Don't Break the Learner 
My father is a former chemistry professor turned retired chemist/statistician. Many (maybe
most) of my friends are teachers and/or scientists. And I am a nerd. So after a friend sent me the
Houston Chronicle (front page!)
article about science education, Friday night found me in a friend's backyard (in one of the hammocks we bought in the Amazon) with a glass of wine, discussing what is broken about science education and how it might be fixed.
A friend who teaches high school chemistry explained that his students are not interested in thinking, are not engaged, and want to be spoon-fed whatever is necessary to get by. They view learning as a spectator sport--or maybe they are
the ball? Learning is something that is done
to them, something they must endure.
But watch a young child. Development unfolds without prompting. No one has to remind her to practice walking. No one submits a lesson plan or passes out a worksheet. She is driven to try, again and again. When she masters that, it's on to stairs! No one has to tell a child it's time to practice nouns and start naming everything in sight. No one posts an objective on a chalkboard outside her bedroom. She is driven to do it. Children are natural learners.
The same afternoon, I had gone begging more milkweed for
my hungry Monarchs, and a little two-year-old friend spied me in the front yard with the bug tent. Right away, she insisted we sit down in the grass and look at them. She wanted to see those caterpillars
up close. "Ho'd. Ho'd ca'erpiyar." Oh, the squealy pleasure to be had from examining a caterpillar up close!-- holding it right up to your nose. "Ca'erpiyar eating! Ca'erpiyar eating leaves!" "Ca'erpiyar walking!" Children are
naturally curious, and they LOVE science.
So what happens to them? What happens to that
sense of wonder? Do they outgrow this love of learning? I don't think so. I think the answer is something more sinister.
As evidence, I share a story about our Wednesday with worms:
Here in Room 28, the danger (and adventure!) of wondering something out loud is that someone will challenge you to find out. That’s what happened with our worm wonderings. We grouped the questions as "Research Questions" and "Investigation Questions." I typed up a few of the children's great questions, cut them into strips, folded them, and placed them in a bowl. Each group sent their facilitator to draw a question (with much anticipation and excitement, "Did we get a good one?").
QUESTIONS:
Do worms prefer cold or warm environments?
Do worms prefer light or dark?
What type of soil do they prefer--the soil by the building or from the grassy area?
What do worms eat? Try two types of leaves—which does the worm prefer?
What do worms eat? Does the worm prefer a specific shape of leaf?
If something’s in the way, what does the worm do?
The challenge was for each group to design an investigation that would answer their question. I supplied a planning page with space for the question, a hypothesis, the group's proposed procedure ("What steps will you take to find out?"), and the materials that would be required ("What supplies will you need to do this investigation?"). “How will you know which the worms prefer? Do you plan to interview them?” Laughter. “Be sure to design your experiment so that you can SEE what the worms are doing.” While Franny, Mrs. D., and I scooted around, trying to ensure thoughtful planning and peaceful problem solving, the children were remarkably capable scientists, considering variables and developing sensible investigations.
With little adult intervention, each group of children (ages six through nine, keep in mind) designed an experiment and then brought from home any materials we didn’t have at school. When we were finally able to get the experiments going, the room was a busy hub of diverse activity.
A group attempting to answer the question, “Do worms prefer light or dark?” brought in a shoebox and flashlights. They cut off half of the shoebox lid and sprinkled a thin layer of soil into the box. They then added worms and turned on the lights to watch how they would respond. Would they crawl toward the dark area of the box? 
Another group brought an ice pack and placed it under one end of a tray of dirt. They placed the worms in the cold area and watched to see if they would move to the other side of the tray. Nope. They then placed the worms in the middle of the tray to see which side they would choose. Surprisingly, the worms moved back to the cold side.
Excitement was suddenly popping around another group, “The worm broke apart!” “And the head’s still moving!” “BOTH parts are moving!” To all my animal rights friends out there (including one who serves on the Animal Welfare Committee in the Medical Center), we had discussed humane treatment of worms prior to any experiments, and the children assure me that this discovery was a very unfortunate accident.
