Teaching Practice Finding the Words to Change the World RESEARCH
RESEARCH IN SUPPORT OF AUTHENTICATING WHAT WE TEACH
"From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in school comes from his inability to utilize the experience he gets outside, while on the other hand he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning in school. That is the isolation of the school– its isolation from life."
-John Dewey, 1916
My first kick-to-the-gut experience as a teacher was the result of a simple question. In the midst of an activity I had planned for a group of 17-year-old summer school students (one which mirrored an activity I'd participated in as a college student), I was asked, "Why do we need to know this?" A simple question, which, with no rational answer, made me feel like a puppeteer. I had implemented the activity because it had inspired me in a creative writing class I had taken three years prior. The student behind the question was a high school senior in jeopardy of failing. He had enrolled in my summer school English class so that he could graduate on time. It became absurdly apparent to me that this boy would not be motivated in the same way that a 21-year-old English major had been. Gasp!
I would classify this experience as a growing pain– it hurt at the moment, but enhanced who I am as an educator. Before I had entered the classroom (on the teacher side), my studies had ingrained in me the importance of authenticating lessons. I had read the insight of John Dewey, and agreed that we learn most thoroughly through our experiences. When I put my pedagogy into practice, I realized that I, not only my students, needed to learn from experience. My interaction with students has taught me that they can sense an empty lesson and that they resent busy work. School should be preparing them to become healthy, successful adults, and the lessons they participate in should reflect this long-term objective. As E.F. Schumacher stated in Small is Beautiful, "When people ask for education, they normally mean something more than mere training, something more than mere knowledge of facts, and something more than a mere diversion. Maybe they cannot themselves formulate precisely what they are looking for; but I think what they are looking for is ideas that would make the world and their own lives intelligible to them."
As a language arts enthusiast, I find inherent value in literature, critical thinking, grammar, and refined persuasive skills. I have yet to stumble upon an entire classroom full of students who share my fervor for all things written. Pushing isolated or abstract concepts of language arts onto students can cause them to feel alienated or senseless, and in turn deem the subject to be inaccessible and uncomfortable. Students are not miniature adults, but children with their own unique pallets, priorities, and methods of processing information. Thus it is essential to draw from the spirit of the teenager as an educational resource, and to create lessons that will enhance and enrich the student's world. Richard Paul alludes to this idea in Teaching Critical Thinking in the Strong Sense: "Students need experience in seriously questioning previously held assumptions and identifying contradictions and inconsistencies in personal and social life."
This "Socratic" method will aid in the everyday reasoning of the student; the lessons that appeal to and can be applied to their worlds are the first steps toward shaping healthy and successful adults.
Author:Sarah
Hatch (e-mail) School:Oyster River Middle School Organization:University of New Hampshire Credits: Paula Ickeringill, ORMS Language Arts Teacher
Mike Middleton, UNH Internship Supervisor
Jason Demers, ORMS Science Teacher and Technology Wiz
