Moving Towards a Culturally Responsive Approach to Education

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 Recent tragic events have given me a reason to reflect on my role as an
educator in an increasingly unequal society.  As teachers, we have the opportunity and
responsibility to try to advocate for our students and to promote and teach
issues of social equality because not only it is ethical, but also because it
fosters a positive learning environment and is considered good pedagogy based
on research. So how can I adapt a more multicultural and culturally responsive
approach? What does multiculturalism mean to me? 

            One core idea that is fundamental in multicultural teaching is the
understanding that we live in a society where structuralized racism and
inequality exist.  Another aspect of multicultural
education is what is called “equity pedagogy” (Bennett 2011). Equity pedagogy
involves teachers who try to foster positive learning environment for all
people and particularly students who are marginalized in the traditional
classroom. A student’s language, cultureA culturally responsive curriculum
includes and validates multiples perspectives and particularly those
perspectives that have not been heard. This includes trying to present multiple
perspectives but also a commitment to try to eradicate myths and stereotypes of
women, racial and ethnic minorities. I believe that a multicultural curriculum
involves a commitment to equality and issues concerning social justice, which
are pivotal in participating in a democratic society. 

          Another important aspect
in curriculum reform is that students of all backgrounds should be held to high
standards and should be taught lesson plans that engage higher order thinking
skills. All students need to learn to question and think critically in order to
become informed citizens in a democratic society. Information
presented also needs to be culturally relevant to the students. A central idea
behind culturally relevant teaching is that “knowledge is stored in the brain
in richly intertwined semantic networks of ideas, facts and skills. Individuals
learn and integrate knowledge as it relates and makes connections to existing
ideas in the networks” (Gustein 1997). In other words, we understand things as
a they fit into which we know. Student’s knowledge and culture are seen as
funds of knowledge.

           

           

Educating Girls about God: Damage Done

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More than twenty years of teaching high school religious studies – twelve in all girls’ schools – combined with my own spiritual/intellectual/emotional/professional evolution, make me more eager than ever to advocate for changes in the way we teach and talk to girls about God. Most children and teens are given the impression that God is an old white man.  The message is transmitted indirectly in many ways: Catholic school religion classes, youth ministry programs, Church life, masculine pronouns and metaphors used for God, the almost exclusively male images of the divine, the depiction of heavens filled with male whiteness, and the masculine language dominating Church doctrine.

Girls don’t just have a hard time seeing themselves in God’s image – many find it hard to see themselves in the Church at all.  There’s a lack of meaningful roles for them.  Their voices and visions aren’t cherished.  Their needs are not prioritized.  This consolidation of white male power goes back a long way but it was consolidated during the Reformation which “enforced the need for apologetical theology and a closed system of power and authority. The clergy were trained in such an environment, giving rise to an elitism, as if their well-honed philosophical arguments and theological methods gave them private access to God over the hoi polloi.”(Ilia Delio)  The absence of women in the institutional Church – and the embedded ideology/imagery of white maleness can shift.  At Carondelet we may think that because we empower our students inside and outside the classroom and are fully committed to their liberation, that they wouldn’t be vulnerable to this religious oppression, but that’s not true. Inspiring our students to activate a new Christian culture is possible but it will take a lot more intentional work.

Yes: Christianity developed in a patriarchal society. 

Yes: the historical Jesus was male. 

Yes: Jesus used male analogies when describing his relationship to God. 

Yes: only men – almost all white men – have held leadership positions in the Church. 

Yes: our theology was developed by men who wrote the gospels & letters, and the early “Fathers of the Church” who explained scripture, and male theologians interpreting that tradition. 

Yes: Catholic scripture and tradition have contributed to this misconception by systematically referring to God in masculine terms.  