I noticed that the group investigating worms' leaf-shape preference had out scissors. Hmm. I walked over to check out what was going on. I'm always grateful when I ask a question rather than jumping to conclusions with my students. They explained that they weren't sure what type of leaf (leaf flavor) worms preferred and that if they put in leaves from two different kinds of plants that naturally grow leaves in different shapes, they couldn't be sure that it was the shape that the worms preferred and not just the flavor of one type of leaf over the other. The children (first, second, and third graders) were isolating a variable! They were modifying individual leaves from the same plant, cutting the leaves into shapes---some with rounded tips and some with pointy tips, demonstrating a depth of understanding of experimental design that I didn't know they had.
Now, for those of you who didn’t know this, the problem with worms is that they’re slow moving and slow thinking. Think about how you feel on a hot summer day when the air conditioner is broken—and then slow down . . . More . . . . . . . . Even MORE. That’s worms for ya, but I didn’t consider worm response time when I tried to jam in worm experiments along with our Class Meeting, our weekly classroom cleaning effort, books featuring Passover and Easter, and yet another review of the importance of details in scientific illustrations.
Lucky for us, acquiring vast quantities of knowledge about worms is not really the point. That’s not why we embarked on these invertebrate investigations (though we will try again because understanding that sometimes you have to retool and try again
is part of the point).
Despite all appearances, this is not
really a story about worms. It's about capitalizing on curiosity and using it to fuel inquiry and investigation. It's about understanding the nature of science--that scientists observe, ask questions, and investigate. It's about
doing science to learn
how scientists investigate--how to design an experiment, how to isolate a variable, how to think about the evidence you've gathered, and what other possibilities must be considered before drawing a conclusion. It's about learning how to learn and how to think--skills that will serve my students, regardless of their college major or their chosen career path.
So, did I post all those objectives on the chalkboard? No, that would have squelched the sense of adventure, and I don’t think it would have enhanced the learning. I didn't pass out a list of vocabulary or a worksheet of worm facts for the children to memorize either. But since our worm experiments, a surprising number of students have approached me after Silent Reading or in the hallway during dismissal to share some interesting and amazing facts about worms that they have discovered on their own. Did you know that there are
worms in Australia that can grow over six feet long?! Information learned in the context of curiosity is far more likely to be absorbed than that which is memorized for the purpose of passing a test. Getting excited about science is not just fun and games. It feeds that drive to learn, that innate need to know more. Once the spark is lit, children are driven to discover.
So what
HAPPENS to them? When and why are children learning to hate learning? I want to send my students out into the wild world of “education” with a warning label that reads, “Please don’t break the learner.” Because I think that’s what we do in many schools. My chemistry teacher friend explained, ‘Most of the time, I’m probably only hitting the first level of
Bloom’s because there is a lot of material to cover and the department wants all of the chemistry classes in the school to be on the same objective on the same day.’ That’s part of the problem. If we are attempting to
COVER material, we do just that—skim the surface, and if we treat students as if they are interchangeable widgets which we are constructing on a factory assembly line, it is not surprising that they turn off their brains. We are damaging the drive to discover.
If I was marching through the curriculum in lock-step with the teacher next door, we couldn’t have taken the time to investigate the questions about worms that
these specific students in
this class asked in
that moment. More importantly, I would have missed the opportunity to capitalize on curiosity. In spending a few weeks on worms, I've sacrificed breadth for depth. Ultimately, when my students take the science TAKS in fifth grade, will they do well?
They usually do.
Please don’t break the learner.
It was several days before we noticed they had tunneled down through sand into a lower layer of dirt at opposite corners. 
(The children have hypothesized that these separate entrances are for feuding family members.) Our worms were becoming adventurous--prompted, I'm sure, by the raucous caterpillars' bad example. 
Yes, those will do quite nicely. Apparently, all the best worm eateries are serving them that way. 
Notice that the apple slices have been dragged to the corners of the bin? We never see them doing this! Are you beginning to understand my visions of 
