Rebecca Cummings, M.Ed.
Grade 5
Pelham, NH
December, 2010

My Revised Teaching Style: Why I listen to my students

When I was in teacher school I was taught to organize materials, align the curriculum, manage behavior, differentiate my instruction, manage teaching assistants, design engaging lessons, activate prior knowledge, and assess the students' learning. There were courses in graduate school that analyzed the task of teaching in segments. This was helpful for me, who took pride in being a life-long learner. Teaching was a profession in which I could extend my interests in child psychology and education while applying my creativity and natural tendency toward ADHD. I performed well on my teacher school assignments because throughout my life I knew how to figure out what the teachers wanted me to do. Then I got a job as a 5th grade teacher and no amount of schooling had prepared me for the overwhelming responsibility of cramming all those GLEs into approximately 25 developing brains.

Those poor students during my first year of teaching were drowning in paper as I tried to manage administrative expectations. I was a really fun teacher who cared about each of them so much that I would cry tears of guilt over each of their handicaps. I felt incredibly responsible when they failed the summative assessments. I thought that maybe if I read books about teaching they would help me but they collected dust while I put out all the typical fires burning in every ten year old's world. Afterall, how important is long division when your best friend has dumped you for another girl on the playground? Can you really remember what a rising action is when your parents have decided to get a divorce and you are not sure where you will live? Then, In the middle of January when I thought I wouldn't survive another indoor recess I did a very brave thing. I brought crickets, snails, fish, and plants into my classroom.

I was lucky enough to have taken a class in teaching school called Science Methods. I wanted to take it last in my own scheduled curriculum because when I was ten years old I loved science. I have grown up studying things, my own three children, animals, my garden, and I counted on this being a fun way to end the five years of training. I had no idea how that class would truly save me and give shape to own ideas that learning is experiential more than passive. During that semester I was exposed to a method of teaching that has been labeled Inquiry. More importantly, however,I was given a lima bean and prompted to study it, to answer simple questions that morphed into meaningful interest. I was given paper and asked to observe and record not only what I saw, but what I predicted and wondered about. I was in a confident, happy place. My ideas were just as important as everyone else's. I was interested and read about cotyledons , only to see them appear. I wasn't a teacher in training during this class. I was a ten year old scientist, thinking about my own experiences in a garden, looking at the moon on the horizon, and realizing that crickets eat cornmeal.

So in that winter of teaching despair when no amount of worksheets could save me I decided to bring life into our classroom. Then the true, essential learning began. My students' questions were like songs that revived my own interest in helping them discover the answers. I required them to create science journals for their ecosystems and their observations, drawings, questions, and predictions become works of art and reflection papers that gave me concrete proof that they were engaged and learning. The relationship between the crickets and snails in the bottles developed into an experience that we could attach to the vocabulary and research from their textbooks. As each group named their fish they grew attached to the materials in a way that most teachers only get to hope for. All those other classes I had taken in teacher school had a new meaning for me and my bravery paid off. I watched and listened as students with special needs were just as motivated and engaged and knowledgable as the students that had been traditionally put in other differentiated groups. The confidence in their own abilities was evident as the journals developed.

My own confidence that I had in graduate school was revived and I joined a group of teachers from the state of New Hampshire who were discovering the same magic through inquiry that I was. We collaborated and listened to each other's ideas. Just as I did with my peers in that science methods class, we explored materials and wrote down questions. We took our research findings back to the classroom and witnessed students being successful learners who were doing something that now gets buried in standardized tests and cumbersome data. They were wondering what would happen if… I roll a heavier ball down this ramp… I soak this bean in a wet paper towel… I add an oily substance to an ocean tank. As their teacher all I had to do was prompt them with materials, questions, give them a venue for their ideas to be valued. Most importantly, I had to listen. This listening took off and for three years I have been listening, documenting, and assessing 5th graders as they discover not just the validity of their own experiments, but the excitement in answering their own questions. They are truly engaged with joy in the process of learning. By giving their imaginations room to breathe, a voice in the classroom, I no longer feel guilty that I didn't teach them well enough for them to pass the tests. By listening and encouraging their collaborative ideas I feel like I am empowering their thinking instead of enabling them to be passive learners who, on a good day, might remember the information I told them.

