Some time with the "little ones"

You all know that I am a secondary major, but I really really love working with little kids! I love every opportunity I have to work with elementary school kids because they really are amazing. They say the best comments and make the most interesting connections, and what is most phenomenal to me is that they are not yet jaded about school or science.

The activity I did focused on the idea that air takes up space, which is not really all that exciting but it was a cool demonstration! I started with my first student who was an ELL student, but I did not even notice! He was interested and tried to come up with answers and explanations for what we were talking about. He did not seem that interested in science overall but said that he did enjoy it. When I asked was else he would like to know about he mentioned evaporation and wanting to know why it happens and he also wanted to know why things change. When I asked him to explain what he meant he gave me the example of why can't you eat apples after a while (why do they rot). I thought that this was such a great question! The second student I worked with was more interested in science in general and had much more to say. She actually came up with the reason that water did not go into the cup when she said "air pushed the water down" and she also said that in the syringe the air got closer together! When I asked what she would like to know she said how are clouds made, and "how the moon gets such a good grip on the earth to make high and low tides"!!!!!! I was floored by this question because it is such a great question! I wish I knew the answer!

Overall the experience was awesome and reminded me of how much I love working with younger kids, even though I would not want to be a classroom teacher, I enjoy more of the in class aid work. It really is fun to talk to kids about their ideas and find out how they think. They kept asking if we were coming back and I have the same question! So are we?

All about cultures

After reading the Culture and Education article I think it is important for each of us to identify our own cultures before we can continue to think about other cultures. How are we supposed to determine if our cultural ideals and beliefs will influence our classroom expectations if we do not know that our own culture is? If we are able to see how our actions and behaviors are different from our students then we are then able to find ways to change how we operate and what we expect from our students. I also think that setting up a clear classroom culture is important. For the most part I think elementary majors have learned all about developing a classroom constitution and other ways to insure that students feel they have roles and responsibilities in the classroom, which will allow for students to be more comfortable in the room. This has got to be done in secondary classrooms as well, with some modifications since we will be seeing at least 5 different sets of students each day. By creating a concrete classroom culture then students will hopefully feel more comfortable to be able to participate and learn. I think that by trying to fuse our culture with the cultures of our students we will be able to create a more comfortable learning environment.

There were also two other points from the article that I thought were very interesting. First the author says that cultures are always hybrids. This is more evident today than ever before. I am sure that people have influences from multiple cultures which combine to create their own individual culture. The individuality of each of our cultures is what allows us to bring different things to the table and makes life more interesting. Second the author stated that culture is heavily influenced by a persons location, experiences, and social class. I have felt for a long time that while a persons culture is extremely important a persons socioeconomic standing has an equal part in creating their world view. It is important that as educators we do not fail to overlook the influence that these factors play in regards to our students.

Yes We Can...reminds me of the little engine that could

After reading the article "Yes We Can" I felt both encouraged and discouraged. I feel strongly that it is extremely important to set high expectation levels for our students and that we should force students to work slightly outside their comfort levels so they can learn as much as possible. There were two points in the article that I would like to address, first that districts with a high proportion of minority students fail to recruit teachers that are highly qualified and experienced. This statement is supported by lots of data but I hope that over the next few years some change will occur within this statistic. Take NEAG graduates for example, we were all supposed to have at least one urban placement, hopefully some students enjoyed their urban placement enough to seriously consider teaching in an urban district. If more teacher prep programs had similar requirements I wonder if the number of highly qualified and experienced teachers would increase in urban districts. However before this occurs it may be necessary for higher teacher pay scales and benefit packages to mimic more affluent districts in order to entice more teachers. Second the article brings up the point that all schools should be receiving equal funding for students. I wholeheartedly agree with this point, and in actuality some districts with failing test scores should not have funding stripped but should receive more funds. If you need to increase student performance levels, especially in reading, shouldn't there be more funds to provide resource programs and additional support personal to teach struggling students? I also remember hearing a statistic that said that some urban districts spend a higher percentage of their budgets per pupil than suburban districts. However if you take a look at what these funds are being used for it makes sense. When a school has a higher proportion of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch programs it would make sense money must be spent to feed students. Also when you have a higher percentage of students receiving ESL/ELL support, qualifying for special education services, and more students requiring additional instructional support the extra expenditures are not only needed but expected.

I think that this article was valuable to read, I just wish that more people would understand that the widening achievement gaps begin in elementary school and differences are only compounded throughout time in a school district. I believe that it is important to find ways to support students early in their education to prevent the drastic differences in ability levels seen in high school.

evolution vs creationism nonsense

Somehow and for some reason within a one week time period the topic of teaching evolution in a science classroom came up in 3 different classes and 1 time in the Daily Campus. For me this is even a rarity and I am BIOLOGY teacher.


