Teachers Negotiating Different Communities

The vignette portraying the difficulties encountered by the first year teacher in Louisiana really stuck with me while reading this chapter. She was highly educated on successful ways of teaching science and really believed that she was going to be a highly effective science teacher, as all of us hope to be as well. Once she began teaching, she realized that her students were not receptive to the inquiry style of teaching that she believed in. She debated teaching out of old textbooks and lecturing to her students, but decided that figuring out why her method wasn't working would be more beneficial. I think that this a very important quality for beginning teachers to have. This teacher spoke to her students about their learning histories and observed other classrooms to get acquainted with the typical teaching strategies used in this area and was able to adjust her teaching to fit both her needs and the needs of her students. This shows the importance of novice teachers learning about the backgrounds of their students and taking these into consideration while teaching.

One example of this that I encountered was in East Hartford while they were implementing reading and writing workshop. This is a different style of teaching that many students were not accustomed to. Students are offered choices in the books they select and have plenty of time to read freely around the classroom. In order to make this work, teachers had to spend weeks at the beginning of the school year getting children acquainted with this literacy set-up through rules, modeling, reminders and reasons for this way of learning. Similar strategies can be used in science. If students are not used to the inquiry method, it may be helpful to model how it looks, give reasons as to why this type of learning is being used in the classroom and ease students into it.

Reading this teacher's experience really made me see the value in learning about my students' learning backgrounds and thinking of strategies to combine my beliefs and teaching strategies with the strategies they're comfortable with.

Conversations with Kids about Science

I really enjoyed talking with kids about science and seeing their reactions to all of the different concepts and experiments we presented them with. Both of the students that had the opportunity to talk to were very excited to do a science experiment and had many interesting ideas as to what science was.

The first student I spoke with was very talkative and excited. She said that she really enjoyed science and that they did a lot of science in school. She also said that she talks to her brother about science at home and does experiments with him, but not her parents because her mother doesn't speak English. The second student was much quieter and said that he liked science, but didn't talk to anyone about science at home. He also said that in science class, they read, answer questions and take notes. This upset me because these students were so excited and interested in the experiments that we brought with us and I was hoping these students would be able to experience more hands-on science experiments using the process skills during their typical school day.

I conducted an experiment about gases with the students. We heated water, put it in a milk jug and shook it to see what happened and repeated this with cold water. Before doing this, I asked the students what they knew about gases and both talked about pollution. The first child said she only sees gases when they come out of a car pipe and go into the air and the second said he sees gases in school sometimes in the pipes. The first student thought the hot water would be bubbly and change the water to a different color because when water boils, it turns grey. They second student had a more accurate idea of what would happen, saying steam would blast the lid off and also might make everything hot so you couldn't see inside the bottle (foggy). They were more unsure about the cold water, saying the bottle would get cold and ice would grow and make all the water freeze.

Seeing their reactions to the experiment was the most entertaining part of the experience. The first student made comments like "OH MY GOD IT GOT FATTER!" and "When you take the top off, it sounds like Pepsi because it fizzes." She also said that this might be because the water was magic. The second student seemed scared to touch the bottle because he thought the steam would be strong and blow the top off. He also did not notice that the bottle was getting sucked in and pushed out depending on the water temperature, which is the first thing that the first student noticed. Neither student was able to think of anything that this reminded them of, so I mentioned that another student told me it reminded them of blowing up balloons. The first student said still couldn't think of anything but the second student said "OHH thats true. Well, I guess the steam reminds me of after I take a shower and the mirror is hard to see in." I thought this was a great idea and interesting that he made this connection.

These students were interested in finding out how clouds are made, how the ocean is made and how water is formed. They were also curious about how God created us and dying. These were very profound things for fourth graders to be thinking about and I was really surprised by these answers. It shows that they are curious about a lot of things and think about things we might not expect.

Overall, I had a great time talking with these students. The second student seemed to have a clearer idea about what was going to happen and why, but the first student seemed to have a love for science and an excitement about it. She also had a great imagination. I think this experiment would be a great one to introduce atoms and molecules to students and how different temperatures affect the speeds at which they move. I learned that students have a lot of ideas coming into the classroom and it is important to acknowledge and build upon these predictions and connections.

