Being in a Learning System

Last evening, I had the pleasure of participating in the International Bateson Institute session at the October Gallery in London with a number of wonderful IBI colleagues and extraordinary guests. Our discussion skirted around the notion of how systems learn. At one point, one of the guests asked, “What is it like to be in a learning system?”

Of course, all living systems are learning systems, but I think what he meant was what is like to be in a learning system that has the characteristics of the kind that supports the learning the IBI team had just observed at a Reggio Emilia inspired nursery school a few days before. This school and schools with similar learning “systems” lack the typical authoritarian relationships between teachers and children. Children control the flow of their own learning within stimulating contexts developed by the teachers. Learning emerges, percolates, and loops back and winds its way through the day. Children follow their curiosities and interests. They share and negotiate knowledge, while developing relationships with one another and among rich conceptual contexts. They seamlessly integrate sensory and disciplinary explorations.

But, back to the question about what is it like to be is such a learning system. As I pondered this question, it struck me that I had experienced such learning systems with my dog. I, of course, took her to dog training classes, which were as much about training the owners as about training the dogs. However, much of her learning was outside of these contexts. And, some of the most powerful learning for both of us occurred on our twice daily excursions into the forest near our home. For her, she lives in a world of relationships. It’s incredibly apparent as you walk through the forest with her. She is completely engaged and paying attention to as many sights, sounds, and smells as she can handle. She watches birds and things I couldn’t see with great intensity. She followed scent trails, and listened intently. And, with all of this she kept an eye on me. She’d run off exploring and following smells, but she’d keep track of where I was. And, sometimes our communication became coordinated without any verbalization needed. Sometimes just a glance and eye contact was all that was needed to coordinate which direction to go or when we needed to stop for a drink or a snack. At one, point we were off trail and climbing up the side of a mountain. We reached a point where the only way to go was both me to crawl under a tree to reach a more open area beyond. Part way under the tree, she became very agitated and looked at me saying, “we have to leave.” My initial impulse was to push on, but I “listened” to her, and backed out, then proceeded back down the mountain. I realized, she probably knew there was a mountain lion nearby.

The only other time she acted with such intensity was after we had moved to another city and went to a new veterinarian for an ear infection. When the new veterinarian entered the exam room, she reacted as if a threatening entity had just entered the room. I controlled her, but dismissed her behavior as a weird aberration, but I shouldn’t have. She was right. The veterinarian was a genuinely nasty person, not only in her demeanor, but also in her approach to sucking as much money out of her clients as possible… $677 in this case. I will listen to my dog from now on. (A week later we went to another veterinarian for a urinary tract infection. When the vet walked in to the exam room, she greeted her as she usually does with a kind of “oh, you’re okay” greeting. It was an interesting contrast… and $77 in comparison to the previous vet.)

But, the point of this learning system between my dog and I during these outings is that they involve mutual learning based on relationships of trust and respect. In the good learning systems of children in schools, the learning systems are based on relationships of trust and respect. But, most schools blow it. They may say they value trust and respect children, but it doesn’t take long for them to undermine the very tenets they say they hold.

The minute they raise their voices or exert authoritarian control, they have undermined trust and respect. The minute they take away what the children value as important, they have undermined trust and respect. And, of course, with most schools, when children enter and are immediately subjugated by the official curriculum, codes of conduct, grading systems, and high stakes tests, we have taken away all trust and respect.

The same holds true for taking a dog and putting her into a cage, followed by harsh treatment with hitting, yelling, etc. The dog has received no respect and trust… and will not respect and trust its owner.

What other learning systems function on trust and respect?

What systems are not based on trust and respect?

Play and the Killing of Children’s Spirits in U.S. Schools

Play may be the most powerful form of learning. Play allows us to break rules, test boundaries, look at things upside-down. I can’t imagine a Richard Feynman who didn’t play; or, a Charles Darwin, or an Albert Einstein, or a Carl Sagan, or a Lynn Margulis, or a Stephen Jay Gould, or a Jane Goodall, or any great thinker, scientist, poet, artist, inventor, innovator, who didn’t play.

