This week, my son and I worked on his Science Fair Project. I am not fond of Science Fair projects because I think that every day in school should be a science fair project kinda day. I am bothered by the fact that inquiry learning and investigation is carved out as a "special" kind of learning that takes place in the fall or spring of the year, and we showcase it once a year. However, we persevered and tackled the science fair project.
My son came to me n the outset of this with much enthusiasm. He had already decided that he wanted to do his project on the volcano. I immediately went to the "oh no, here is the classic volcano project." And it was, I could not ignore the enthusiasm, though. My son, not unlike many, does not really get excited about school. He really sees it as a necessary part of life peppered with worksheets for math, the occasional field trip, the reading levels and the recess. He lives for the specials in the day, actually.
I am going to digress here with the with the word,"Specials" in my son's elementary school. The students each day rotate to a different specialist to do art, physical education, computers, guidance, and music. The word "specials" is great for these teachers,but it pretty much stinks for the teacher who has the kids for most of the day. They are going to leave the room to go do something special and then come back to good 'ol boring learning. It is not surprising that these specials are pretty much hands on learning where the student are discovering, creating and interacting. Well, this brings me back to the volcano.
We followed the design process for this project, and you have never seen a kid more enthusiastic about learning. He wanted to know all about plate tectonics and how pressure builds in a volcano. He actually made an analogy to a soda bottle that he shook up and exploded in our kitchen one day (A sad day), and he made the connection. In that project we talked about acids and bases and how they mixed to form the "eruption." We were having fun and learning! We were learning. In that one project, we counted that he had done science, research skills, writing, art, math, and a lot of technology. He wanted to learn more and the more he learned the more he wanted. This kid was not the same kid who struggled through worksheets for homework and lamented that school was not fun.
He could not wait to get to the next step! His enthusiasm wore me out. He pummeled me with questions, "When can we work on the volcano?" "I have watched some videos on YouTube to find out how to make the volcano explode. Is that what we are doing?", "Can we make one of those codes for people to scan for more information?" In the middle of the project, we saw the story about the volcano eruption in Chile, and he started to ask about the impact that volcanoes have on the areas where they erupt. Questions engendered other questions, and I became downright giddy learning about volcanoes and the ring of fire, and the earth moves, and how they are formed and erupt. I am sure that I went over this in an Earth Science class some time, but never had I been so interested.
So, naturally I began thinking about learning and pouring all of thoughts into my time in the classroom, as an administrator and now as a Professional Learning Specialist. It reaffirmed what I knew all along and how I morphed as a teacher when I was in the classroom: the more students do and ask questions, the deeper and richer the learning is. Learning is not a passive activity, but we have made it so, particularly with the onslaught of more testing and the Common Core. Now, I am a fan of the common core, but I am not a fan of the implementation of the common core. When we got updated standards, our response was testing and more testing, so the response in the classroom becomes more test prep. Guess what? I am more than confident that id we take our students at all levels on educational journeys through questions and inquiry, and we pose problems to students to solve, these kids will knock the socks off any test that we may give them. Students do not need more test prep; they need to visit with ideas and collaborate with others on ideas and brainstorm and ask questions and make connections. They need to read and research to find information. They need to build and create.
Students need places where their ideas are embraced and where they can embrace ideas. They need a place where they can build skills within the context of something bigger. That place for deeper learning, for discovery is the classroom, and we need to open the door.