 


But God is Spirit – the Spirit who created the universe 13.8 billion years ago – God is Being/Consciousness Itself – God is “I Am Who Am” – God is Mystery – God is Love. God is the Christocentric Energy who took on flesh 2000 years ago in a remote region of the Roman Empire in a male body.  However, the maleness of Jesus is not a “revelation of the maleness of God nor of the divinity of males – but a free self-emptying by which he participated in the oppressor class of humanity, thereby definitively undermining not only patriarchy but all forms of oppression derived from it”. (Sandra Schneiders) 

 


God has no gender, race, ethnicity, color.  And Catholic education can’t keep perpetuating the same ideology/aesthetic/sensibility. Our understanding of God, humanity, creation, and religion has evolved – but the structures of the Catholic Church and the way we talk and teach about God haven’t. We need to shift what is passed on through our social, cultural, religious especially educational institutions to reflect this change.  Our girls deserve it and need it.

 

What are the consequences when girls are inundated with messages that God is old, white, and male? What is the impact when girls don’t feel valued in the institutional Church?  I’ve observed that they can lose the inclination to see themselves as God-like – holy and sacred – and they lose interest in participating in Church life. I’ve been asking students for years and it always makes me weep.  Below are some of the responses I got last week from my sophomores (I can share the full peardeck responses with you if you’re interested).  See for yourself.

How has visualizing God as a certain race or gender impacted you? 

I went to a Catholic school since kindergarten and I was never taught there that God is not a man and he is not white. I wish they had taught us that. I remember specifically in 4th grade the teacher said she would be really disappointed if the Catholic Church started letting nuns do all of the things priests can do because God and Jesus were men not women for a reason

Depicting God as a white man has impacted me and others because it has been sending us subconscious messages from when we were small to believe that White Men ruled heaven. God has no gender or race and it’s harmful to see the lack of depth in the depictions of God

I always assumed that God was white

Visualizing God as a white male has inadvertently made me grow up to believe that white males are the ones who should be placed in positions of power. I do not think this now but that was after I educated myself.

I think it alienated me from Christianity as a whole because I’m not white and I didn’t really find it relatable. God looked more like my principal, who I already associated with discipline and not fun things, so unconsciously I just sort of drifted away from the religion.

It has made me feel less than as a woman

Viewing god as white is what I have always done. I feel like it is not right that that is the only way most people see him and I never really realized the impact that this has caused

I believe God looks sort of like my grandpa did because he meant a lot to me and was a father figure in my life and he’s gone now so I sort of put his face to God because God is a father figure to me. No one else would see him like that though, because they have different perceptions and experiences with him, so I think the image of God is a personal thing. 

I think it has impacted people because as a young age most people are taught that God is a white male and it creates an image in their head of what God looks like and it is hard to change that image.

I don’t think it has impacted me too much but I used to visualize God as a man and when I was younger it made me a little upset because I am a girl and I was confused.

I never really imagined God as a person, as I’m not religious and don’t find as much meaning in religious and catholic depictions of God. It never impacted me, although, since my mom is from the Middle East, as is Jesus, it seemed to me odd to give him the characteristics of someone from a different place. In general I believe this has made God seem more set in stone and like a ruler than of a being and energy of love that just wants balance between men and women, people of all different races, and ultimately between man and nature. This is the biggest distinction to me, because by drawing god as human, we make ourselves superior and believe that we are “in His image” when I’m reality we do not know what His image is. Maybe there was a Jesus among the frogs too. Maybe they believe they are in God’s image too. 

How visualizing God as a certain race or gender impacted me is how I approach prayer because when I pray I like to think of it as a conversation between God and myself so seeing God as a man makes me see God as a father figure.

I was always taught that God was a white male and when I see God portrayed as not a white male it looks weird to me. I wish I wasn’t taught that and I could see God in many different ways.

It has impacted me because white people have been the main focus of our whole lives. Even though we do not really know if Jesus is white or black it is okay to believe anything. I believe Jesus was white and black but the way I see it is Jesus was a white man.

I’ve imagined god as a white man my whole life until recently. Now I just think of god as a being that isn’t even similar to humans.

I think visualizing God as a white man has subconsciously made me think that white people are made for leadership positions. Imagining God as a woman was something that I would never think of doing as a child.

It impacted me because it led me to think that God was a caucasian male most of my life from school influence and from the Church.

