First Day of School

In July, as I was mulling over the barren stretch of time between the end of my summer school courses and the start of fall classes, I wondered if it would ever be possible to enter a school at the start of the year and watch everything from a teacher's perspective.

I wanted to see the first day of school, and the days before, when the halls were quieter but the classrooms no less busy as teachers prepared.

Amazingly, I got my wish. I was offered the opportunity to be an interim teacher for the first week-and-a-half at a local elementary school. I was able to sit in on in-service sessions, data meetings, planning sessions of all stripes, and even had the chance to set up the classroom for the teacher (out on medical leave).

It was exhilarating and exhausting, in equal measures. I unpacked boxes, tried to think about systems and supplies placement as a teacher would, brainstormed math games, listened to veteran teachers make their reading intervention plans, made some new friends, listened as administrators explained and developed procedures, and saw firsthand how much effort is expended in the 72 hours before the classroom door opens.

And then, the classroom door opened.

I found myself thrown into the deep end of classroom management without swimming lessons. My training hadn’t encompassed that yet, so I was following others’ suggestions and going with my gut instincts. I failed miserably and I succeeded admirably.

The students listened to me as I taught a brilliant social studies lesson incorporating the Civil War, Annie Oakley, a lesson on measurement skills as we determined how long the hallway was (90 feet: the distance Annie could shoot a playing card edge-wise!), and even a splash of the arts as we watched a portion of Annie, Get Your Gun.

The students ignored me as I reviewed the four types of sentences.

The students interacted with me as we talked about Woodstock, the dangers of drug use and the neighborhoods they come from.

The students disobeyed me as we learned how to walk the school hallways quietly.

I was alternately competent and disastrously incompetent. I sweated for hours on a day’s lessons, only to watch it implode because of my classroom management deficiencies.

But I also had shining moments when a student showed me a pithy sentence explaining the character of Homily in The Borrowers: she’d listened and learned and thought it through.

How many teachers get to practice being a first-year teacher? Not many, I don’t think. When I do my student teaching, or internship as it’s called on the graduate level, I’ll get to observe and act within a classroom, but it’ll be in the middle of a semester.

I have been given an amazing chance to rehearse something scary that I’ll have to do later. What great preparation…and how very much I have to learn in a graduate classroom before I learn by doing in my own classroom, on my second first day of school.

The Greatest American ___ Hero ___ Traitor (choose one)

I hope someday to be able to use this in a classroom to introduce a unit on Benedict Arnold....

Finding Mrs. Warnecke

Sometimes you read a book or encounter a story that just makes you want to run out and do something. I read a book like that this week. It's Finding Mrs. Warnecke, a book by a North Carolina Teacher of the Year (2008) and National Teacher of the Year finalist (2009). 

In this memoir of sorts, Cindi Rigsbee shares her progression from a first-grade classroom in which she received warm encouragement, to her own classrooms as a teacher and the ways she developed that same encouragement for her students. 

She shares specific techniques for relating to students (and not) and tells of both successes and failures in her growth as an educator. She relates everything to the relationship she had with her first-grade teacher, Barbara Warnecke, and how that relationship helped her at every stage of her life. The book ends with the account of her meeting Warnecke as an adult and how their friendship continued on a new plane.

The relationship between a caring teacher and a willing student is probably the greatest baton-passing combination we humans have. Whether in a classroom or in a home between parent and child, this connection of love and respect produces incalculable positive results.

As my teacher training progresses, I’m struck by the gap between what I expected to learn and what I’m learning. I expected to hear about techniques, magic words that will transfer information from teacher to student. I expected matter-of-fact checklists that would equip me to lead a classroom.

But what I’m hearing repeatedly, and across disciplines, is an emphasis on person-to-person, questioning, open-ended relationships in which a seasoned traveler invites a novice to join him or her on the road.

This is encouraging. Hearing that a simple act like validating a bit of rhyme by a first-grader made the difference for a lifetime means I already possess key tools for education: the abilities to listen, observe, care, pause, encourage, guide. These qualities I already have, should I choose to use them.