Gregory Bateson suggested that play was one of the three ways that we can find the limits of the possible. The other two ways are exploration and crime. But, all three of these seem to overlap and may, in fact, just be different ways of looking at the same process in different contexts.

Play is critical to learning. Without play, we lose the emotional impact that helps to embed learning richer and more meaningful contexts. Without play, we lose the ability to connect to multiple contexts and multiple ways of seeing and knowing, which are essential for deeper understandings. Without play, there is no curiosity, no “aha” moments, no joy of discovery, no astounding mistakes (as opposed to oppressive mistakes of tests, etc.).

And, yet, in the United States, we have now moved pretty much all of schooling away from play. We don’t even have recess. Kindergarten is now relegated to “work” and standardized tests. We are killing our children at the root of their humanity. Their very spirits of inquisitiveness and joy are being cut off at the knees. These are our children. What are we thinking!!! It’s an unconscionable act of psychological violence.

And, by the way, not all developed countries do this to their children. Here’s an article in a recent issue of The Atlantic about school in Finland:

”The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland”

The Tragedy of Simple Science Illiteracy

I’m a science educator, but I’m not a big fan of promoting science as more important than the arts or any other subject matter area. I often cringe when I hear people talk about the importance of science literacy. But…. there comes a point, when I think, “wait a minute! Everybody should know this.”

Last evening, I took my dog as usual to the dog park. It was perfect timing. We arrived just before sunset and moon rise and the lunar eclipse. As I stood around talking with people about the impending eclipse, one woman, said, “but, where is the moon? It was way up here last night at this time.” I gasped silently, thinking that people had no clue how the whole Sun-Moon-Earth system worked. Yes, it does confuse people, but if you just observe the sky a little bit, you can figure out a lot of things.

At the same time, I found it pretty cool to watch the 1/3 blocked moon rise above the horizon. And, from the vantage point of the Phoenix dog park, one could see the moon move upwards. We don’t usually see the movement so clearly. But, with buildings and other structures on the horizon, it provided a foreground that made the movement very obvious. I went up to a group and excitedly pointed out this observation, which was met with something less than a ho-hum shrug.

When I was teaching elementary science teaching methods the vast majority of students had no clue how the Sun-Moon-Earth system worked. So, it really shouldn’t have been a surprise. But, for some reason, I thought that older adults would know or should know. But, we’ve destroyed our relationship to science… and to knowing for that matter. We really do not seem to value knowledge and understanding. People like the eclipse for the “magic show” quality, but not for the actual science of what’s happening.

My students and future teachers seemed to care less about how things worked. They cheated on their moon studies, which asked them to observe the moon for 5 minutes a night and record their observation and reactions. I told them, I didn’t care about “right answers,” but I did want them to struggle with trying to figure out explanations for the observations they made. But, too many years of schooling had damaged them. They had to look up information and make it sound like they had made the observations. I could tell they cheated, because they said they saw the moon when we had heavy snow storms and no visibility. Or, they did really poorly by just making up things without looking it up, in which cases nothing made any sense at all.

It really isn’t all that important to our survival that we understand how the Earth-Moon-Sun system works at this point. Maybe if we have to return to living without technology, it will be more important, but for now it isn’t. But, it just seems odd, that people have no curiosity about how the world around them works. It seems odd that people don’t look at things in the world. People don’t ask questions. They don’t try to explain anything. It’s just downright strange.

Teaching, Learning, and Time

Almost all of schooling is focused around warped uses of time. By “warped” I mean trying to squeeze a lot of material into a short period of time. “Efficiency” is the key word that marks this insidiously warped use of time.

