Trading in Tradition

One of the funniest things I have learned from teaching at a school long term (14th year at GRACE) is that kids are intolerant of new ideas.  Sound crazy?  Aren't millennials early adopters of technology?  Aren't they seeking novelty?  Aren't they progressive?  The answer to all those questions is, "Yes, unless it is about education."

When students come to visit, they remember everything I did with them.  They ask if I have talked about twinkies yet.  Sadly, the twinkiesproject website no longer exists, or I would have used it forever.  They ask if we have done the egg drop project yet.  They even ask about certain jokes I tell.  They remember everything and will not hear of my changing any of those things.  They are traditions, set in stone.  No one is allowed to say they graduated from GRACE without hearing the story of Max (my first cat) getting stuck in a tree.

This year, there is a big change happening in my classroom, and I am already hearing negative feedback from older siblings of my students.  As of this year, I am dropping "The Atom Project."  For seventeen years, I have assigned each student an element, had them build a Bohr model of the atom of that element, and do research on the history and uses of said element.  This year, I am dropping this project in favor of one in which my students will research various topics related to the nucleus of an atom (radiation cancer treatment, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, fusion, irradiation of foods).  Former students have told me I can't make this change.  I don't know what kind of power they think they have, but they keep telling me that their brother should have to make an atom model.  They can't believe I would not have this project.

Don't get me wrong, this was a good project.  I would not have assigned it for seventeen years if it hadn't been.  However, there are reasons to change a project, even a good project.  I modified it over the years.  The model never really changed, but the presentation of research went from a written essay to a podcast to a newsletter to a website.  These were modifications in presentation, not content. They were reactions to technological changes, not scientific ones.

You may be asking yourself (as my former students ask me), "Why change it?"  There are two reasons.  One is personal - the other pedagogical.

Personal Reason:  I'm tired.  I'm tired of grading this project.  I'm tired of counting beads, cotton balls, puff balls, styrofoam balls, thumb tacks, pennies, and the gazillion other materials used to represent protons, neutrons, and electrons.  In a quick calculation, I estimate that I assigned this model to 945 students.  They have built models from carbon (36 particles) to plutonium (327 particles), I believe that I have counted over 185,000 subatomic particles in my career.  Then there is the paper.  I haven't learned anything new about an element in a long time.  When I am a senile old lady, pushing a shopping cart down the street, people are going to be confused why I keep muttering, "Aluminum is the most abundant element in the earth's crust."  It is because I have read at least 30 papers that started with that sentence.  I'm tired.

Pedagogical Reason:  Personal reasons aside, there are real reasons to change projects.  The old way is at a fairly low thinking level.  It is very concrete and doesn't incorporate 21st Century Learning.  Students do come away with an understanding of the atom and certainly some of the applications of elements they might not have known before, but I don't think they come away with much understanding of why that is relevant to their lives.  It consumes from the internet (which has value), but it does not contribute to the internet.  The new project will still require them to understand the nucleus of the atom because they will have to learn in it in order to explain the technology.   However, they will also have to apply this understanding to busting myths about nuclear activity.  They will get to see the relevance of how knowledge of the atom led to improved cancer treatment, or how their food could be preserved if we allowed it to be irradiated with gamma rays.  These are things that apply to the lives they live in the 21st century.   They will get to decide as a class how they want to present the research (make a website, put videos on a youtube channel, hold a summit).  In this way, they will be contributors, not just consumers.

If you are a former student of mine, you should know that some of the things I did with you are different from the class before you (unless I taught you in 1998).  You want teachers to have new ideas.  You want us to improve.  Teachers who have the same year over and over for their entire career are not teachers you want to have.

PS - Big Shout Out to our technology coach, Laura Warmke, for her encouragement and willingness to brainstorm ideas with me.