As Rigsbee says, the awareness and sensitivity to students’ needs and situations trumps any kind of academic technique or procedure. When I read that she encountered students who disrupted class because a father died or a mother left the night before, I’m reminded of students who acted out in class while I was a substitute teacher this spring.

Were any of those children newly missing a parent? Were they hit or threatened or denied food or forced to leave home the night before? I need to remember to look past behavior and into heart issues before making decisions or taking action.

Rigsbee’s story shows that a moment can make all the difference; but unless the teacher is prepared in that moment, the relationship growth won’t happen. And to be prepared for that one moment, we teachers need to care in every moment.

I had a Mrs. Warnecke too...only her name was Nannie Rucker. I know now she was the first black woman to be a Tennessee delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, but all I knew then was that my wonderful first-grade teacher came to my house for dinner. 

She loved and encouraged me, then and now. I attended her funeral years ago and despite the crowd, felt as though I knew her best. What a great legacy she and Mrs. Warnecke have left, and who knows how far the ripples go?

The Development of Superman

Eight-year-old boy, bath towel and safety pin, old stump: prescription for flight. If only I'd been born on Krypton. Superman never had to pretend; he was the guy that all of us superhero-wannabes wannabe.

But even Superman started out as Superboy, growing up and developing a sense of identity and responsibility. This week, as part of a Learning and Teaching class, my group took a look at the various stages of emotional and moral development that all children go through. Different rates, yes, but identical stages. We decided to apply these to Superman for a creative project. 

He is invulnerable and can fly, burn with his vision and freeze with his breath, lift cars and see through walls...but as it turns out, Superman is just like me. And you.

He came to a sense of himself, obeyed rules for others' sake, then chose to obey them for his own sake, then developed a moral code that he chooses to stick to. 

Oh, and hey. We both wear glasses and were journalists. All part of the process.

These are the stages of moral development as put forth by Lawrence Kohlberg. Our group also tackled the eight stages of development according to Erik Erikson:

Concept Mapping

Science used to be, for myself, a collection of facts. Facts about planets and plants and everything in between, but without connections between them. 

As I complete my first class of graduate school, Teaching Science, I'm realizing what a journey it is to be a scientist. You ask questions, seek answers, learn information, and then you're right back asking more questions. 

The physical sciences overlap with biological sciences: how do chemicals affect the human body? Astronomy overlaps with biology: global warming. These are not discrete lists of facts; they are interconnected webs that raise as many questions as they do answers. 

Science is no longer something to fear or look askance at. It is something to explore...something deep and big and unknowable; and yet, we want to know and so we keep asking questions. 

I was asked to create concept maps, bookending this course. Here they are, in all their shiny-faced, future-science-teacher glory. 

A list of unrelated topics vs. an interconnected cycle of Q&A...together representing the journey of one man learning science, as he learns how to teach it.

It Lies in the Brain

Ethics and morals form the backbone of our social institutions. The rule of law. Oaths taken by public officials and private citizens in court. Rules against plagiarism. Bank teller jobs. Police investigations. Fourth-grade test-taking procedures. 

So when people don't, or can't, tell the truth, we call them pathological liars. They lie to others and they lie to themselves. It's deception of the highest -- or lowest -- order. 

Recently, Radiolab -- a public radio exploration of intriguing issues -- aired a program called Deception. It explained how research into lying is revealing intriguing things about the human brain. 

A researcher took temp job applications from 108 people and asked them questions about their histories. She then checked into the histories and found that 12 of them had substantial discrepancies in their stories. She invited them all to come in for brain scans...and all 108 did. 

She expected to find more gray matter in the brain and less so-called "white matter." The white matter is in the prefrontal cortex...the part of the brain right behind the forehead. Surely, someone who lies constantly, regularly, creatively, and often needlessly must have fewer connections with other parts of the brain. Surely, there must be something lacking. Surely, pathological liars are, in essence, brain-damaged. 

That's not what she found. 

She found 25% more white matter. More connections. Faster thinking. More interrelation between sections of the brain and an increased ability to put things together, fast. 

She experimented and failed to find what she was after. But she found something more interesting. 

Someday, when I'm an educator, I want to help my students learn that being wrong is not just OK, it's necessary and beneficial. 