Seeing god as a male makes me feel like women aren’t seen as enough or powerful. The idea of God being a white male could be the reason why people see them as better.

Visualizing God as a certain race or gender has made me question my faith. I went to a school where the depicted God as a white man and it made me confused how they could depict him like that when Jesus obviously wasn’t European

Growing up and visualizing God as a white man made me think that white men will always be the “most powerful” in society. Especially knowing that a woman cannot be a priest in the Catholic Church made me feel that women were considered less then. It took other people in my life to show me that no one really knows the face of God and he can look like anything.

I think it has impacted others because this picture of God being a white male is ingrained in our brain and since we have always been taught this it can be hard to change the way our brain thinks of God.

I never really thought about the gender and race of God. I have always thought that God was a He because in the Bible God was considered the father of Jesus. I think it has affected people to believe that males are more capable than women and of course seeing history it affected women in many ways to not having as many rights as males.

It has made me understand why our country/world is structured the way it is with white males at the top.

Visualizing God as a man I feel like gave me an inner sense of misogyny that I try not to think about but I think is a bit ingrained in my brain.

I feel like seeing God as a white man is very traditional for the Catholic Church as many of the prominent leaders in the church are also white men.

I think most people become a bit racist without knowing, or they just believe that white males are superior. Also, some minorities can feel inferior when they see someone that does not represent them as superior.

Visualizing God as a male has impacted me because it has made me feel inferior. I think this has affected people in general because when God is portrayed as a white male, it can lead to some internalized misogyny or racism.

When I was in middle school, visualizing God in a certain gender upset me a bit because I did not understand why God had to be a man and could not be a woman.

Anytime I’ve thought of God I have always thought that God was male and white. It hasn’t really impacted me in any way at all.

 

How do you think it has impacted people in general?

I’m sure that it always subconsciously bugged me that God is portrayed as a white man but I never really thought about it or learned why it’s that way. It also impacted me to see really only men working in the church when I was younger. 

I think that this impacts people in general because it can belittle people into thinking that they cannot hold positions of power because they do not fit into this description of the perfect person for whatever position they hold or want to hold. 

I think in general it really has given people an excuse to believe that white men are superior when really God could be any race and any gender. This view of a white male as god has changed the world’s view in a negative way. 

I think it confuses people and people might still want to think god is a white man.

When people view God as a white man, they also are more likely to believe that white men are better suited for positions of leadership and authority than women or Black people.

It’s natural for people to feel more disconnected from an entity that doesn’t resemble them than one that does. White people, men specifically, may find it easier to feel a connection when they’re able to depict freely god as white and male, but when women or poc attempt to do something similar get told they’re forcing politics into the church.

So we are almost trapped in this idea.

It has impacted other people in general because it might be offensive that God is usually only portrayed as a white male. other genders and races might feel bad that their culture isn’t represented.

I think people who are not the same race or gender as the visualized God are more impacted by this because they can’t see God as somebody who looks like themselves. 

It has made white men think they are superior to others because of their religion. we can’t think of god as a human because he isn’t anything like us. He is pure love. 

It can make people feel disconnected from God.

It may have impacted others by showing how a caucasian man is God therefore making people believe caucasians should have more power.

I think it has made some people think that white men can be the only ones with a position of authority, which I believe has definitely contributed to the racial division within Christianity. We should be showing people much more diverse pictures of God and have them decide for themselves what God looks like to them.

Understanding that God is not necessarily a white male is extremely important for our country. Thinking of God as white has absolutely had a huge effect on our country and how we perceive people based on the color of their skin. The more people begin to understand that God was not necessarily a white male, the more our country can continue to grow in a positive direction.

I think it makes others distressed because they might think that Latinos, Afro-Americans, etc. aren’t fit to lead.

