Punctuated Equilibrium
One of the critiques of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection is the lack of transitional forms. While plenty of previously missing links do exist, the fossil record shows that changes seem to happen all at once after long periods of stasis. The forces that explain this punctuated equilibrium are at work not only at the grand scale of evolution, but play a key role in the stasis that we have seen in our educational system over the last century and will have an equally crucial role in overturning that stagnation, if my principal has his way.
The forces that cause stagnation run parallel. Evolutionarily, it’s sexual selection and genes. In education, it's resistance to change and previous experience. If one human has a mutation to grow a third eye, is there anyone who would want to breed with that person? Change, no matter how useful, is not often welcome. I have heard the conversation in more than one teacher room:
School Initiative
by: jhhaley
The last comment embodies what a former boss referred to as the great pendulum of education. In my short tenure as a teacher I have seen ideas come and go, or at least get watered down, so I empathize with the chorus, but why does it happen? In evolution, even if the third eye becomes valued, it can’t last long. Within a few generations it’s drowned out by all the normal genes. In author Kim Sterelny’s words, “Lineages do change. But the change between generations does not accumulate. Instead, over time, the species wobbles about its phenotypic mean.”
These wobbles are the biological embodiment of our educational pendulum. Change occurs, but there’s nothing worth posting to Twitter. It’s in our genes. Where you went to school, where you trained to teach and where you currently teach are more than likely institutions based on the status quo. How does a new idea survive when everything around it says, “Foreigners Not Welcome”?
The punctuation in a biological system has many stages, but first, a small group of organisms, isolated from their fellows, transcend barriers to change because there are fewer voices shouting for them to stay the same. Stranded on a desert island, the third eye starts to make sense. A small school, like mine, might be just this sort of paradise. The genes seem to be in place. The superintendent, the principal and many of the teachers have embraced student-centered, standards-based teaching. Speciation, however, is not complete. There is both subtle and overt resistance among some staff and the superintendent is about to retire.
In the last stage of punctuated equilibrium, the new species takes its show on the road. Should we make it that far, the new form of education will have to compete with what has been in place for generations. Let’s hope we’re up for the challenge.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Mystery in Mind
The last time I wrote, I talked about an algorithm for designing experiments - I hope to write another post about the algorithm soon. In the meantime, enjoy the prototype as a Google Doc. If you read it, you will notice the use of the phrase “mystery question”. This is a reference to a lesson plan, which turned into a project, which turned into a key element of my teaching philosophy.
Credit for the science/ mystery collision in my life rests in two camps: My 12th grade modern fiction teacher who taught my classmates and me the rules of a mystery novel, and the promise of $50 check for curriculum services rendered.
In 2007 I participated in a week long training with the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute. At the end of the workshop we were offered payment for designing, using and submitting a lesson plan based on the week of learning. My classmates, a motley crew of veteran science, math and technology teachers, were basically done with their planning by the time they walked out the door of the training center. I, on the other hand, was adrift in the swirling seas that were my first years of teaching. With the check in mind I tried to come up with a lake lesson worthy of the prize.
It was close to a year later when the wheel of fortune that is my brain click, click, clicked onto Ms. Petrovich’s mystery unit on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and P.D. James. The rules of a mystery are simple, and they flow through every crime show that airs on TV: In the beginning you are introduced to a mystery, throughout the mystery you are introduced to a range of suspects and a set of clues, then, in the end, the investigator solves the mystery. In my lake unit, all of the pieces were there: The crime: a fish die off; the suspects: pollutants that affect lakes; the clues: the results of experiments and other scientific investigations; the investigators: my students.
Over the last four years I’ve honed my lake mystery into one of my favorite parts of my school year, but sadly, because I didn’t send my plan in on time, I never got that fifty dollars. Instead, my students are motivated to learn - now drawn in by the thrill of the mystery, they’re thinking more as they sort through possible solutions and I go to work wondering what conclusions my favorite investigators will come up with next. I guess I’ll take what I can get.
Credit for the science/ mystery collision in my life rests in two camps: My 12th grade modern fiction teacher who taught my classmates and me the rules of a mystery novel, and the promise of $50 check for curriculum services rendered.
In 2007 I participated in a week long training with the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute. At the end of the workshop we were offered payment for designing, using and submitting a lesson plan based on the week of learning. My classmates, a motley crew of veteran science, math and technology teachers, were basically done with their planning by the time they walked out the door of the training center. I, on the other hand, was adrift in the swirling seas that were my first years of teaching. With the check in mind I tried to come up with a lake lesson worthy of the prize.
