Teachsearching (Teaching as Research)

As the Teaching as Research excerpt explains, the most important part of learning is engagement. Without a student being engaged in what they are supposed to be learning, how can we as educators every expect them to genuinely learn? Learning without engagement may as well be answering a yes or no question. Generally, the answers are regurgitated after being memorized and God forbid the teacher ever asks "Why?" or "Explain." I shudder at the thought. The chapter explains that to first engage students in the topic, they must witness some phenomena. I think a really crucial aspect of this is giving them time to think about it themselves and become intrigued.

Regarding the moon journals in the chapter, Student 1 explains that he or she can move at his or her own pace and ask his or her own questions and that he or she likes it. I feel like this is very similar to how I felt about the moon assignment. At first I thought, "Oh crap. I have jacked up every SINGLE moon journal I have EVER done and here I am having to do it AGAIN?!" And yes, I have jacked it up a time or two but for some reason I became intent on figuring things out. By having the freedom to think about it on my own accord I actually asked my own questions and sought my own answers. Student 2 says, "It's fun to think about it without being punished." Again, I agree. The freedom to think is much like when teachers assign the whole class a book to read together. Yes, group discussions are good. Yes, we must all work together. Yes, blah blah blah. BUT- since when does a group of 20+ kids EVER like the same thing and understand it the same way? Yea, that's right. Never. So why do we make them learn all the same things in all the same ways? Why aren't we allowing them to think freely?  Student 3 seems to suffer from this lack of free thinking. It seems like all this student's educational life has been focused simply on "making it," "getting by," "survival." This student seems totally stressed and it's like he or she can't let that go and find the fun in it until later in the experiment. Student four kind of made me chuckle. This student seems to be the kind that takes thing at face value, and I love it when he or she says, "This was my first discovery (to understand that my understanding of the moon was wrong." It's like he or she is saying, "The first thing I was right about was that I was really wrong." Another example of learning forced information. This is true but WHY? Why not this? We memorize this as fact. Student 5 also reminds me of myself. I finally become engaged and suddenly it's frantic questions. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Whaaaaat?! Exactly. Student 6 has that connection to the topic- like that typical star student that just "gets it." Student 7 voices my opinions exactly in probably my favorite quote of the article, "Not knowing can be so much more fun than knowing. It's opened my eyes to look for something. I curse whatever it was that led me to believe this puzzle was solved." 

After these students have clearly become engaged, having them explain their thinking is one of the most frustrating, yet must crucial aspects of this teaching style. Articulating one's thoughts can be really, really difficult as I have proven many times through weird arm motions and stuttering. The students have to prepare and organize their thoughts in a way that will communicate to the rest of the class their understanding of what is happening. This is an essential element to understanding. Cranking out that coherent explanation of one's thoughts is a very interesting process. It makes me turn over every stone in my head and consider from all angles- all to defend the point I have thought so hard upon. This is the part in my opinion where it all comes together. Ideas from each perspective meet, fight, knock each other out, and then finally and hopefully come to a conclusion. But is it ever really finished? I feel like with the Box Theatre experiment we have proven how one topic branches in to a thousand other thoughts and ideas and then very likely can take a sudden left turn to a whole new thing that we didn't even know we were getting ourselves into (color). The great thing is that I feel like I have come so far and learned so much and worked so hard for it. I actually think that this kind of learning will stick with me. I feel like I have learned how to think and how to figure things out on my own which is exactly what I need to  be able to do. Who would have thought sticking a box on my head would have gotten me so far?