No lie.

Deliberate Misconceptions

Well, after ten days in a fast-paced Teaching Science class at MTSU, there's a lot rolling around in my head. Ideas for a future classroom...ways to encourage discussion and questions instead of rote answers...assessing prior knowledge. 

That last one's pretty interesting. We all have misconceived ideas about how things work or why they exist as they do. Some people think seasons are a result of the Earth's orbit around the sun. Some people think an unopened bottle of soda goes flat if you refrigerate it and then let it return to room temperature. Others think mushrooms are plants, or that nuts aren't fruits.

As a future educator, it will be partly my responsibility to dispel misconceptions, or alternate conceptions, as they're now referred to. I'll need to do it by guiding my students to the truth, not by simply telling them facts. 

But, you know, sometimes a good misconception is worth having around. Like the April Fool's stories broadcast on NPR. Thousands of listeners eagerly tune in on April 1 each year, ready to be happily fooled. The stories -- all capitalizing on misconceptions -- never fail to disappoint. 

Here are three of my favorite science-related misconceptions from this collection. Read or listen, and don't search for the truth. 

Exploding trees!

Eye surgery for 3-D vision!

Danger! Dihydrogen Monoxide!

2014 Science Fair at the White House

Set aside the tri-fold presentation boards and the PowerPoint presentations on laptops. Today's 2014 White House Science Fair features young academics and researchers who are tackling some big projects, using up-to-the-minute technology to make it happen. 

From prosthetic limbs to galaxy clusters, from disease research to autism and solar power, these young scientists are testing boundaries. 

-- lab leftovers becoming solar power generators
-- new information about dark matter
-- a vibrating bracelet to help autistic children manage ritual behaviors
-- a prosthetic leg from recycled tires and zip-ties, for use in developing countries
-- an alarm that sounds when cars grow too hot for humans or animals
-- an environmentally friendly solar cell
-- partnering with earthworms to reduce carbon emissions
-- stem-cell research against adult brain cancer
-- pedestrian safety systems in Africa

...and more.

At a time when many students use iPhones to watch cat videos and the Web strictly for entertainment, it's encouraging to see what students are doing with technology. 

Wouldn't it be great to explore with our students what other young people are doing in labs worldwide? Many of them used only materials that nearly everybody has access to (recycled materials, computers and curiosity). What other scientific breakthroughs could we encourage? Maybe one of our students could be at the White House Science Fair someday....

ConnectED

On NPR today: a White House directive to the FCC, to explore ways of getting high-speed internet to all of America's schools by 2018. It's called ConnectED. 

I had no idea that only 57% of America's schools have access to high-speed internet because of location or limited technology. That means 43% of American schools -- not students, schools -- don't have access to the internet. 

The White House also wants teachers better trained to use technology to accomplish academic outcomes; and it called on businesses like Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and Comcast to invest in tech infrastructure to ensure that all communities and schools have equal access to the internet.

There's been a lot in the news lately about Net Neutrality, the concept that businesses should not be permitted to charge tiered fees for various internet speeds. Without it, only the "haves" will possess fast, reliable access to communication and information.

We can't afford "have-not" schools. Businesses that make money from cell phones and internet usage should be willing to invest some of that money in serving the public; and it serves their long-term interest as well. 

Let's Go Shopping

Dry-erase markers.
Post-It Notes.
Pencils.
Pencil sharpener.
Books about science.
Books about social studies.

Books about people.
Books for fun.
Educational games.
Folders.
Sharpies.
Crayons. 
Glue.
Scissors.
Colored pencils.
Plastic tubs.
Labels.
Pens.
Index cards.
Envelopes.
Stapler.
Staples.
Staple remover.
Push pins.

And the list goes on.

I'm starting to think about items I'll need as a teacher. I won't have my own classroom for more than a year, but I'm thinking about purchasing some of these items one at a time whenever I go to Wal-Mart. Or pick some up this summer when back-to-school sales start and store them.

The above items are common and suitable for every classroom. But what about specialized items that will enable me to teach creatively...only, I don't know what I need? 

