reflections on Angela Maiers' "Engaging Our Youngest Minds"

Shelley's post intrigued me, so I decided to listen to this presentation, too. Near the beginning of her talk, Maiers shows a slide of many, many names and icons of web 2.0 tools. She says that she had expected to be presenting on how to use engaging tools with young students, but ended up realizing that the real question is how to ignite long-term passion for learning. This is so important, and I agree with the presenter and with Shelley that it can get downplayed in this era of focus on standardized test scores. Shelley writes about how she tries to find the movement or reason for moving that will be so tempting that her reluctant-to-move-around preschoolers will keep doing it outside of class. Reading is so much like that, too -- with those of my students who are reluctant readers, with my own just-learning-to-read kindergarten daughter, etc. The subject area where I feel this need and this conflict most keenly, though, is probably Science. I taught Science as my "main subject" (two or three sessions a day in sixth grade, along with other subjects), for my first six years or so in Sharon. Then I did other things (taught mainly math, had a baby, taught only math, and then returned to the regular classroom in a position where first I didn't teach science at all and now I teach it only one period every couple of days) for nine years. What I always loved best about teaching science was teaching process skills, scientific thinking (As habits of mind to come to employ automatically, not as a list of process steps to memorize!), and a love of scientific inquiry! Now, in contrast, the little time that I have available in my classroom schedule for science has to be filled mostly with content -- facts. Facts had an important place before, of course, but I always felt that process skills and scientific thinking were more important for my relatively young students. Nowadays, in contrast, how do I continue to ignite a passion for science, and a commitment to scientific modes of thought, with such a huge colllection of facts to teach and so little time to teach them in? One time a couple of years ago, the parent of one of my students from about ten years earlier stopped me in the street to tell me that her daughter had been so inspired by the wackiest science investigation that we ever did, that it continued to influence her hobbies and even her career choice! Under the current circumstances of testing pressure, will I ever manage to ignite that kind of passion for science again?

OK, back to Maiers' talk: Maiers describes a neighborhood preschooler, age 5, who had become passionate about saving an injured panda and other animals. She read about them, wrote flyers, designed t-shirts to wear herself, and collected $200 in just three days! Maiers goes on to compare Halley's passion for learning and creating, to the affect of students in most school classrooms. She then points out that technology can be used either just to match Halley's interest, by giving her online books and articles to read about pandas, or to further develop and encourage her passion, by giving her ongoing research to read, access to scientists with whom she can communicate directly, a place to WRITE books as well as read them, interactions on sites such as DebateIt.com (?), etc.

I wish that Maiers had spent a little bit more of her presentation recommending some particular tools to help young students create online books, connect with scientists, have debates with far-away peers, etc. Maiers speaks about a topic of great importance, and describes a goal essential to 21rst-century teaching and learning, and I'm glad that I watched it. I just wish that Maiers' talk had offered a little bit more practical advice on how to accomplish her important goal, both in terms of balancing competing time pressures in a standardized testing environment, and in terms of making practical suggestions of particular web sites that might be useful tools in the quest to help students pursue their passions.