The Culture of Science

Culture, as defined by Nieto on page 129, is "the ever-changing values, traditions, social and political relationships, and worldview created, shared, and transformed by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors that can include a common history, geographic location, language, social class, and religion." I tried to think back to one of our first classes and remember discussing some of the aspects of science as a culture. I believe the definition of the culture of science would be quite similar to this definition. The culture of science is constantly changing as new discoveries are made or as previous discoveries are disproved, for example, the fact that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Science is a culture in which all people share a common history and are bound together based on this shared history, language and interest. For example, I wouldn't consider myself an active participant of the science culture and often I feel uncomfortable around this culture because I don't understand the language. I am exposing myself to science more in order to become more comfortable with this culture, but since it really has a language of it's own, it is difficult to be a part of this culture if you do not understand a lot of the vocabulary and subject matter, which is similar to the culture discussed in the article. It is difficult for people to be parts of many cultures because they do not speak the languages or have the same interests and common bonds with all cultures.

On page 138, Nieto explains that culture is usually learned through interactions with families and communities, which I believe is similar to science. Many science concepts are learned at a young age through discussions with parents about observations made by children. For example, kindergarteners at my inernship notice how leaves are changing colors and ask their parents and teachers how and why this happens. They also notice that it is getting colder out and wonder why that happens as well. By having discussions like this with their families and others in the community, they are constantly observing and explaining different concepts, many of which deal with science. People also use many of the process skills in throughout everyday interactions. For example, we are always planning our schedules and predicting what will happen in upcoming interactions and communicating our ideas to others. Because of this, I believe the culture of science may be learned through family and members of the community, as well as ethnic and religious cultures.

The Need for Data

Throughout the article Yes, We Can, there were many concepts that I support, but a few that I am unsure of. I completely agree with the author when she states that if schools collect data to support their views, it will be much harder for states and districts to ignore the issues at hand. It is one thing to believe that a specific teaching method or program works and a completely different thing to produce research and data that prove that this method is improving education for students. For example, East Hartford has been implementing Reader's and Writer's workshop in some classrooms. It is up to the teacher whether they want to use this new teaching method or stay with their traditional methods, as of now, but teachers who believe in this way of teaching are collecting data on their students progress and test scores constantly to present to the district and the state in order to change the way reading and writing are taught throughout the state. Many struggling schools buy scripted reading programs and do not get the results that they hope for. Using Reader's and Writer's workshop to teach literacy has proven to be quite effective and I hope these teachers can compile their results and make a positive change throughout their struggling district, and possibly throughout the state. Collecting data and proving your case is the only way to cause positive change, which is what struggling districts need.

The author seemed to place the majority of the blame for schools that struggle on the teachers. I agree that teachers need to be committed to their student's success and qualified in the subjects they teach, but I believe that there are many outside factors that affect student success, such as district-wide programs (ie. scripted reading) that teachers are forced to use in some places. In this case, the teaching methods that they use are not chosen by them and I don't think it is right to blame them in these cases. For example, some elementary schools in Hartford use this type of reading program and have not gotten very positive results. Some entire schools are forced to teach in this manner, which must be frustrating to teachers who want to see change and positive results and I don't think it is right to blame them for the success of their students.

Science in School

As we continue to discuss the methods of science teaching in class, I cannot help but think back to my years in elementary school and middle school. I honestly don't remember doing any science until sixth grade when we began to switch classes and I had an actual science period. I remember doing a lot of exciting experiments with Mr. Anthony and I don't remember doing a lot of book work. We had an egg drop, a solubility lab, a tank with different amphibians and reptiles in it, a pasta race, a moon journal and did many more activities. I remember measuring and making graphs of different results and posting them around the school. Going into middle school, I was so excited for science class, but it was a great disappointment. The majority of my science classes in middle school and high school consisted of watching videos, reading articles and textbooks and writing papers about the videos and texts that we were introduced to.

Science lost all of its mystery and excitement for me, which is why I am so interested in instilling this in my students. Science is so important in everyday life and I feel as if I am lacking in many of the skills learned in science classes, such as observation and critical thinking. I have noticed that the elementary school in East Hartford that I am interning in tends to do science every afternoon for about forty minutes. The first graders were just using a very simple classification method during science to group sets of animals together, which I was very excited to see.

While student teaching, I taught what I was told was a science lesson on the ocean to my fourth grade class. What it really was was a research paper based around a topic in science. The students were not using any of the process skills and this was a daunting task for many of them. We worked on this unit for about a month. Then, I learned that in fifth grade the students would be taking a science CMT. This research paper did not help them with this test and did not excite them about science. I hope I will get the opportunity to see more science lessons while I am interning at Langford and learn more about how to teach science in a meaningful way.