When I talk about schools in this post, I am generalizing about the vast majority of schools. I’m talking about the institution of schooling in this country (the United States) and those in many other countries. This “institution” is the ephemeral, fuzzy bordered context of schooling that includes public, private, and charter schools. It’s a political, corporate hegemonic spider web of stuckness. There are, of course, exceptions. Courageous teachers who buck the system. And, odd schools that manage to do their own thing in the midst of their district’s craziness. Or, the occasional charter or private school that manages to break away from the hegemony of schooling, but then these schools bring up other problems of undermining the public system and serving elite populations. But, in general, when I talk about schools and schooling, I am talking about that big fuzzy institution of schooling and the schools that fall within this context.

The underlying push of schooling is “efficiency.” Schools and teachers have to be efficient. They have to cover the curriculum in the shortest possible time that will result in the highest student test scores. Time is the big issue in schooling. Time is marked by bells. Students’ lives are run by bells. Bells end classes. Bells begin classes. Bells tell when to go to lunch. Principals observe teachers with stopwatches. They go from one class to another to make sure all of the same grade level teachers are teaching the exact same thing at exactly the same time. Tests are timed. Some teachers set strict time-limits on activities, jumping from one activity to the next like grasshoppers going from one plant to the next… except that grasshoppers actually stop to take a nibble.

In life, most of us have jobs that require showing up at a specific time and leaving at a specific time. Some jobs are very much like schools with bells for starting and stopping and for coffee breaks and lunch. I worked in places like that. They were factories. In fact, the ways schools manifest now were designed to train people to work in factories. They haven’t changed much, even though the majority of jobs that children will eventually get have changed from factories to offices and other settings. But, the attitudes and characteristics of being obedient and compliant haven’t really changed. Corporations and politicians do not want people to question or challenge authority or to think critically about the issues they face in their everyday lives.

From the corporate and political perspectives, it is best to play this game that appears like they care about education by promoting higher standards, accountability, and measures of success. But, standards, accountability, and measures are all ruses. In fact, they are worse than ruses, they actually do the exact opposite of what one might think they are supposed to do. They prevent real learning, which is just what corporations and politicians want.

And, then on top of all of this, they put time constraints on learning in terms of efficiency. “Efficiency” in schooling may be the greatest misuse of time. Real, deep, meaningful, relevant learning takes time…. maybe lots of time. To speed through a curriculum is just another way of preventing real learning from taking place. Real learning is a way of…

Savoring
Considering
Reflecting
Pondering
Wondering
Exploring
Making mistakes
Playing
Fiddling
Meandering
Laughing
Screaming

With real learning there is no hurry…. The longer… the better.

Real learning gives us the tools to make difficult decisions. And, difficult decisions take time. We need to ponder possibilities and see things from different perspectives. Some real critically important decisions are going to be presenting themselves to our children in their lifetimes. Many of these issues and problems are already happening. They are only going to become more intense. And, our children have had no models of how to tackle such decision-making processes. Schools never take the time to model such processes. Schools pretend as if everything is going to be just fine in the future. They keep teaching the same old things as if life will just keep rolling along like it always has. When sea levels rise and parts of this country disappear, when food sources begin to disappear, when droughts become so bad that nothing will grow and people become desperate for jobs and water, when states are fighting over water rights, when diseases plague vast proportions of the population, and when energy resources can’t supply the demands – what tools have we given our children to cope with these problems?

The problem with schools and schooling isn’t the teachers. It isn’t the curriculum. It isn’t the children. It isn’t the parents. The problem is a systemic problem of faulty assumptions about what learning is, what schools should be, and what we want for our children. And, one of these assumptions is time. What about time?

Alternatives to Consumerism in Life and Schooling

Over the past few days, I was thinking about this week’s blog entry as a re-analysis of some old research data from a teaching unit. I was looking through old transcripts of students working on a ship building project and how their thinking naturally involved multiple perspectives and seamless multiple interacting systems. I think I’ll get back to that later in this entry, but as “things” go, this morning, Nora Bateson posted something on Facebook about how we should stop buying things and simplify… Here it is:

Today I found this quote in a Wendell Berry story. It has been a week of head banging with the wall of non-communication between the humans and the corporations– frustrating to the bone. I thought of revolutions, evolutions, uprisings and social media viruses. I have been feeling tiny and silenced– and noticing acutely how tightly we are coupled into the corporate web. At this moment, we have not got the infrastructure to live without it. It thrives on our wanting… luxuriates in our insatiable need for having… so: this.

