New School Year, New Kids, New…

It’s Labor Day Weekend!  Here in North Texas, this means that we have had two full weeks of school. I have changed school districts and grade levels. It is astonishing the difference that that can make in one’s equilibrium and outlook.

The first week of school was spent getting baseline’s on the kids’ math and science levels. These were astonishing. The kids either are very bad at standardized tests or they were not careful with their answers. I can’t believe that the tests accurately reflect what they know (I am crossing my fingers). In addition to baselines, I am building community, work ethic and work group norms with the students.

We use Thinking Maps in my district to help the kids verbalize their thinking. Anytime that the kids can demonstrate organized, logical thinking, I try to add into the mix a ‘group work’ dynamic. I want them to begin to share with each other their thinking processes and to (hopefully) support each other as their awareness of their metacognition grows.

Group Work is hard. Fifth graders are beginning to recognize gender differences and that can make them uncomfortable.  This discomfort can manifest itself as flirting, meanness or pretending that the boys aren’t really in the group.  the boys then goof off or tattle that the girls aren’t letting them work. When work breaks down for these reasons, the kids need the skill set to get back on track and get stuff done. This will be an ongoing learning goal.  I will keep you guys posted!

Early into the school year, I like to complete a Draw Test, which has been published in the past and was recently republished in Science and Children.  The Draw Test asks students to draw a scientist at work and then the teacher uses a rubric to “grade” the drawing.  The goal is to bring in the “Human Element” of science: the history and nature of science (NSES Standard G) The assignment is simple: Draw a scientist at work and then write a short paragraph to explain the critical attributes of a scientist. Then, the next day, I did the same thing with mathematicians.

My goal is to keep these and, at the end of the year, have students redraw and rewrite. Then, we’ll compare the beginning to the end.  I had a great time reading the list of attributes out loud with the kids. We all had a good laugh. The kids also showed their pictures to each other.   We enjoyed the experience. The pictures all showed their scientists as: teachers, mad scientists, or terrorists. Occasionally, there was an alien for good measure.  We used this experience to talk about respectful laughter, support through misunderstanding and asking the all important question, “Why?” These are skills will keep working on throughout the school year.

While the kids had a good laugh, my brain was screaming. I was appalled. My students, the future, thought that scientists were evil, freaky and out to ruin the world. Mathematicians are either teachers or cashiers and no one likes them.

I pulled out the rubric, hoping that I wasn’t over-reacting. The rubric scores appearance, location and activity of the scientist.  Each attribute is scored on a scale of 0-3. 0 is an item that can’t be categorized, 1 is sensationalized, 2 is traditional and 3 is broader than traditional.   The goal is to have many ‘3’s and very few ‘0’s or ‘1’s.  My kids consistently scored 0s or 1s.  The scientists were: their teacher, Einstein or an alien: score, 0.  Stereotypical crazy hair, eyeglasses, cape: score, 1.  Their locations were: basement or caves and elaborate science-fiction style equipment: score, 1.  Their work: magical or destructive: spying, stealing, killing or scaring: score, 1.

I wasn’t imagining. These kids had a lot of work to do. I, as their teacher, had even more work to do.  My first step was to give the work group names: Volcanologists, Engineers, Zoologists and Pathologists. I’ll change the scientist each six weeks.  We had a discussion about what each kind of scientist did and now I ask, “Where are the Volcanologists? We need the materials for the lab.” instead of just asking for group 2. I am also going to make sure that each science topic covered (and math topic for that matter) is linked to a specific field of study and the scientists who do the work. With any luck, I’ll be able to start including basic biographies of well known scientists with images of them in their “natural habitat”.

To be something, you have to be able to imagine it, in order to imagine it, you have to know that it exists. Step one accomplished: 36 fifth graders now know 4 new kinds of scientists and the work that they do.

Step two: begins tomorrow.  I’ll keep you posted.