My first memory of photography in the classroom was in 5th grade, coincidentally it was around that age that I also became interested in photography as a hobby. I remember on the first day of school, my teacher took pictures of each of us sitting at our desks (I think they were polaroids) and wondering why in the world she was taking pictures of us. The next day she came into school with a poster board laid out like our classroom, but instead of desk, there were our photos & names. She was using the photos to learn all of our names....genius!
This wasn't the only time she took photos though, at least once a week in class she had the camera out. During big projects, there camera was there as well, documenting all of our hard work. At the end of the year, those photos got passed on to us. I still have some of those pictures, I'm 30 and I still have pictures from my 5th grade class!
It wasn't the photos themselves that made such a big impact or lasting memory of my 5th grade teacher. It was the fact that she was so hands on, so creative and so into not only teaching us but preserving the lessons for years to come. If you asked me now about projects I did in elementary school, the only ones that I remember are the ones I have photographic evidence of. The rest are lost in my memory somewhere. What I learned from those projects has also stayed with me through the years, even if it's just a fact or two here and there. The blog post below touches on the subject of students making a personal connection with the content of a lesson. For me, the photographs taken in my 5th grade class gave me a lasting connection to those lessons. Through this blog, I am hoping to find more creative ways to use photography in education and create those lasting connections for students.
http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/photography-for-enhancing-social-emotional-learning/