1 – Be happy with what you’ve got. Don’t be always looking for something better.
2 – Don’t buy anything you don’t need.
3 – Don’t buy what you ought to save. Don’t buy what you ought to make.
4 – Unless you absolutely have got to do it, don’t buy anything new.
5 – If somebody tries to sell you something to “save labor,” look out. If you can work, then work.
6 – If other people want to buy a lot of new stuff and fill up the country with junk, use the junk.
7 – Some good things are cheap, even free. Use them first.
8 – Keep watch for what nobody wants. Sort through the leavings.
9 – You might know, or find out, what it is to need help. So help people.

FROM: Nora Bateson, on Facebook, September 21, 2015

This entry started me thinking about how my Dad, who was a young married man and first-time father during the Great Depression, used to save everything many years later after I was born. Our basement was filled with all kinds of things. If something broke, he’d fix it. If he couldn’t fix it, he’d save the parts that were useful and toss the rest. He’d save old nails and screws. Although he was barely literate, he was a genius in all things electrical, mechanical, and structural.

Fortunately, a little bit of his “saving everything” and an even smaller bit of his genius rubbed off on me. I save the screws and nails from things that fall apart. I build much of my own furniture and repair things myself. I often try to do what he called “jury-rigging” things… just making up solutions to problems by using parts in ways for which they were not designed.

These types of actions are not “chores” or “impoverished” approaches, as we’re led to believe by the corporate world of buy-more-new-things-all-the-time-or-you-are-not-a-worthy-person messages. In fact, there is something that feels very wealthy about making and fixing your own things. When I make or fix something, I feel empowered. I feel enriched. I feel like I am a more complete and capable human being. And, as I was mentioning to a neighbor yesterday, I have even stopped calling repairmen. More often than not, they charge a fortune and screw up the job anyway. So, I told my neighborhood, “I can do screw it up myself for a whole lot less money.” But, as it turns out, it may take me a little longer, but I usually end up doing a better job than the so-called experts, who also seem to be out to scam people, but that’s another story altogether.

So, back to the children and their ship-building project. I had just given the kids some letters from fictions people asking for bids on ships to take tourists around to natural history sites. Each group had to act as a company to come up with these ship designs over the next couple of months. But, on this first day, they could explore some prototypes and test out their designs. These are mixed groups of grade 5, 6, 7 girls and boys. Here are a few excerpts. The lines are coded as Group# = Group Number, g# = girl number, b# = boy number.

Group 1
g1 Oh, you have to fill it out and then bring it back. You gotta … Wait a minute. Okay. A cylinder won’t work actually … cause even if it does … like it can’t tip, right? But even if it does, if people are sitting on one end and it tips, it all falls to the other end …
b1 Unless …
g1 … and they won’t get there safely.
b1 … unless you had like another cylinder inside the first a cylinder that like at the center (???) … so like there’s another cylinder that moves …
MUCH LATER ON…
b1 We should make up a name for it, like … (???) … like you know how they have names for sailboats and that …
g1 Mm hm.
b1 … (???) … … How about “The sub appeal?”
g1 The what?
b1 “The sub appeal.”