Items for science experiments, math games, social studies activities, language arts (I do know I want to buy those magnetic word tiles for assembling poetry on a metal surface). I know I can do great science activities with everyday household items...but which ones?

And children's books...there's no shortage of them out there, but how do I know which books to start buying, when I don't know what grade level I'll teach? 

So many questions, so many ideas, so many supplies waiting to be bought...and of course there's the question of spending my own money. But I guess that comes with the territory. I need to strike up some conversations with teachers who can provide me with great shopping lists.

Sunrise, Sunset

As I sit here, the sun has been streaming in my palladian window, bathing me in bright rays. Too bright at times, and I keep moving a bit to get the light out of my eyes. But the sun has moved on now and there's light on the floor in front of me, but it's out of my way. 

If people in the ancient world had blogged, somebody could have written that. And it's something we would still say today. But why? We know it's the Earth that moves, not the sun. Why do we persist in referring to the sunrise, the sunset, the sun moving across the sky?

Perspective is everything in life: the way we interact with people, the decisions we make, the understanding we develop...it all depends on perspective. 

Should we use different language in the science classroom to reflect scientific fact? Sunrise could be Earth-down. Sunset could be Earth-up. 

So much depends on perspective. Even colors are subjective; we take it for granted that everyone sees colors the same way. Sounds? I've sometimes wondered while in a crowded auditorium, if we all hear exactly the same tones of voice or music. Does the opening chord of Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue feel exactly the same to everyone?

Height is a major perspective to consider. I'm 6'5" and I am comfortable leaning on the top of a refrigerator (you need to clean up there, by the way). The students I encounter in the classroom always ask how tall I am (one inch taller than Abraham Lincoln, I always say, and then somebody always mentions the top hat. I may have to start wearing one.).

I take my perspective for granted. But perhaps I should get on my knees occasionally and see the world from the height of a third-grader. And maybe a third-grader should stand on a desk to see my viewpoint. 

The sun moves, and the sun never moves. Perspective. How very much we all have to learn.

Joyful Noise

The songs of nature are varied: whispering wind, bird calls, summer cicadas. We hear them, we learn in school that sounds are made by wings and vocal sacs and legs, and we steer through the seasons by them. But only a few people can duplicate the sounds. 

There's a book of poetry that I've enjoyed for a long time for the way it captures the feel of insect sounds, if not their literal noises. It's called Joyful Noise, a Newbery medal winner in 1989. Using parallel columns of text, the author, Paul Fleischman, introduces the reader to the whirling, buzzing, humming world of insect songs. Sometimes the readers read simultaneously and sometimes in alternating or overlapping lines.

I'd like to use this book (and an earlier volume on birds, I Am Phoenix) in a science curriculum, intertwining the worlds of scientific understanding and literature. True, Joyful Noise doesn't explain the difference between a grasshopper's thorax and abdominal spiracles, but it does give a child a floating, jumping sense of a grasshopper's life. 

There's the humorous account of a water strider who tries to teach another insect how to walk on water (OK, the surface tension of the water)...the poignant one-day life of the mayfly...the contrasting daily schedules of a queen and a worker bee...the mourning of the digger wasp...and a truly magical last page, taken from the diary of a caterpillar in its chrysalis. 

To read this book is to understand insects in the way most children do naturally: through observation and the way they make us feel. I'd like my students to experience that in the classroom, as well as in their backyards. 

Pair up, have a read, and hear the joyful noise for yourself. 

                                                             cicadas

                                                             pulsing

pulsing

chanting from the treetops             chanting from the treetops

sending

forth their                                           sending

booming                                            forth their

boisterous                                        booming

joyful noise!                                     joyful noise!

Romeo, Juliet and Aerodynamics

One of the educational terms I'm learning about is "learning progression": the carefully crafted strategy of deciding what children should learn in a particular subject by a certain grade, and then developing ways to introduce and reinforce those concepts at various grade levels. 

The instruction is simple at first and grows more complex with students' abilities. This is familiar to everyone; we all know math is easier in first grade than in fifth. 

But an interesting angle of this is that a teacher can teach advanced and complicated information without calling it what it is. 