I recently collected reflection papers that my students wrote after completing their bean journal projects. Given all the time constraints in our day I am embarrassed to say that I only get to writing workshop about three times per week, but I was amazed at how thoughtful and well constructed these papers were. More exciting to me, however, was the way in which my students had been able to put their experiences with learning into words:

"I had a lot of questions that I never thought could be possible until I started to go through this project. One of the questions I had was what is inside a bean that will make it grow? Another is, why does a bean need sunlight to grow when it's not getting sunlight in the ground? Lastly, how come a bean does not decompose in the soil when you plant it? I know the answer to the first question. The thing that is inside a bean that makes it grow is a root. The root comes out of a bean when it gets energy to grow. I've been thinking about the second question and I think that a bean doesn't need sunlight to grow. I think that it only needs sunlight to grow leaves." (Callie, age 10) "Always ask questions like what I asked to myself. How did my beans stay alive if the leaves were in the ground? Observations will lead to questions. Or sometimes this will happen. You will ask a question which will lead to further experiments, which will lead to research, which will lead to findings, which will lead to more questions! While you're doing this whole thing you are doing the scientific method. That's right. The scientific method. Test, test, test. If you have a question, try to design an experiement to answer your question. Observation can be hard and boring, but the results are usually interesting." (James, age 10)

"I learned from my mistakes because I think that is what scientists do. If they mess up, they learn from their mistakes." (Tyler, age 11)

"I also leaned that when you write something that was a while ago and then you write something recent about your bean you could see how it changed. Also, whenever you write questions that you do not know the answer to then the next day you figure the answer to the question that means you did research on the change of the bean. If you were a scientist and you did not know anybody you could communicate with others about t'he bean's growth and make new friends." (Megan, age 10) "Through investigation I have learned how to use graphs and organize lists in my data, and it helps a lot to keep things straight. I have learned mostly about what a scientist/botanist does when they are growing a bean. It have leaned mostly about what a scientist/botanist does when they are growing a bean. It has taught me how long it takes for a bean to grow and what it needs for it to grow. It needs sun, air, water, soil, and the right room temperature. Water and air I knew from the start but when I learned about temperature I learned it the hard way. One of my beans bloated up and looked like a marshmallow when I put it in a cold room. It also taught me that this living organism needs care and attention, because if we don't give these plants these things the plant will not survive." (Adriana age 10)

"One of the big things I learned when observing my bean was that roots can spread out anywhere. The roots in my bean plant are surrounding the whole cup. It almost looks like a shield of roots. When the roots have no more space to spread out, you should plant it in a bigger cup. The number one thing I learned is that you need to give it plenty of water, food (such as soil), and sunlight. I hope my bean will last as long as it can, because I am willing to learn more." (Grace, age 10)

Just as these students have learned to develop their skills through patient observation I feel that I have developed my ability to listen without trying to manipulate their ideas to fit an objective. Facilitating this process takes practice and research, just like growing a bean plant. Fostering their experiences instead of capitalizing on their learning is my goal now. Reading their written words and watching as they draw what they see allows me to hear their voices in their work. As their teacher I should always be listening and my own talk is limited to helping them decipher their own thoughts, develop their own questions, and give meaning to their vocabulary. This philosophy has transformed the way I teach in every subject, not just science. Developing questions as we read a novel, look for patterns in math, or wonder about the early explorers' experience results in engaging discussions and further questions that carry us into additional lessons. As a parent, I couldn't wish for a better education for my child. As a teacher, I couldn't wish for more rewarding results. As an ADHD 10 year old trapped in the body of a 47 year old woman, I couldn't wish for a more exciting way to spend my days.