Group 2
b4 No, that’s too ordinary. We want something that people want to come to.
[Pause. Seem to be listening to group three and their discussion of ferries, ferris wheels and so forth.]
b4 Yeah, put a ferris wheel on it. Put a (???) on it and a swimming pool. Actually a swimming pool would be a good idea. Yeah, swimming pool would …
b5 No, no. If we had a swimming pool, we’d have like a really deep, deep hole? … (???) swim in it underneath and it would go …
b4 Yeah … yeah.
b5 So you could just jump into it, and it would be, it wouldn’t be on the ship, because then there would be bars and gambling machines and stuff. [Slight laugh.] No, no gambling ’cause that’s illegal.
b4 No, no, that’s good to … no, it’s not illegal.
b5 Yeah, it is.
b4 No, it … Yeah, that’d be cool.
b5 That would be good though …
b4 A pool, pool hall.
b5 Yeah, a pool table and stuff. Like a bar, a really nice bar and a fancy restaurant. … [Responding to someone at another table.] Yeah, we are.
LATER IN THE CONVERSATION
b5 No, and you can look out them, like underwater, from underwater.
b4 Yeah.
b5 It’s like a little underwater thing down there … and you can look down …
b4 No, it’s like, has like a glass bottom.
b5 Not … no, that’s not good. [Semi-giggle.] This really heavy guy comes along and steps on it. Kshaaa! [Vocal sound effect for heavy guy falling through glass bottom.]

In both of these groups, I’ve selected excerpts that show how children move from the technical-scientific (which is what is generally expected of children) to other “important” issues, like names, bars, and gambling machines. Children do not separate out the “disciplines” of science, mathematics, etc. All of the disciplines (or subject matter areas) arise in their thinking and conversations in blended ways and naturally become part of their thinking. But, this type of thinking is borderless systems thinking. Although we can easily dismiss these tangents as trivial, these tangents are where the important potentialities lie. This is where the creativity is. These tangents are where insights and problem solving arise. This type of thinking is the same sort of thing as keeping odd assortments of screws, nails, and pieces of metal. This is the type of thinking that helps children feel like complete and capable human beings. This is where they feel empowered and enriched.

“Oh, Look He’s Wagging His Tail” – A Little Girl’s Exploration of Earthworms and How Current Approaches to Schooling and Systems Thinking Short-Change Students

Many years ago, I was studying how children thought while they worked with earthworms. The approach was pretty much like the approach I preferred to take as a teacher… Put the earthworms in front of the children with minimal instruction, then let them have at it. I then tape recorded each child as they explored and asked questions from time to time.

At one point, one of the 7-year old girls said, “oh, look, he’s wagging his tail.” She went on to other ideas very quickly, but this stuck out to me. In fact, I’ve thought about this statement for years. It’s a kind of flag or marker for hidden treasures.

If we think about this for a minute, we have “tail” – “wagging” – “earthworms.” These three things hold so many possibilities for exploration, inquiry, stories, and more.

  • What are tails?
  • What do tails do?
  • What makes a tail a tail?
  • What things have tails?
  • What things look like tails, but are not tails?
  • Why do tails wag?
  • Do wagging tails have a function?
  • What does it mean to wag a tail?
  • What other things mean the same thing as wagging tails?
  • In what contexts or situations, do wagging tails mean same or different things?
  • Why do earthworms move the way they do?
  • How do they manage to move?
  • Can we move like an earthworm?
  • What other things move like earthworms?
  • What makes earthworms look like they have tails?
  • Do they really have tails?
  • Can we create a dance about earthworms?
  • Can we write a children’s story about “my pet earthworm”?
  • Can you play music that will make you feel like an earthworm?
  • Where can we find earthworms?
  • Where do earthworms like to live?
  • What do they like to eat?
  • Are earthworms important for anything else?
  • Do they help other things?
  • What would happen if all earthworms disappeared?

These questions point to some of the many directions one can take with children. And, they all arise from a statement like, “oh, look, he’s wagging his tail.” Wagging is rich in function and meaning. Even though technically earthworms don’t have tails, the notion of tail is one of pattern and relationship. And, it is significant and worth exploring. The same is true of wagging. Wagging is pattern and relationship. From such simple statements, children can jump into a rabbit hole that can take them into all kinds of wonderful explorations of patterns and relationships and the stories they weave. As teachers, we cannot plan out these activities. We cannot predict the outcomes. We cannot create rubrics or measure student learning. But, we can provide children with the resources and opportunities to follow their interests and questions.

Traditional systems of schooling and even current approaches to teaching systems thinking fail to provide children with such opportunities. Schooling is stuck in trying to control everything. Keep everything boxed in (in rubrics). As a result, children are never able to stretch and explore the limits of their curiosities and imaginations.

