One of my favorite comics from years ago was “Calvin
and Hobbes” which chronicled the adventures of a young boy and his
tiger. When no adults were around, Hobbes the tiger was lively. He
spoke, he played and he interacted with Calvin. As soon as an adult
came into view, the tiger instantly became unanimated and took on the
look of a small stuffed toy. Before the comic strip ended, I found a
set of panels in the Sunday paper that summarized my view of education
in a way that I could not. In this strip, which I have laminated and
hanging on my office door, Calvin and Hobbes became spellbound by a
snake they saw slithering along the ground. They began to ask questions
about what the snake ate and how it moved. They quickly realized they
knew nothing about snakes. “Maybe your Mom could get us a book,” Hobbes
suggested. He had to convince little Calvin that learning could be fun
“if nobody makes you do it.” In the last panel of the comic, Calvin and
Hobbes pour over a book about snakes and say “COOL!” |
As a teacher, and as
one who sometimes teaches other teachers, I hate to admit the fact that
schools are often responsible for instilling a disdain for learning
among even the best students. I work in a system that, all too often,
gets so hung up on grade point averages and final exams that teachers
and students alike miss the “COOL!” moments of learning. Like anyone
who enjoys teaching and learning, I try very hard to avoid this trap.
It is not easy.
Learning is
multifaceted. Memorization of content knowledge is important, but so is
developing an understanding of what that knowledge means and why. One
can, after all, memorize and repeat a list of phrases from a foreign
language without having any notion of what they’re saying. I want to
help develop a biology student who can memorize ATP counts in the
various phases of cellular respiration as well as anyone else but who
can also answer a question like “Why do we eat food?” You’d be
very surprised at the number of people with advanced degrees in
biology, not to mention the number of high school graduates, who are
unable to answer such a basic question.
On a practical
level, I endeavor to act as an informed facilitator in my courses. I
lecture, because it is a quick and easy way to convey a lot of
information to students. But, I also try to lead discussions and
encourage my students to ask questions. Tactile, visual and other
experiences are important as well. In fact, I would place laboratory
and group experiences on a level of importance far above lecture and
note taking. It is during these times that the students get a chance to
think about what they’ve read and what I’ve said or will say. They get
to share their own insights with one another. Whenever possible and
practical, I like to give up some of the power that my students see me
as having. I try not to be the “know it all” all of the time. I like
for the students to discover things on their own and realize that they
actually understand something without having to get a test question
marked as correct.
In addition to
providing a variety of learning experiences, I also think a good
teacher should be open to a wide variety of evaluation techniques.
Learning is not only hard to define, it is hard to measure. By mixing
traditional tests, projects, lab activities, library research and other
types of assessments, I hope that I have a clearer picture of what my
students know and what they can do when it comes time to assign a grade
for their course work. I have to admit, though, that I think grades are
kind of silly.
Decades after
they’ve had my class, I want my students to be able to evaluate a
scientific claim that they hear on the news. I want them to know where
to find information and how to critically analyze it. My goal is to
help produce a student who carries skills away from my class that
enable him or her to seek out and understand new things without being
forced to write them down in a notebook, memorize them and then take a
test. I want the students to have the same wonderment and appreciation
for learning that they had as a child. I also want them to understand
that, throughout their lives, they have the incredible power to learn
and understand on their own. A teacher can encourage, model, explain
and influence. A teacher can not force one to learn.
I often get the
chance to work with groups of science education graduate students. One,
who had a bachelor’s degree in zoology, stands out in my mind. He was
very articulate and he knew a lot of things. The day I met him, I was
sure that he would be a great science teacher. I had no doubt that this
student could have recited a brilliant definition of the term metamorphosis
if I had asked him to do so. I was certain that he had already done
that in his previous classes though. During the class I was helping to
teach, this student and each of his classmates were assigned the task
of “babysitting” a container filled with flour and mealworms.
Mealworms, by the way, metamorphose into beetles. A couple of weeks
after getting his container, my student came to class with a puzzled
look. He showed us the container he had been looking at for
days. Then he explained why he was so baffled, “Bugs keep falling into
my mealworms.” He was encouraged to watch, to count, to record and
to think. The next week he came back, carrying his container of
mealworms and beetles, and he had a gleaming smile across his face.
This time I knew he had it. He had it for himself and he had it for his
future students. “This is so COOL!” he said.
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