Is the Soda Can Mightier than the Book?

Is the Soda Can Mightier than the Book? 

Over the past week, I have been working with a group of educators in a research cohort. At the beginning of the week, we brainstormed ideas for a project-based  learning (PBL) or action research project that would address a concern or question we share commonly regarding education in the 21st century. After some discussion, debate, and compromise, we decided on researching more informative student performance reporting options. One of our essential questions that is driving this project is "what role should grades and performance reporting play in 21st century education?" another important question behind our research project is "how can report cards more accurately inform students, parents, and teachers about what students know and can do, and with what level of proficiency?" A third important question for me is "what does learning look like and how can we provide timely, accurate, and informative feedback to students and parents about a student's learning process?"

As a Spanish teacher, I have a pretty good understanding of what language learning looks like in practice and I can articulate that pretty clearly to my students and their parents.

In Spanish class, I can listen to a student speak in an interpersonal situation in Spanish and gauge their ability to negotiate meaning, ask and answers questions, navigate major time frames, circumlocute, speak in paragraphs rather than discreet sentences, etc.

However, when I step outside of my discipline, my ability to visualize and articulate what authentic learning and mastery look like in, say, math or science, is weak.

Today  I came to understand much more clearly what learning in science is by selling my kitchen cabinets on Craigslist. 

This afternoon, a man came to my house with a bulky conversion van to pick up some cabinets I was selling on the Internet. The man who lowered himself from the driver's seat walked toward me wearing construction work clothes and a few conspicuously placed tattoos. By appearances, this was a man who worked with his hands and knew his way around a workshop. When we arrived at the kitchen to disassemble the cabinets, my suspicions were confirmed when the man borrowed some tools and went straight to work, disconnecting the cabinets with extreme efficiency.

As we worked, we talked about all sorts of things, from music, cars, home repairs, and global trade. At one point, I asked what he does for a living, and predictably he told me that he used to be a contractor. However, that was in between his jobs at Lockheed Martin (building airplane fuselages) and his current job at Princeton University (working on hydrogen fusion). He went on to explain the physics and engineering behind fuselage design and the science behind developing sustainable and green sources of energy by means of hydrogen fusion.

I stood there mystified as this handyman with work-calloused hands explained to me, with clarity and great enthusiasm, the process of fusion reaction in which hydrogen nuclei collide, fuse into heavier helium atoms and release tremendous amounts of energy in the process.

Later, while loading cabinets into his van, the buyer  (Mike) engaged my son in a conversation about car design. Mike went on to explain key elements of automobile design, much to the delight of my car-obsessed 10-year old.

I  left the conversation to go to the garage to grab a measuring tape. When I returned, Mike was explaining to my son how he was in the process of inventing a new kind of motorcycle made from soda cans, designed with the physics of an airplane fuselage to increase the strength of the aluminum cans as to make it safely road-worthy.

Listening to Mike talk was like being in the most interesting science class I could imagine. He made science seem so exciting, fun, and practical. This was not the science that I studied in school, but I wish it was.

I told Mike that I thought he'd make a great science teachers. He laughed and told me that the two most influential people his life were science teachers he had in high school. He said that he couldn't wait to get to science class to see what they would do next and what they, the students would be learning to do next. AS he spoke, I noted that Mike continued to use the word "do" when he referred to his science learning.

When I asked if he studied I science in college, Mike responded that he never went to college. He said, "I didn't need to go to college to study science. I do science everyday." He told me that his teachers didn't "teach" him science, they taught him how to "do" science.

I found out later that Mike will be working with a hydrogen fusion program in France called Iter using the science he learned to "do" in high school from two influential teachers who knew that the real  measure of learning is being able to do something out in the world with what you have learned.

After Mike left, I began to wonder what his grade in his science classes were. Was he an A student? He didn't strike me as the kind of guy who cared much about that. I could be wrong though. Nonetheless, I began to wonder again. If Mike did get A grades in his science class, how did his A compare with the A of his classmates. 

Surely not all of Mike's classmates came out of those classes with the same level of application and synthesis as he did. I would guess that there were several A students in that class that would have little idea of what hydrogen fusion even is. 

So how might that hypothetical A grade informed those students about what scientific skills they possess? 

What if Mike received a C in science because he didn't do his homework or didn't do well on rote tests, but he was masterful at practical application of scientific principles? 

Would Mike think of himself as simply an average science student? Would that be an accurate evaluation of his science skills? 

What makes a science student excellent? Averaged numbers? Demonstrated skills to work within the scientific model? How do we communicate that accurately to students?

Somewhere along the line, someone taught Mike what skills a good scientist possesses, whether explicitly or implicitly. He continues to use those lessons everyday in complex and authentic situations that might one day benefit all of us. 

Is the soda can mightier than the book in terms of science skills? I don't know the answer to that question yet.  However, I am pretty sure that helping students understand what scientific skill sets they need to "do" science led to some pretty impressive results for one Craigslist buyer. 

The following is a Ted Talk video by a  9th and 10th grade physical science and biology teacher on Standard based grading: 

Standards Based Grading and the Game of School: Craig Messerma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn_sCLoQNVs