The Teacher All Teachers Should Want to Emulate

John Hunter’s “The World Peace Game”

John Hunter shows what teaching and learning should be. Classrooms can be communities, where children share in the control and determine the learning agenda.

Where the Common Core and other political efforts try to control while grossly underestimating children, the approaches shown in the video give children tremendous power and confidence, as well as the basic set of tools for all future learning and participation in a democratic society. Of course, political efforts demean children and teachers and work to strangled democracy while promoting a corporate agenda of greed, control, and obedience.

The game is amazing, but the point is how John Hunter manifests as a co-participant and mentor in a critical community of inquiry. He’s an amazing teacher, but all teachers can create similar communities using all kinds of “activities” to get at the same fundamental principles, where children are creators of knowledge.

See more at: http://schoolsteachersparents.wikidot.com/videos:johnhunter

The Arts (in School?)

Even though I’m a science educator, I feel like the arts are at the core of our humanity and are critical components of schooling. But, the arts need to be “taught” well, not with more “standards” of knowledge about the arts (teaching the arts as a set of content standards is being done, by the way!), but as ways of exploring and representing children’s experiences of the world. How often do we hear children say, “I can’t draw,” “I can’t sing”? Everyone can draw and sing. But, I’m damaged goods in this regard. Personally, I feel incomplete and like damaged goods, because of a couple of bad experiences (especially in music, where the took me out of the elementary school chorus “because I couldn’t sing” and took away my melody flute “because I couldn’t play,” I am still working with those scars). I’ve tried to remedy the situation as a adult, but the lack of confidence and self-consciousness have been huge obstacles.

I dont’ know which is worse… Damaging children with poor teaching of the arts or not teaching the arts at all. However, I just keep coming back to the idea that without the arts, we’re just less than human.

I do try to draw and use photography as an art form, but music in another story. I wonder how many children share such experiences? I certainly hear children say they can’t draw, can’t play music, or can’t sing. But, the same holds true for many subjects that are kept in schools — many children say they can’t understand science, they can’t write, they don’t like to read, and so forth. It’s all pretty sad.

The reduction or elimination of the arts from schools is really an awful state of affairs. And, there’s an incredible amount of evidence that shows how the arts have impacted children in positive ways, including increased motivation and learning in other subjects. In many ways, the arts help all of us see the world in more authentic and meaningful ways. The arts provide both the artist and the receiver of the arts with deeply emotional connections to our worlds and to our own humanity.

The same sort of disconnect that is being propagated with the arts in schools is characteristic of the way the Common Core is suggesting we teach everything. Reading is about “getting” some arbitrary content. Reading (in which the Common Core has a greatly reduced emphasis on fiction, which is where the real learning and thinking lies) is not about opening up worlds of imagination, questioning social patterns, or re-developing the way one sees and connects with the world. Studying science is not about inquiry and learning about the nature of science (how science works), but about “learning” some set of concepts, but also NOT learning about other sets of concepts that might threaten the corporate status quo.

But, then again… who benefits from children’s lack of passion for the arts, for reading, for science, and so forth? “We” say we want children to be able to read, but do we want them to enjoy reading, to be voracious readers, or to read because of impassioned curiosity? Remember, people who are knowledgeable and who can think deeply can’t be manipulated as easily. So, again, who benefits? Have you ever tried to “reason” with a corporate representative about an ethical business practice? They can read the script, but they don’t understand a word of the argument. And, that’s just the way the corporations want it. They want employees who can read the script, but who are otherwise clueless. And, heaven forbid, they certainly don’t want employees at the public interface who can actually think out of the box, who see the world in different and creative ways, or who can be empathetic.