 

I don’t want to perpetuate the transmission of this old paradigm.  I do try every day to talk and teach and pray and engage differently. I believe we are creating a different culture at Carondelet.  Edie and the Campus Ministry team have taken a huge step this year by emphasizing inclusive language in our prayers and liturgies – and in our embrace of the “Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier” formula for prayer (which does not substitute female imagery for the divine). Our programming celebrates the CSJs who advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the Religious Studies department we are revising our curriculum to empower out students to explore God’s love and consciousness in fresh ways, interpret scripture, critique patriarchal designs, zoom out to see the bigger cosmological view of Salvation history, and envision themselves as change makers in herstory.

All of us can contribute to this shift.  When we pray, teach, and worship we can and should use a variety of sacred images and symbols so that one (the old, male, white one) is not prioritized over others.  We can also be more aware of the symbolic nature of language and our use of male pronouns referring to God, perhaps calling God other names such as, Holy God, Creator God, Divine Mystery.  I’m curious to hear your ideas – your thoughts – your perspective …  

I live with the hope that God is doing new things in each of us, in Christian communities, in the Catholic church, in all wisdom traditions – in creation itself – calling us to unitive creative action and life and love and justice and healing and joy. 

 

Teaming and Grades

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 One of my second semester Economics students just asked me to put her on a different team because two of her teammates were on her team last semester in another class. She said the students were lazy and she had to do all the work in order to get a good grade. When I began using teams several years ago this was a familiar refrain. Since I began using teams I have grappled with the question, “How can students receive all the benefits of teaming without being dependent on their teammates for a good grade?” 

The benefits of teaming are great, especially in this blended learning environment. Students get to spend time together. The research, the discussions, the debates, and the problem solving are great vehicles for students to interact with each other. Students also learn much from each other, especially when they see the benefits of working together. What once were freeloaders often become facilitators in the learning process. Everyone benefits when team members decide to work together. One key is the way grading is handled.

Giving team grades does not solve the grading problem. The grading problem is solved by jigsawing and making each student responsible for her own grade. Each student gets a piece of the puzzle to solve. Each student is graded on her piece of the puzzle. This breaks ties of interdependent grading and allows students to sink or swim on their own. Here are a few examples to show how this works.

My Economics students were given the assignment of defining the meaning of the word “economy.” The teammates got together and decided which part of the definition each teammate would take. For example, one member might choose supply and demand. Another might choose opportunity cost. Once every team member had her topic, she wrote a definition and provided an example. With four to six members in each team, we got some pretty robust definitions. With five to six teams, there was some repetition, but that just reinforced the overall definition. To keep everyone listening, each student had to record at least one fact that was not in her team’s definition and one fact the presenting team missed. I graded all the presentations as they were being given and the fact sheets after class. No student was dependent on any other student for a grade. And no student wanted to be embarrassed by not being able to present her part of the presentation.

Projects in my U.S. History class always begin with research. A current research project essential question asks how Japan went from being our friend in 1912, when it gifted the United States over 3000 cherry trees, to being our enemy in 1941, when it bombed Pearl Harbor. Each team was given a piece of the puzzle, events that led to the schism. Each team member had to provide three unique annotated sources to help explain her team’s piece of the puzzle. This gave each team twelve to eighteen shared sources. We then had a full class socratic (Hot Seat) discussion to determine the relative value of each puzzle piece. Students then individually wrote about a puzzle piece presented by another  team explaining where and why that piece found its place in the ranking.

My students love working in teams. Jigsaw lessons both solve the grading problem and give students choice, which they also love. Teaming gives students an opportunity to work together. I am also able to cover more material in less time. With some planning, teaming is awesome.


Old Meets New to Promote Authentic Reading

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We all know it. The struggle to teach to different groups of students in our current hybrid situation. The factor I’ve struggled most with since our return to school is maintaining equity for all students, but especially the students remaining at home full-time.

With that in mind, I reflected over break about the reading experience in my junior English classes last semester. EdPuzzle enabled me to expand student knowledge about racial issues tied to American history that The Underground Railroad touches on in a way I hadn’t before. The leverage of engaging videos also enabled me to cover many more ideas in the curriculum that I wasn’t able to last year. Still, my ability to promote and hold students accountable to an authentic reading of The Underground Railroad wasn’t what I could do in person. 