As my textbook says, you can teach atomic molecular theory without ever using the words atomic, molecular or theory. 

Which got me thinking: how many times are students scared away from interesting topics because of name and reputation?

Shakespeare alluded to this in Act II, scene ii of Romeo and Juliet when he wrote that a rose smells like and is a rose, no matter what we call it (though he said it better!).

Third-graders can learn aerodynamics by making paper airplanes, but they're just having fun. Later, the word "fun" changes to "aerodynamics"; and wouldn't you prefer to realize you'd been learning it all along, only without the label?

The Way We Were

In my Teaching Science class, we've been considering the value of an inquiry-based classroom, one in which questions aren't simply asked and answered, and we're finished, thanks very much, have a good day. 

A teacher has to find out what a student already knows (assessing prior knowledge) and build on that, and the way to do this is to ask questions and not immediately supply the answers. 

A lecture or a classroom talk is not the same as a textbook, but today I found a science text that demonstrates how not to do this. 

This is a page from a 1961 text, book three in the ABC Science series. What if a teacher asked the questions on this page and then answered them as the book does? A student has no time for conjecture. 

"How do plants get the oxygen they need?" Silence. Imagine the answers. "By eating dirt." "The air." "It breathes." 

A teacher could hear the misconceptions and steer the conversation. "Eating dirt is an interesting idea. Can you tell me more about that?"

Eventually the discussion covers processes the plant uses to survive, but meanwhile the student has learned to think, to guess, to feel it's acceptable not to know, and to collaborate. And eventually, s/he knows how a plant gets oxygen. 

A science textbook probably shouldn't contain only questions for conjecture. I'm not saying this book is a failure. 

But teachers shouldn't teach like a book. What teachers need is to have less information freely dispensed, and more questions that leave everybody in the room a bit hungrier to find answers for themselves. 

Are You Saying the Map is Wrong? Oh, Dear. Yes.

This topic came up in discussion during my Teaching Science class tonight and I remembered a great episode of the West Wing that addressed it. It speaks for itself. 

What else don't we know that we think we do?

And where IS France, anyway?

Talk and Argue

Talk and argument – common words in everyday events, but with uncommon meanings in the science classroom.

“Talk” is often something teachers don’t want. “Stop talking.” “Don’t talk.” The implication is that the student simply needs to listen and absorb what the teacher says.

“Argument” happens in an arena, a combative venue. There’s a winner and a loser. The argument is designed for one to prevail over the other.

But in an inquiry-based classroom, talk and argument are desirable parts of the process. “Talk” means to explore assumptions and new information for accuracy and understanding. It's exploration…searching for something not known.

“Argument” (or argumentation) means to lay out contexts, information new and old, and welcomes participation by all. Newbies are welcome; science advances nowhere if only the long-credentialed are heard.

Most traditional classrooms use what’s been called the I.R.E. approach – the teacher Initiates, the student Responds, and the teacher Evaluates.

“What is water made of?”

“Hydrogen and oxygen.”

“Yes.”

This approach might seem to work when dealing with known facts and tables. But it limits the student to what the teacher knows and approves of. Instead of a horizon, there’s a wall.

In an inquiry-based classroom, using scientific talk and argument means the teacher guides the discussion, not approves or disapproves of the information spoken.

“Let me see if I understand. You said….”

“Does anyone agree or disagree?

“Can you tell me more?”

There’s always room for correction; after all, no matter how earnest the discussion, a water molecule doesn’t contain nitrogen. But instead of announcing that fact, the teacher can steer the exploration so the students find out for themselves.

Often, I think, teachers use the I.R.E. approach because it’s efficient.

“Yes.” “No.” “Usually.” “No.” “Yes.”

But if the ultimate luxury is time, then teachers owe it to their students to be inefficient, lavishing time on them, so they discover for themselves.

Teachers need to wait.

And wait.

Hear the wheels turn.

And wait a bit more.

Humans don’t learn to walk in a day, or to build a car in a week. It takes time to reflect, explore, accept and reject, and move on.

So, as I purpose and prepare to teach, I need to steer away from the efficient and what I've always thought of as desirable. Slow down, David, and bring on the talk and arguments.