It began last Friday when we read an article from the NY Times about a teacher who taught evolution as part of his curriculum and how he dealt with the conflicts and opinions his students felt toward the concept of evolution. This was an excellent article, it gave some great points about some ways to help students understand that while the subject must be taught, as science teachers we are not out to force people to change their beliefs. The discussion of the article allowed for a decent debate about the subject and allowed us science education majors to share our viewpoints, and to help explain why it is an important concept to teach. Also we were able to explain that while evolution is widely accepted to be true among the science community it is only a theory and therefore can be proved false if data comes along to support that claim. Overall a very positive discussion regarding evolutions place within public science classrooms.


Then Monday rolled around and the topic was brought up in our class. As we all know we talked about how evolution is taught because it has foundations in SCIENCE - it is a question that can be TESTED! You can collect data and make observations and inferences...all leading to the theory of evolution. Multiple data sets exist to support the idea of evolution so it is generally accepted as truth but at any point it is possible for the theory to be falsified by data. Again a valuable and fitting discussion of the topic.


Then it was Thursday - time for multicultural education. Already I had not been looking forward to class since we usually spend a majority of the time listening rather than discussing with our peers about the concepts we are covering; and that is just not all that exciting of a way to spend 2 and 1/2 hours. My teacher was talking about the effects of religion on students. She mentioned that she would not know our religions unless she asked; and she said that religion can have a huge impact on students. This idea makes perfect sense to me, religion while separate from the classroom plays a huge role in student behaviors and actions. Then one quick story that was quickly mentioned and passed over quickly (thankfully) perked my attention in a not so positive way. My teacher proceeded to mention that a friend of hers teaches in a private high school and is terrified to make the switch to teaching in a public high school because he cannot fathom teaching evolution...because he believes in creationism. Now I guess that I should mention that he is supposedly a science teacher. Then my teacher says that she believes that the topics of creationism and intelligent design should be taught in public schools so that students can understand multiple viewpoints regarding the theory of evolution. However this cannot happen since religion does not have a place in public schools. If this topic had not been dropped so fast I was likely to explode! All that was running through my head was "are you serious?", "she has got to be kidding she cannot be honestly telling me that I should teach intelligent design and creationism". It took all of my self control not to scream across the classroom that she must have gone crazy because the reason that creationism is not taught in public science classrooms is simply because IT IS NOT SCIENCE. There is no other way around it. The existence of a god and therefore creationism does not provide a TESTABLE question in which you can gather DATA or CONCRETE FACTS. I simply cannot teach these because they are not founded in the principles of science and for that reason have no place in my public school science classroom.


Then after reading a lovely commentary piece in the Daily Campus after class I was confronted with the idea of teaching creationism and intelligent design again!

"The lack of tolerance in education is another appalling situation. Students receive one end of the story. In science, it's evolution. No time for expanding students' knowledge and explaining other possibilities. A study in intelligent design or creationism could produce thoughtful discussion and learning, but education of that kind is not tolerated. There are many well-educated, intelligent, professional scientists who believe in intelligent design. Should they not receive attention in a lecture or space in a textbook because their theories "aren't complete or scientific enough?" The fossil record is an incomplete jumble of information, yet scientists are instructed to answer difficult questions like the origin of life with it?"
From Tolerance must be practiced, not just preached. By Colleen Kopp. Daily Campus, 9/11/08. http://media.www.dailycampus.com/media/storage/paper340/news/2008/09/11/Commentary/Tolerance.Must.Be.Practiced.Not.Just.Preached-3425920.shtml

Again the problem with this is the lack of scientific fact to support these claims. These ideas are not allowed space in lectures or textbooks for the simple fact that no data exists to prove creationism or intelligent design. If at some point in time evolution was found to be incorrect and some other theory becomes widely accepted due to legitimate data and facts then I will have no problem adjusting my position, but as of right now there is nothing to support these claims.


All I can hope is that by teaching science well from a younger age rather than leaving all of the work to high school teachers hopefully we can help to produce a more knowledgeable, skeptical, and critical generation of adults that know when to question ideas and when to accept ideas. It makes me sad in a way that there is still such an inability to accept facts as facts.

When the question of the legitimacy of evolution versus the biblical interpretation arises in my class I tell that student to think about the biblical story; is that there is any way to determine the length of time described as a "day" in the bible. Our 24 hour day may be drastically different from the time scheme referenced in the bible. Who knows, the Bible's time scheme may align with the age of the earth as 4.6 billion years old. One never knows!

Hopefully future students can help to debunk the misconceptions surrounding the ideas of creationism and intelligent design, and help to convey that neither have a place in science because they simply are not scientific concepts.