Don't be google. Be the north star.

The Lesson:

     I observed a lesson where the teacher was showing a video to activate background knowledge for a passage they were about to read about Frederick Douglass. She modeled how to collect information about the topic and to notice when the information differed from her knowledge. Throughout the lesson, she carefully addressed context, word origins, figurative language, inferences, historical references and timelines. Her questioning was classic sequence of chaining: breaking the tasks into small parts that the students could easily digest and gradually get each question correct each question logically leading the student to the final conclusion and interpretation. Masterfully done.

The Bouncer

     As we debriefed the lesson, she bemoaned how difficult it was for students to remember the lessons and engage in the critical thinking. We talked about the culprit – technology and instant gratification. While it is true that technology influences the problems we see in classrooms, that’s not what’s causing the problem.

     First of all, people these days have what’ I’d call an overdeveloped hippocampus. That’s the part of your brain that’s the bouncer at a popular club. The hippocampus decides what gets in and what stays out. If the information is novel, funny, interesting, emotionally charged, or obviously relevant and useful, it gets the hand-stamp and moves into short-term memory and has a chance at getting to the dance floor of long-term memory and use. 

     If it’s boring, something you can google, or not immediately useful and relevant, it goes home alone. No getting in line for short-term memory. No chance of putting it’s moves on display in the long-term memory dance floor. They might remember the time they were in line, but they don’t remember much else. People are storing these memories like bookmarks. They remember where they were and where they could go to find the information if they want to, but they don’t actually encode the data as memories.

     Y’all, that means the memory is not physically or chemically or electrically encoded in the brain. It’s. Not. There. Tell me that you don’t have kids that have NO recall or memories of something you have taught. Tell me that your kids are capitalizing i. Tell me that your kids go, “ooohhhh” when you remind them of an activity you did or a story plot and can remember what lesson they were supposed to learn from it. You can “cue” their internal bookmark, but they don’t actually remember the lesson. Their hippocampus is a very restrictive and strong bouncer.

     It’s not because the kids are lazy. It’s not because they don’t care. Well, they kinda don’t care. Why should they if they can find the answer with a cell phone or really have no reason to use the skill? Actually sounds pretty healthy to me.

The Real Problem

     The real problem is the way we teach. I’ve read that there was a shift in the brain after 9-11. With the unfiltered flood of information, kids had access to scenes and images that normally are mediated by adults. Sure, we’ve known that the information age changes who holds the information and that we can’t be the sage on the stage.

     Kids don’t need us to tell them facts or give them information about anything. They don’t need us to tell them if their answers are correct or not. You can google all that s***. Used to, kids would listen to us anyway, fill out our workshits. They’d sit nicely in class, wait for us to ask a question, wait for someone else to call out the answer one at a time (or call out with several others in an unruly group chorus), and then wait until we told them if that’s the answer we were looking for or not.

     I’m not sure what’s continued to happen since 9-11, but kids are no longer willing to put up with our instructional approach. They just don’t participate. Like, at all. And when we ask them to think critically, we get mad at them because they can’t. Lazy apathetic kids.

Explaining the solution: What I saw:

     In the lesson I observed, we were watching a Discovery video – well done and engaging– about Frederick Douglass. Periodically, the teacher would stop the video and ask questions. We’re supposed to do that right? Stop videos periodically to check for understanding and teach? Yes. This is the sequence that followed when the documentary displayed a copy of The Liberator, a popular newspaper that Frederick consulted regularly once he reached freedom in the north. 

Teacher: What word do you see in the Headline?

Three kids randomly: Liberate, Liberty, Liberty

Teacher: One at a time. Raise your hand. Marissa?

Marissa: Liberty

Teacher: Yes. Liberty. What does that mean.?

Almost the whole class: Freedom!

Teacher: What does that tell you that this paper will be about?

Kids:

Teacher: If Frederick Douglass is reading this prior to the civil war, what will the paper be writing about?

Long Pause.

Teacher: It starts with “sl…”

Kids: Slavery!

Teacher: Yes. (starts the video again)

Explaining the solution: What to do instead?

     The teacher was frustrated that she had to walk them through the same process the next time when the documentary showed another newspaper called The North Star.

  The kids didn’t know what topics would be in this newspaper either. Even though she’d already talked them through how to figure it out on the previous one. I’d never been successful in explaining what I meant before, but this is what I tried:

Chaining:

     Shona: So, what you are doing here is called chaining. You broke the task into small chunks that they could tackle one at a time. Each of your questions led to the next one. But when you asked, “What word do you see in the title?” the kids answered and were done with that question. They got it right. Moving on. They didn’t realize that you were leading them through a sequence of questions. When you asked the next question, “What does that mean?” they were answering a new question with a right answer that was unconnected to the first one. And they still didn’t know where you were headed with that question. Because that was only in your head, not theirs. It's like you give them one link of the chain at a time and they don't know where they are going or what they are building. 

