oral communication, and to understand other ways of life as well as people like themselves. All subjects can claim the ‘fame’ for the development of right brain skills of creativity, synthesis, spatial awareness, intuition, imagination, visualization etc. that enables us all to develop our full potential, including taking the stress out of learning.