It
wasn’t about the science it was about the thinking.
I have the most vivid memory of sitting in
a classroom at Teacher’s College in 1987 and the lecturer bursting through the
door announcing to us all that we couldn’t think. Yep.
We were all regurgitating information given to us by lecturers. They
lamented at this dreadful state of affairs, advising us this could no longer
continue and that they would teach us how to think. They did this and I remember being spellbound
by this thing called logical reasoning.
I was the product of a schooling system,
where I quickly discovered the rules to learning included, listening, writing,
memorizing and regurgitating. I remember
students who did get into trouble. I think they were the question askers. I
choose not to question and just do what I was told.
Hold that story.
Yesterday, a colleague and myself, Primary
teachers, attended a workshop about science for early childhood teachers. I was a little nervous to be honest, first
time to cross the great divide between sectors.
However, I was totally blown away by the learning. I knew that what David Spraggs, the workshop
facilitator was saying could be applied to any age and certainly embraced
pedagogy followed at Te Karaka Area School.
A few quotes.
“New experiences trigger change only when
they cause us to question our beliefs.
Whenever we believe something strongly enough, we no longer question it
in anyway.” Anthony Robbins.
Ask Questions, ask questions, ask
questions.
“It surprises me how our culture can
destroy curiosity in the most curious of all animals – Human Beings.” Paul Maclean.
“Teaching science is teaching thinking
skills.” Nancy P. Alexander
To learn – Children need to make mistakes
the same as scientist do.
And
that led to the concept of continuum thinking.
This is where we find students no matter
what their age, somewhere on the continuum from concepts that they believe, to early
logic. We help them move along by providing
experiences, next steps, that help them to challenge their thinking.
Magical perceptions ---------------------------------
Early Logic
Now - the important part. It doesn’t help students to move along the
continuum if we tell them the answers.
What does work is if we provide an environment in which they can
experiment. Allow time to think. Help students to recognize their working
theory and then support them to move on from it. It is not about being right or wrong, it is
not about telling them how a light bulb works or why bubbles pop. It is about
letting students challenge their own thinking.
Teachers can be the most significant barriers to not allowing this to
happen.
The important point in all of this is how
our Early Childhood Colleagues are teaching not what they are teaching. We have so much to learn from them.
Think for a moment, not about the what,
but the how? If you are a Primary
teacher, what happens when a new 5 year old comes in to your class or school? How are they taught? They
often come from an environment where they are allowed, encouraged, and supported
to ask questions. They are often self
-directed learners. Okay, they can’t
always tie their own shoelaces, open their own lunchboxes and even go to the
toilet but they can think and ask questions.
Are your students allowed to ask
questions? Do you model question asking
for them? Are your students allowed
space and time to explore, experiment and discover? Do you take the learning to
them instead of them coming to you for ideas?
How do we push through the barriers of
say, others expectations of our performance, lack of time, national standards, pre-conceived
ideas of where a child should be by a certain age. I have to ask myself, do I limit my students
because of the way I was taught? Am I a
teacher who believes in how I teach so strongly that I have stopped asking
questions? Maybe I have stopped asking
why students are ‘naughty, lazy or unmotivated?
Maybe I have stopped asking why students don’t want to learn what I am
teaching? Maybe I have stopped asking
why I teach the whole class the same thing the same way?
And that is what I started to think about
as I listened to the workshop with a group of teachers from a different sector. I realized that asking questions was vital to
my survival and my students. It wasn’t about the knowledge so much as about
how students get knowledge. It is important
that we are not afraid of a different sector in education and that we learn
together and from each other. It is
really important that we don’t think we know all the answers and become so sure
of how we teach that we stop asking questions.
My goal is to move my students along the
continuum from Magical perceptions to Early Logic, but the truth is I have to
move myself along this continuum as well.