Strategies, including team-reading discussion boards were not as effective. Despite posting an agenda and calendar throughout the unit on Schoology, many students simply admitted forgetting to do the discussion board. Many said they forgot about it because it “didn’t show up as an assignment” on Schoology. 

I also noticed that team-reading, small Socratic seminars were hit-and-miss as some students consistently read and many others clearly didn’t. This did happen prior to the Pandemic in my classes, but on a much smaller scale. While I was able to police these strategies and provide daily reminders in the classroom pre-Pandemic, these strategies were largely ineffective in our current situation. I don’t have the same immediate access to students and the ability for check-ins and conversations that students can’t avoid.

So, in preparing for the second semester I wanted to promote authentic reading and also create a new way to hold my students accountable. That has led me to returning to a couple of old-school approaches I haven’t used in my classes in quite some time.

Every time I teach The Great Gatsby I find a new piece of language or concept to analyze, or a student has a brand-new insight. It is the beauty of teaching this masterpiece. However, it also comes with a struggle for how best to teach it as it entails a text that can be difficult and ambiguous at times, especially for teenagers. 

The writer craft choices that F. Scott Fitzgerald makes are subtle.  It is this fact that enables him to characterize not only an infamous time in American history, but also the excess and decadence that an exclusive group had access to from family money or though the free market exploding with the Industrial Revolution.

I have always found that the “aha moments” for students require early modeling of characterization, for example, from the teacher with any novel, let alone The Great Gatsby. So, I focused many class sessions early in the unit on live reading of passages and my modeling and class discussion of characterization. Each class section authentically-genuine in its own way. Fitzgerald’s language, like that of plays, is best heard aloud.

However, I do not have all of my students in class at one time. So, I have decided to employ an audiobook of The Great Gatsby through EdPuzzle, with reading comprehension and thematic questions and historical information built into the audio. The goal is for students to read along with the novel while the strategic questions help prepare them for the small-group discussions and class activities that reinforce the reading and skills of the unit. 

Another added bonus about EdPuzzle is that it tracks the time a student spends on it. For me that is an beyond a bonus as it tells me how much time they are spending answering questions (if any) or if they are just listening to the audio to complete it. Not to mention it shows up as an assignment in Schoology, so no more it “didn’t show up as an assignment” excuses from students. 

The other reality is that kids can find plenty of sources online to cheat their way through the reading, whether in person or in our current hybrid model. So, I have also decided to give short reading quizzes in my classes for the first time in three years. The goal again is to hold students accountable to authentic reading and guidance I have set up through the audio and questions on EdPuzzle. 

Just before posting this blog, I received the following email from a student:

    I was wondering if the second chapter Edpuzzle would be available to be released this weekend if we are going to continue reading like that? I really enjoyed reading along with the audio. I think hearing the voice brings the characters to life and, in return, makes me more invested in the story. The questions were also helpful in making me think deeper about the text. I am excited to continue with the book.

I can only hope that this is the common experience in my classes, for now. I will report back at the end of the unit if this approach was effective overall.

Reconnecting With a Teacher From My Past

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As to be expected, AP Literature is heavily focused on literary analysis. And by the end of the first semester, I had a hunch my students needed a breather. So where do you think I turned for inspiration?

To the ENGLISH tab of my 1992-93 high school binder, of course. Yes, I’ve held onto that handy resource, and it has helped me more than once.

This time around, I pulled out a memorable exercise and adapted it for FlipGrid. Students had to list three favorite “sensory details” for each of the five senses, plus a sixth category, an “all around good feeling.” I shared from my own 28-year-old list in a video and presented them with the challenge.

Wow. So delightfully refreshing. It filled me with good feelings for my students and reminded me what it’s like to be 17 or 18. One student described “the sound of opening a new can of tennis balls” and another held up her hands with crooked fingers to show the “all-around good feeling” she experiences when someone grabs onto a chain link fence.