Standards, Political Rhetoric, and Underestimating Children

Embedded in the discourse of the Common Core and pretty much all of the political and corporate discussion of education is a negative view of children (teachers, too, but that’s a separate discussion). In fact, our entire institution of schooling is based on the deficits of being a child. Such a view is fundamentally poisonous. We don’t trust children. We underestimate their abilities and capabilities. We set up schools as prison factories to control every part of a child’s life. We have “manage” children as if they are a herd of cattle. We talk about building responsibility in children, as if such an idea is completely foreign to a child.

We have a tendency propagated by the politicians, corporations, media, and the institution of schooling to grossly under-estimate students in all respects. Such views are a carry-over from behaviorism and related early theories (although certainly not from John Dewey or George Herbert Mead), where children were viewed as “primitive” and as “empty vessels.” Children are very capable… way more than we think. Here’s an excerpt of observations from a teacher’s classroom in an east coast metropolitan public school. It takes place in March, in a grade 4 classroom. Although this is a specific day in one classroom, the teacher did the same thing in grades 1 through 3. This was her first year at grade 4.


EXAMPLE 9.2: OBSERVATIONS OF A DAY IN A CLASSROOM COMMUNITY

The following observations took place during a one-day visit to a public school classroom in a major urban area. The classroom (depicted in Example 9.4) consisted of 25 grade 4 students of mixed ethnic backgrounds, including a range of abilities in speaking English. This visit took place in mid-April, well into the school year, and after six or seven months of work on establishing the classroom community.

The day started with children wandering into the classroom during the 15 to 20 minutes before school started. As the children settled into the room, they talked with each other, examined some of their ongoing experiments with plant growth, played with blocks, or played with one of the two birds in a cage near the teacher’s desk in the corner. Some students engaged in short conversations with the teacher, whom they addressed her by her first name (we will call her Jane). (The teacher said that in her first teaching position, the principal told her that the children would not respect her if they called her by her first name. She replied, “I’ll keep that in mind. And if that happens, I’ll change.” She never has.) Everyone was very relaxed as the beginning of the school day approached.

With only a quiet indication by the teacher (I was not aware of any overt signal), the students gathered in the small carpeted area set aside for group gatherings. The teacher had been absent the day before. She had arranged for a substitute so that she could make her appointment with a doctor; however, the substitute was canceled due to an administrative mistake.
Jane started, “I hear you didn’t have a substitute yesterday?”
The children in near unison asked, “Yeah, where were you?”
After explaining, Jane asked, “So, what did you do?”
One girl said, “I took the attendance, then took it to the office. When I got back, we all decided that we’d continue reading [a book they were reading]. So, we all took turns reading and then we discussed it.”
Jane, half laughing, said, “Well, what do you need me for? The office was impressed that you really didn’t need a teacher.”

Following this interaction, another girl took the attendance with their bird mascot sitting on her shoulder. When she was ready to take the attendance to the office, she started to return the bird to the cage, but Jane said, “Why don’t you take him with you. Everyone likes to see him.”

Then, almost seamlessly, the first instructional activity of the day began. Jane briefly explained that she was going to pass around a sealed plastic sandwich bag with very moldy bread inside. As the bag was passed around, each child made one observation. Throughout the entire activity, the only sound besides the one child talking was the screeching of a bird from across the room. All of the children were listening intently to what each child had to say:

“It’s green.”

“It feels like clay.”

“Looks like moss.”

“Some of it feels hard.”

“Some of it looks like fried pistachio nuts.”

After this session, the children went off to work in groups on several of their plant study activities and experiments. They started examining a number of plastic baggies of different kinds of mold, which they had grown by placing fruit, bread, sandwiches, and so forth, in different locations around the room. As they finished this activity, they took measurements of their plant growth experiments and sketched and made observations of various kinds of stems.

Throughout this time, I wandered around the room talking to and observing the children. I noticed after one circuit of the room that a group I had spoken with was no longer the same. The group members had changed. Then I began to notice that all of the groups changed from time to time, as children got up and joined different groups. I also noticed that all of the talk taking place among the students was about the work in which they were engaged. They shared observations, argued about results, and negotiated explanations. As some children finished with all of their plant activities, they began other activities. A group of boys started playing on the computer. A group of girls took out a box of geo-blocks and began making different kinds of patterns. Another group of boys constructed buildings out of blocks. When all of the students were finished with the plant activities, they gathered on the carpet and shared the results from their plant experiments and activities.

