A dozen kindergarteners sit cross-legged in their classroom floor wearing Statue of Liberty crowns and hanging on every word of their teacher, Ms. Elaine Nevers-Williams.
They just watched the first episode of Hands on Liberty, and can’t resist mimicking the show’s clever, cowboy-ish host, Mr. Palmer.
And though students making “talking hands” might seem like a silly side affect of an educational episode about elections, it’s the kind of energetic interaction the shows producers intended.
“We use witty dialogue, art, poetry, songs, amazing miniature sets and well … hilarious talking hands to get kids really excited about the all-American subjects we’re teaching. And each hand-character reiterates concepts in their own unique ways,” says Liberty Learning creative director Steven Jackson.
And Nevers-Williams, along with 16 other classes piloting the program at M. Agnes Jones Elementary School in Atlanta, says the method is working.
She says the program is simplistic, but genius. “I think kids learn better hands on, because if you see it, touch it, you can remember it.”
Nevers-Williams says you can loose the students’ interest “when your’e teaching just the basic history and social studies, but with your video we were able to use it as an anchor for learning. It catapulted us to dig deeper to learn more.”
After watching the Elections episode students took a cue from the video’s easy-to-understand voting analogy: they held their own “election” and chose between a chocolate chip cookie and a strawberry shortbread cookie.
The students learned they must get to know their candidates before voting. They had to learn the facts. And they used that information to inform their voting decision. For Nevers-Williams class, the strawberry shortbread cookie won!
These Hands on Liberty DVD episodes are just part of a larger Super Citizen (K-2) Program by Liberty Learning. Lessons focus on character development, civics and American history and will be released in early 2013.
Student teacher Alicia Walton says her kids are seeing value in these lessons already, “I think it’s important for our students to know they are citizens of the United States of American. And they have to know that they are important, that they input a lot into the world today. And I think they need to know, as little people, that what they say – and what they do counts.”
Nevers-Wiliams is seeing the impact as well. She explained that a parent told her “My son came home and told me ‘mom you have to vote. We learned it in class. Voting is important. The hand puppet kept saying vote, vote, vote!'”
“Through the lesson, through the learning,” says Nevers-Williams, “They were able to take it home and communicate it. It was a reminder that he learned something in school and he took it home.”
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M. Agnes Jones Elementary also received 19 Super Citizen Kits for 475 of their 3rd-5th graders. Sponsor Georgia Pacific is working with Liberty Learning Foundation and Southern Christian Leadership Conference and has donated the funding that impacted nearly 800 students.