Resurrecting my old list, complete with comments and a sticker from my teacher, put me in a sentimental mood. I wanted to tell her how much she meant to me. I majored in English and became a teacher in part because of her. I don’t so much remember the lessons and lectures and insights about novels that I learned as I remember how I felt in her class. Mrs. Baron treated us with respect. She wanted to know who we were and what we thought. She delighted in her students and supported our becoming young adults by giving us the space to express ourselves and make mistakes. She made me feel interesting and valued. I recall lots of laughter and bonding with my classmates. Her classroom was a special space during a transformative time.

I don’t know why it took me so long to tell her all of this. Perhaps that’s just part of the loveliness of being a self-involved teenager and young adult. And then I didn’t become a teacher for the first 20 years after college.

But the time seemed right over Christmas break, and thanks to the internet I found her. We Zoomed this morning (yay for Zoom!). Anticipation had me emotional for a week. Gratitude, sentimentality, a sense of coming full circle: to be teaching AP Lit now (with three of the same texts on the syllabus) … well, it’s simply a blessing beyond words.

Christine Baron is just as I remembered her. Just as other-centering and gracious. Just as supportive, spirited, and wonderful. She is the type of teacher I want to be. And lucky me, she has offered to stay in touch.

Perhaps with regular contact, I will be able to do more than replicate her assignments. I hope to channel Mrs. Baron’s love and delight. To not lose sight of the preciousness of each of the young people who come into my care on their way to adulthood.

Saving The World

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 “So many climate and health calamities are colliding at once. It’s not just the pandemic that keeps people inside. It’s poor air quality,” Biden said of one of the many effects of climate change. “Folks, we’re in a crisis. Just like we need a unified national response to covid-19, we need a unified national response to climate change.” (Washington Post)

Now that our government is on board, what better time to begin a school wide capstone project focused on saving the world?

For the past several years my capstone project in Economics has been “Saving The World.” Economics, specifically consumer capitalism, has been destroying the world since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Humans have the ability to make endless amounts of stuff. For example, last year humans made 23 billion pairs of shoes. That’s three pairs of shoes for every living human on earth. Who needs three new pairs of shoes every year? This is just one example of how our insatiable desire for stuff is gobbling up all the resources our earth has to offer.

Another example of how rich a saving the world topic can be; a group of my students decided that moving to electric cars would greatly reduce the amount of air pollution. But then they began looking into how much energy it takes to make batteries, and the environmental cost of making batteries. It also takes quite a bit of energy and raw materials to make any car. Are electric cars really that much better? Maybe people should use fewer cars. Mass transportation is a possible solution. So is working at home instead of going to the office. Students were spinning off with ideas in all directions. One student even presented a report on the possibility of piezoelectric cars. Where did that come from? It’s real. Experiments are being done. Look it up.

More and more my students tell me they are studying similar topics in science classes, in religion classes in HPERD classes and in English classes. I don’t know about math class, but there are plenty of numbers to crunch in finding ways to save the world. So, why don’t we all get together and make saving the world our CHS capstone project?

Every department at CHS can find a way to get students seriously involved in saving the world projects. Students are really into it. They have been for years. To quote one student, “It’s totally drip.” And saving the world is a real thing. Our president elect said it is real. We know that presidents always tell us the truth. So it must be a real thing. Maybe we should save that last idea about truthful presidents for a different blog. But, about saving the world, what do you think? It’s going to be a problem of survival for future generations. What could be more important than the survival of future generations?


Student Choice

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Student Choice 

To help encourage engagement in the classroom and allow students to have options with assignments. This also provides a choice for the student to attend in person or not. 

Giving students meaningful choices with what they are working on can boost engagement and motivation. This allows students to choose something in their area of interest or strength and meet each individuals learning needs. 

In math it is sometimes hard to get students to connect with the material and relate it to themselves. I believe that if you bring creativity into the classroom students can bring in their own interests and connect it to the content. Over the semester we learned many different functions and how to graph them. In order to provide a learning environment where the students would have a more meaningful assignment I created an over arching project to bring in all the chapters we have learned so far. In the assignment students were to represent the parent graph of each function we discussed throughout the semester in some visual representation. I wanted to see that students could clearly graph and state each parent function. They could choose any way they wanted to demonstrate their understanding. I showed and example of my expectations of creativity and listed a few ways they could make something. From there it was up to them and I just awaited the results. I got an overwhelming amount of excitement and variability from the students, including drawings, videos, sketches, etc. Below you can find a couple examples.