The schedule for the day was written on the chalkboard:

8:20 Plants
9:20 Social Studies
9:45 Gym
10:30 Science Talk
11:00 Quiet Time
11:30–12:15 Lunch
12:30 Math
1:15 Cleanup
1:30 Meeting

However, social studies never happened. I overheard one child say to others at the table as 9:30 approached, “Aren’t we supposed to be doing social studies?” Another boy said very quietly, “It doesn’t matter. We’ll do it another time.”
After gym, the students and Jane gathered together on the carpet. Everyone sat on the floor in a big circle with a small tape recorder in the center of the circle. Jane began by saying, “Well, we haven’t done this for a while, so we’ll see how it goes (referring to doing science talks). We’ve been studying plants for a while and I thought it might be a good time to try to answer this question: How did plants begin?” Almost all of the children started talking at the same time. But as soon as one child established that he or she had the “floor”, everyone else immediately stopped and listened intently. Only occasionally did Jane speak, and usually to ask a clarifying question. Throughout the science talk session, she took notes and listened carefully to every point made by the students. The content of the science talk turned very quickly to the issue of how plants moved onto the land. One boy brought up the notion of increasing complexity (“algae doesn’t have that many parts”). Before long, a disagreement emerged about the dispersion and origin of plants on different continents. As different students stated their point and supporting rationale, everyone else listened very carefully. Finally, one girl reminded the others that all of the continents were “smushed together” a long time ago. From start to finish, all of the children were very supportive and encouraging of one another. Those who did not talk as much were supported with cheers and comments by the others, showing their interest in what the quieter individuals had to say. At one point, Jane added that one quiet girl’s comments were “very important and could have fit in after earlier comments.” She continued by explaining this girl’s comments could have led to a new theme to be followed.

Two of the ESL (English as a second language) students were almost always sitting together. One could speak and understand virtually no English, while the other was capable of functioning in English. Apparently, from the beginning of the year, these two boys paired up on their own, one acting as the translator for the other. Through the entire science talk, the two boys sat next to each other, whispering translations and comments.

At the end of the day, the children conducted a classroom meeting. One child acted as the moderator, while others brought up points or added to others’ comments. One child brought up a concern that after quiet time “it gets too noisy. And, some of us still want to read.” Other children suggested ways of accommodating the needs of those who wanted to play and those who wanted to read. Another child brought up an issue: “[A girl in another class] is always picked last when we play kick ball at recess. And now she’s crying a lot. And I don’t think it’s fair.” Both boys and girls added comments about how it feels to be picked last and generated some options for picking teams so that the same person would not always be picked last.

This day in the classroom was characterized by the teacher’s and students’ genuineness. Although energetic, the environment had a quality of being very laid back. Smiles and laughs were frequent on the faces of the teacher and children. Jane cared deeply about her students. She treated them each as respected citizens of the community — each with something important to offer. Her dealings with the children were marked by gentleness, as she prodded, guided, and supported the children. At one point, a group of children was making fun of someone, and with an almost lighthearted but obviously serious approach, Jane said very gently, “Thank you, I don’t need imitators over here.”

Her gentleness and caring seemed to be adopted by the children. The children treated everyone with respect. They cared how others felt and celebrated in each other’s successes. Jane admits that the year did not start off this way. It was only in the last month or so that the children had settled into a stable and functional community.

From: Bloom, J. W. (2008). Creating a classroom community of young scientists (Chapter 6). New York: Routledge. Purchase from: Publisher or Amazon.


Such an example from a classroom is not all that unusual. Yes, “Jane” was an exceptional teacher, but there are many exceptional teachers. But, she worked hard at creating such communities that valued children’s inherent abilities and humanity. I’ve seen many classrooms where the same sort of atmosphere and community had been established.