     You know where you are going and what you want them to know, but they don’t. And that’s really what you are teaching: how to use word meaning to understand text evidence and author’s purpose. You are supposed to be teaching them how to think, but you are the only one doing the thinking. That comes from an old philosophy of behaviorism. That’s the way we were taught. That’s how we learned to teach. That’s what our previous evaluation systems were based on. You were considered successful if you could break things down into chunks that kids could manage one bit at a time. And you're the only one holding it together. 

     Teacher: So I’m not supposed to scaffold?

     Me. Interesting. Of course you are, but in a different way. You scaffold the thinking, not the answers.

     Teacher: I see it. But what should I do instead? Tell me.

            

           Scaffolding with a Thought Chart

     Me: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I wonder if you thought about what a scaffold really is. It starts at the bottom and goes up. You don’t climb it from the bottom. What if your questions started at the bottom and went up? That comes from a philosophy called constructivism. You scaffold by teaching the kids about the thought moves and tools they use to climb up to the answer. They construct the questions.

     And in teaching this way, finding the answer isn’t the point of the lesson. A scaffold is built around a building or wall so you can work on the building or wall. Our work in teaching must help kids past answering inference questions or word knowledge questions. We must help them learn how to know that they need to ask a question, know what questions to ask, and how to find those answers so they can do thought work with the building – the text. What if we start out with questions like these?

•         How do we use word meaning as text evidence to understand the author’s purpose and message and organizational/rhetorical patterns? (What does the title of the newspaper tell you about its purpose and topics that will be inside? What is the author if this documentary attempting to convey with this graphic and point? Why would Frederick Douglass have been reading this paper at this point in his life?)
•          How do you know?
•      What tools and knowledge do you use to help you?
•      How do you know if you are right?

Then, as we work through the text, we create a thought chart, naming the things we can try. The teacher and I brainstormed these ideas:

•     Break down words into their roots and parts (What do these words parts mean that might help me understand?)
•      Consider the historical context and time period (How does the way this word is used fit in with what was going on at the time?)
•      Consider the people and places referenced in the text (we stayed away from saying Frederick Douglas’s name because we want the language to be generalizable and transferable to the next time we encounter this type of skill)
•      Consider our background knowledge and gaps (research or question: What does the author think I already knew? Where can I find the information that I don’t know about?)
•      Personal experiences or lack of experiences (What confirms or contradicts what I have already experienced?  Who can I discuss this with or interview to find out more?)
•      How does this evidence fit in with the rest of the text? Why did the author include this information in this way?

     (We added symbols after we realized that they didn’t have everything they need to examine the next title in the documentary, The North Star. But that’s the cool thing about thought charts – we can add to them as we have more thoughts.)

Who’s in Charge of the Thinking?

     If we help kids develop the thought charts to guide their thinking through the meaning of the title of the newspaper, The Liberator, then they can use the thought chart to help them when the next title, The North Star, comes up in the documentary. Then we aren’t the ones in charge of the questions. We aren’t the ones telling them when to stop. We aren’t the ones telling them the answer is right. We aren’t the ones getting mad because they can’t do something we already chained them through with the first title.

     We aren’t the ones telling that they are dumb because they didn’t know that the north star was used in concert with a sextant for navigation over sea. And that the north star is key for orienteering over land. And that the north star is how slaves followed the drinking gourd in the sky because the north star never changes position. And that after that, the north star became a symbol associated with the abolitionist movement. At some point, learning about the north star was your first time too. Nobody got mad at you because you weren’t born knowing about it. Nobody dismissed your intelligence and called you apathetic because you were today years old when you figured it out.

     Read Educated to learn more about people who don’t know stuff and are still really smart. And frankly, I’m tired of people telling me these kids don’t know anything and don’t have any experiences. So disrespectful. These kids don’t have YOUR experiences, but that doesn’t mean they are dumb. I was going to write this paragraph as a parenthetical, but I realized that this thought is KEY to the message I am trying to convey here. Kids aren’t dumb. But the way WE are teaching can be.

     When we chain…When we ask about what a word means and don’t connect it to why we would even want to know what that word means…When we are not transparent about what question we are really asking…When we make questions about finding a particular answer…we are google. Nobody needs another google. Teaching is no longer about answers and content and facts. Teaching is about thinking and reflection and skills and processes to deal with answers and content and facts. Stop chaining and start scaffolding. Don’t be google. Be the North Star. Be the teacher that shows them the way.  Help them find their OWN north star. 

Images from pixabay.