This week, I had the privilege to attend the Crafting Inquiry Conference with Kath Murdoch, Trevor MacKenzie, Kimberly Mitchell, and Stephanie Harvey. This powerhouse group of inquiry leaders helped me to think about my practice and expand my thinking. Kath talked about the ten characteristics of a great inquiry. On the top of her list was authenticity. When I think of authentic learning, I picture children grappling with real issues that are happening in their everyday lives, not just in a word problem. One way to do this is through stories. They shape the mental movie reel in our minds of why the issue matters and what we can do to make it better or solve it. I hear you in the back of the room asking these questions as I shared this connection.
A few years ago, we were unpacking what it means to migrate from one place to another in fourth grade. The learners were somewhat interested in the topic, but it sparked to life when one student shared her mother’s experience crossing the border into our country. Her family was quite desperate to get the United States and they tried everything to do it legally. With limited options, the family decided to try and cross the border with a group. The stories that were shared involved barbed wire fences, border patrol with guns, and snarling dogs. I could easily picture the event in my mind and my perspective about immigration policy quickly expanded. In my classroom lived a child whose family had gone through unmentionable things in order to make it across the border. It’s no longer an US versus THEM argument, because we have just humanized the experience. How are we humanizing the local and global issues that we are teaching our learners? We can easily do it by providing the back story to what we are learning. It’s not that hard. For every teacher, practice, or strategy is the story of who came up with it and how they made their discoveries. You just need to find the stories that resonate with you, so they connect with your learners. Social Studies StoryWhen I was living in Dubai, our class went on a field trip to the Ibn Battuta Mall to watch an IMAX film about undersea life. I remember walking around the mall totally confused, since each corridor represented a different country that was explored by Ibn Battuta. There were actual artifacts such as pottery, papyrus, statues, clothing, to name a few. On that field trip, I learned so much about this explorer and how he helped to build relationships between all the nations of Islam and the surrounding regions. Why had I not heard of Ibn Battuta in America? One possible reason is our definition of explorer. We usually attribute them to European countries who went out in search of unknown lands. Technically, they were already known, but that’s another story. Since Ibn Battuta’s mission was not out to conquer and claim lands, his exploration is hardly mentioned. For this reason, I include him as part of my inquiry materials and use him as an example in most of my workshops. Science StoryAs an upper elementary/ primary teacher, I was always looking for ways to connect the abstract science content through stories. One of my favorites came when I was looking for examples of how to make properties of matter connect to real-life. It’s not easy. One unique story that I uncovered was about Albert Einstein. Did you know that Albert discovered the fifth state of a matter, which is an expanded version of plasma? Say what? As a young scientist, he made this unique discovery and presented it to the scientific community. The community refuted his findings and began making personal attacks about his capabilities. This impacted Albert so much that he retracted his findings, until another team repeated the experiment 20 years later and proved he was correct. In recent years, a team won the Nobel Peace Prize for discovering the seventh state of matter. Yikes! One way to get the learners hooked even further is by posing this question: How would you feel if you presented your ideas to the world and people wrote about you in a negative way on social media? What would you do? Could you handle the pressure or would you retract your ideas like Albert did? Now we are making this story relevant to our modern-day. How to StartFInd something you are crazy about exploring with your learners and research the backstory of the theory, the struggle to make the discovery, the people behind it, and how they overcame their personal, social, and mental obstacles to make it happen. Everyone loves a a good story.
There is a story in every subject area. How can I say this? Every topic, science, art, innovation, and creation that we know of has come about through human interaction of some kind. These people who made, discovered, and innovated have a story of their process, their obstacles, their successes, and their journey. Take a moment to find out, so the learning becomes more real to the lives of your learners. Better yet, hook them into a question about a person and have your learners inquire for themselves.
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