Valentine Day Blog Hop Questions

Happy Valentine Blog Hop 2015!

It was 7th grade in a Nova Scotia country school and he was far too clever and cute for my gangly personality or clunky communication skills. So when Jeffrey shoved a small box into my hand – with the words, “Wanna be on my debate team, cause I think we could win?” I sat stunned and said nothing back.

A friend came over while kids exchanged Valentine cut-outs – took the box from my hand, opened it and gushed over the red glass lady bug with multi-colored gems.

Over that school year – as the glass gems dropped one-by-one from my Valentine treasure, I caught the value of great questions across differences. We won that debate and many more.

More importantly, Jeffrey’s confidence caught my lack of coolness off-guard, and left me growing debate skills that won points with people far smarter than me.

That’s when I first saw new opportunities for critical thinking questions that foster action in new directions to benefit all.

My students love to turn personal feeling into valentine questions. And we all enjoy advancing critical thought in fun ways. Their questions are two footed in that one foot probes the content or idea and the other foot catches the interest of the person asked.

Foot one – “Wanna be on my debate team…?

Foot two – “… cause I think we could win (together).

We create a Valentine Bulletin Board – where each heart displays a two – footed question to a person who expects it least. Then we carry out cool actions asked and share how critical thinking relates especially well to real life beyond class.

In addition to bulletin boards, popular Valentine’s Day activities include:

Turning personal feelings into life tools and creating Valentine poems.