There are many ways you can provide your students choice in the classroom. This can be; seating arrangements, group members, ways of being assessed, the problems they do on tests or homework, and more. However you are able to provide choice effectively it is such a powerful tool to foster student engagement.


Uncertainty

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I quickly learned after arriving at the University of Iowa for my undergrad that taking religious studies courses was a popular thing to do. One professor in particular, Jay Holstein, blazed a trail at Iowa that included religious studies courses having 500 students in them and being classes that students would sneak into in their free time. A documentary was filmed in 2008 focusing on his work and a short clip from the film can be viewed below to understand the type of educator that he was day in and day out.

This fall marked his 50th year anniversary of teaching at the University of Iowa and they celebrated him with a live streamed event including former students, his family, and his Golden Lecture. To hear him lecture again was an absolute gift. One quote he said stood out to me the most and that was:

“Education leads to uncertainty. Things that were simple are now complicated… Don’t be afraid of uncertainty. Be suspicious of certainty.”

Through innovation, social emotional learning, growth mindset, and effective teaching, we are introducing our students to the complicated and the uncertain and we are teaching them to not be afraid. That curiosity and that confidence in questioning anything and everything will be valuable to our students forever.

The Problem of Big Ideas

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 This year has been a year for new, big ideas – not because we have a lot of mental space, because we don’t, or a lot of extra time on our hands, because we definitely don’t, but rather because teaching has been SO different that we had to break all of our visions of what standard teaching is/should be in order to meet the new challenges.  I think this is something that, as a school, we’ve done creatively and admirably.  

In chemistry, we completely rearranged our curriculum path and started implementing new methods of communicating expectations to students.  We’ve been switching to a mix of projects and tests to work around potential issues of academic integrity and to create student choice and voice, have students start to make connections between our seemingly esoteric topics and real-world phenomena – all of which are great things, and nothing that we ever would have tried in the Beforetimes.  

But here’s where I echo something that Mitch commented on elsewhere – in redesigning our curriculum flow and creating all of these outlets for potential self-learning, what has to get cut?  How do we fit everything in?  And how do we make authentic learning connections in a time when it’s not feasible to do labs, due to the sheer fact that they can’t be within 6 feet of a lab partner?

As someone who lives through sheer curiosity about the world, it saddens me to think that I am potentially losing an entire year of students who might have loved chemistry if they had been able to experience the experimental side of things, which is where the science truly comes to life, transforming opaque, tedious concepts into windows into the magnificence of the construction of creation. Yes, we are doing virtual versions of the labs, we are doing self-guided exploration to engage student interest, but I can’t help but feel that there is something missing.

Here’s where I start wondering- are there enough students who are not necessarily ‘good at’ science, but who are consumed with curiosity about the world to create a club?  One where they can pursue their own scientific explorations (within reason), maybe work on community science to find their passion before it gets stultified by massive college lecture halls and terrifying college exams? I have this beautiful vision of some of my former chemistry students, especially the ones who didn’t think they were any good at science because they struggled with testing, discovering something that *did* excite them and made them realize that they could be a scientist if they wanted to. It also brings up ideas about sidestepping potential systemic issues that lead to minority students dropping out of science early, because this sort of exploration doesn’t have anything to do with testing or assignments, but is instead driven by passion and curiosity.  There are so many amazing possibilities that could come out of this…and yet.

Would we simply find the same issue there – the issue of time? Students are already massively overscheduled, even in this time, and between 3-4 clubs, 7 classes, leadership, Company, etc etc…where is there time to allow exploration and curiosity, even in a potential cohort situation? Just like we are crunched for time in the classroom, and we have to decide between more but shallower content or less but deeper or self-driven content, students must choose the smartest options for their limited free time…and is a freewheeling exploration of science going to make the cut?