It was close to a year later when the wheel of fortune that is my brain click, click, clicked onto Ms. Petrovich’s mystery unit on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and P.D. James. The rules of a mystery are simple, and they flow through every crime show that airs on TV: In the beginning you are introduced to a mystery, throughout the mystery you are introduced to a range of suspects and a set of clues, then, in the end, the investigator solves the mystery. In my lake unit, all of the pieces were there: The crime: a fish die off; the suspects: pollutants that affect lakes; the clues: the results of experiments and other scientific investigations; the investigators: my students.
Over the last four years I’ve honed my lake mystery into one of my favorite parts of my school year, but sadly, because I didn’t send my plan in on time, I never got that fifty dollars. Instead, my students are motivated to learn - now drawn in by the thrill of the mystery, they’re thinking more as they sort through possible solutions and I go to work wondering what conclusions my favorite investigators will come up with next. I guess I’ll take what I can get.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The Fine Line
It's a new school year and I've made a resolution to ask for and listen to my students' perspective more often. Listening is easy. Bending your teaching to fit the desires of a fourteen year old is a little more difficult - especially when one of the first requests flies in the face of one of the key underpinnings of your educational philosophy.
One student's advice started like this: Maybe you could give us a step by step procedure to do labs, so we don't have to talk about it for so long.
In my head, my years of training in experiential, constructivist, democratic education came to my defense: Good science and good education take time. If my students want to learn what real science is like we have to wade through these ideas, so we can design labs rather than used canned labs, whether they be written by me, or the textbook companies.
The student goes on: A lot of us try to listen, but after the first time we hear the instructions we shut down and we're just trying to seem like we're listening.
Now the voice in my head sounds less like a defense, and more like defensiveness: Well if you just listened the first time, then I wouldn't have to explain how to do it again.
The student: It's just that, if you gave us those instructions, we could be more independent, and rely less on you to tell us what to do...
Voice: We have just lost cabin pressure...
While my brain tried to defend my actions, this kid was telling me exactly what I needed to hear: that the method I was using to offer them freedom and choice was having the exact opposite effect. But what should I do? Throw out all of my beliefs and training, and embrace the canned labs that I had always been warned about. My grad school professors referred to a practice called algor-heuristic teaching - a blend of algorithms and heuristic learning. At the time I envisioned the practice of this teaching style as the walking of a fine line between lock step movement toward a learning goal and the anarchy that results when you give 22 high school freshman complete control, but this conversation has made me reassess my understanding.
In light of my new understanding I will be giving my students an algorithm. Don't worry, I'm not jettisoning my educational philosophy based on a conversation. Instead of trying to balance on that fine line, I'm transcending it. The algorithm will give them detailed, step by step instructions on how to design their own experiments. Wish me luck!
One student's advice started like this: Maybe you could give us a step by step procedure to do labs, so we don't have to talk about it for so long.
In my head, my years of training in experiential, constructivist, democratic education came to my defense: Good science and good education take time. If my students want to learn what real science is like we have to wade through these ideas, so we can design labs rather than used canned labs, whether they be written by me, or the textbook companies.
The student goes on: A lot of us try to listen, but after the first time we hear the instructions we shut down and we're just trying to seem like we're listening.
Now the voice in my head sounds less like a defense, and more like defensiveness: Well if you just listened the first time, then I wouldn't have to explain how to do it again.
The student: It's just that, if you gave us those instructions, we could be more independent, and rely less on you to tell us what to do...
Voice: We have just lost cabin pressure...
While my brain tried to defend my actions, this kid was telling me exactly what I needed to hear: that the method I was using to offer them freedom and choice was having the exact opposite effect. But what should I do? Throw out all of my beliefs and training, and embrace the canned labs that I had always been warned about. My grad school professors referred to a practice called algor-heuristic teaching - a blend of algorithms and heuristic learning. At the time I envisioned the practice of this teaching style as the walking of a fine line between lock step movement toward a learning goal and the anarchy that results when you give 22 high school freshman complete control, but this conversation has made me reassess my understanding.
In light of my new understanding I will be giving my students an algorithm. Don't worry, I'm not jettisoning my educational philosophy based on a conversation. Instead of trying to balance on that fine line, I'm transcending it. The algorithm will give them detailed, step by step instructions on how to design their own experiments. Wish me luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)