I entered the practicum with big goals.  The lessons that I previously delivered to the class (on discerning good/bad questions, and how to generate good questions based on an area of interest) were well-received, albeit somewhat “wild” initially — the students, at this point not used to a large degree of freedom, embraced it by participating in the activities as children are wont to do.  Nonetheless, I was very surprised and proud when I noticed certain students (who, I was initially warned, were difficult to motivate and thus often not focusing) contributed quite often during class discussion.  I was under the impression that things were going smoothly, and that the logical extension of the Questions lessons — Genius Hour — would be a smashing success.

Students were assigned homework in preparation of Genius Hour — after choosing 3 of the “passions” from their self-generated passion list and for each passion, the students were instructed to create good “I wonder…” questions.  “Good” questions, we decided, could generate other questions and be conductive to formulating a research project or experiment(s) around.  The day the assignment was due… only a handful of students submitted questions; the majority of students who submitted their questions did not fully complete the assignment, as they only generated 1 question per passion (for a total of 3) as opposed to the expected 3.

Those who submitted questions followed the “I wonder…” question prompt offered as a sentence stem.  And while the students displayed interest in certain areas, they were somewhat discouraged when informed that their questions “were not good enough” — many of them asked simple “what” questions, or “can I” questions… there were quite a few “I wonder if I can learn _____”; assertions that the student could easily answer that question “yes” or “no” was met with blank stares and puzzled looks because as far as they were concerned, these were valid questions that they had asked regarding their passion.  Another common modification was “I wonder if I can learn ____ in _____ [unit of time]”, suggesting that introducing a time limit constituted “challenge” or “investigation” for most students.  I realized that the very act of creating good “I wonder…” questions invokes a certain kind of creativity; like most forms of creativity, some individuals are born with natural talent, and others must nurture their growing talents with practice and determination as supports.

Perhaps the students’ responses were indicative of the a lack of critical thinking and creativity, which, in my opinion, is not surprising given the primary form of assessment (recall and recall-based analysis/evaluation) for most academic subjects.  Even science, whose very epistemological foundation is formed on skepticism, curiosity, and applied theory, is no stranger to heavily regimented processes by which information are integrated into a working body of knowledge.  Students conduct experiments based on research questions originating from teachers, or from other experts outside the classroom; their responses are heavily structured into labelled sections that call for information to be reproduced in a certain form.  Within this model, there is little room for the students’ creativity and curiosity to truly manifest itself — there is no such field such information may be recorded, and if those curious questions were to be recorded in any of the answer sections, it would be marked wrong, thus dissuading further creative “outbursts”.  This was confirmed by myself when students were instructed by my SA to “play around and experiment” with their battery and lightbulb kits.  She intentionally provided no instruction, instead telling her students, “try different things, and write down your observations.”  Several times she had to rein me in when she noticed me trying to “help” certain students — I was so ingrained with the notion of delivering information in a clear, concise, and easily digested way (so as to maximize students’ understandings) that I had not realized that in doing so I was actively destroying those students’ opportunity to experiment!

Creativity, in its current form, seems to occur primarily through interpretation of existing information.  In physical education classes, students are taught certain skills, after which they are taught pointers aimed at improving technique.  Language Arts class involves the learning and recitation of spelling words, each carefully analyzed thoroughly and dissected with the assistance of spelling rules.  Math class is the worst offender — the basic concept –> alternate applications –> word problems progression is so common that breaking that pattern in any way (such as introducing a self-paced, fundamentals-driven curriculum) creates confusion and decreases effectiveness.  It is, therefore, no surprise that students’ idea of learning and investigation consists solely of finding a WHAT — for every question there is a definitive answer, and each answer has been shown to be intimately linked to “knowledge”, the demonstration of which suggests proficiency and is rewarded with good grades.  Unfortunately, this has the consequence of communicating that the goal is far more important than the means — the ability to produce the proper, expected answer is rewarded far more readily (not to mention much easier to assess) than each student’s individual path towards that goal.

The answer is definitely important, but I believe that more attention must be given to acknowledging the learning process itself.  What is more important, in my opinion, is the student‘s answer — the path the student chose to take, in this case, is far more interesting and worth focusing on than where they actually end up.  Attempts to introduce inquiry-based learning exposed a glaring flaw with traditional pedagogy — students are trained to associate TRUTH (or the correct answer) with RIGHT (the fastest way to get a student’s defenses up, or deflate their ego, is to tell them they are wrong) and to devalue any methods that do not produce RIGHT answers.

That being said, inquiry-based learning offers a means by which facilitators can steer their charges in the right direction.  Given an understanding of the student’s own perspective, natural abilities, and preferred method by which to engage subject material, facilitators can encourage or suggest certain “modifications” or alternative applications of existing skills to achieve the intended goal.  And in doing so, the facilitator will be able to properly acknowledge what the student brings to the problem space and help them feel empowered to explore subject matter in an effort to create their own knowledge.  If this discrepancy must be corrected at the post-baccalaureate level in training teachers, need we say more about students in elementary school?

I started planting seeds of dissent among a small handful of students at a time.  I tell them, “a good question gives you a chance for you to find your OWN answer to something you are curious about”; that a good question “has nothing to do with what other people say is right or wrong”; that the whole point of the question was to guide students towards engaging in enactive practice (no, I didn’t use those words specifically…), which may or may not involve students designing their own experiments.  A few confused looks, a few questions; it might need some more refining.

But I made the mistake of starting off with “it’s perfectly fine for your question to lead you nowhere and to discover a big pile of nothing”, and “the whole point is for you to EXPLORE something interesting in a way that YOU find interesting; what you actually discover is beside the point”.  I told developing pre-teens that their perspectives and opinions were valuable, and that they possessed the means of producing or discovering meaningful information through interacting with their surroundings; I told them that what they could come up could be better than anything adults could come up with.  Perhaps that is why they were unable to come up with good questions… I was assuming that students believe that.  And in doing so, I made one of the biggest and most grave mistakes I feel an educator can make — how can I claim that I teach to students’ individual strengths and abilities when I make assumptions about what they can or cannot do?

It is important to note that despite the aforementioned challenges and drawbacks, my SA and I remain optimistic in our students’ ability to take ownership of their learning.  All the structure and procedural niceties necessary to ensure a well-maintained and secure learning environment, I have come to realize, can be harnessed to provide students with the requisite skills with which to maximize their learning potential.

At first, many students were not able to figure out how to set up their circuit and immediately raised their hands for assistance.  Quite a few of them were frustrated with their classmates and themselves, and I am sure that a few of them may have thought to themselves, “I’ll never be able to do this.”  A few “yes, I got it!” shouts were met with mild anxiety from students in the vicinity, fearful of the eventual shame and blow to self-confidence that inevitably accompanies the acceptance of failure.  Yet they worked on, and before long, students were referring to their notes, collaborating, and most importantly, trying whatever they could come up with.  Soon every single group was able to complete their circuit, bringing a smile to our faces.

But what really made our smiles widen was hearing some children exclaim, “this lightbulb is so dull, how can we make this brighter?  Is it broken?”  Sure enough, by the end of science block, most of the groups had figured out ways to brighten the lightbulb, and were visibly and verbally disappointed when told to pack up their materials in preparation for the end of the day.  So that’s what learning is supposed to look like… I have a lot of work to do.