My friend’s high school-aged daughter volunteers every week in Chicago at the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. There she gains invaluable experience working with individuals who suffer from physical limitations brought upon by a spinal cord injury, stroke, amputation or some sort of traumatic brain injury. She will play card and board games, for instance, to help patients work on memory and fine motor skills. These tasks, once routine, now require intense mental effort and energy. Continue reading
This big question comes from a New York Times article by Beverly Gage, which was shared via Twitter by Mary Ellen Daneels ( @daneels_m ), lead teacher mentor for the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and contributor to IllinoisCivics.org
The article does a fantastic job giving historical perspective on the various movements which have taken root, which include contemporary ones like MeToo, Parkland and Black Lives Matter as well as those dating back to the 60s and before that the temperance and anti-Catholic movements of the early 19th century. There are so many intriguing lines of inquiry and observations but one that I found most compelling was this observation about how movements of today lack staying power. Gage writes… Continue reading
Teaching is a little like fishing. You have to be very patient but if you stick with it long enough, there are huge rewards.
Usually the hardest part is setting the hook just right.
In the classroom we often feel like we are fishing without a hook, trying every strategy we can to get kids excited, asking questions and taking learning seriously. Despite our noble efforts, we fall short many times. It’s usually not that our lesson was poorly conceived as a whole; it’s that we never got started in the right direction and so things just sort of… fizzled out.
So what is the best way to set that hook?
Bring in a little philosophy.
“I think, therefore I’m right.” Whether it’s defending a position on gun control, angling for a better grade in class or arguing about musical tastes in the lunchroom, many students tend to think that thinking about and believing in something are sufficient grounds for the truth of that something. Often, adults are no better. The whole idea of actually having strong reasons behind beliefs is noble in the abstract but requires mountains of patience and work to actually put into action. Thus, when faced with the agonizing choice, many of us stick to our hard and fast opinions rather than embrace the grueling work to justify those opinions with careful reasoning. Continue reading
Over the years I’ve noticed something about professional development. Whenever a new teaching strategy is introduced, there tends to be a focus on the many benefits of the strategy but little consideration of what must be given up to enjoy those benefits. This is unfortunate because assessing the costs of a strategy alongside its promised benefits is the only way to make a smart decision as to whether it is worthy of adoption.
So let’s not make the same mistake with the Big Questions approach to teaching.
We ended last week’s post with a question: What are the overriding benefits of using the Big Question approach that justify the costs?
Here we go. Continue reading
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Rewind five years or so…
The setting: I needed a Big Question in government to teach about liberal and conservative views on the role of government, a topic that often generates intense debate. On one side are students who think government’s role should be limited and people should fix their own problems. On the other side are students insistent that government has a moral obligation to help citizens directly. From health care to welfare, from tax policy to social security, this fundamental disagreement on the role of government lurks beneath so many issues and even fuels much of the party polarization within Congress.
I knew that a Big Question lived somewhere but I just hadn’t taken the time to slow down and think it through enough. Needing an inspiration, I visited one of the my favorite websites to motivate Big Questions– the UW Center for Philosophy for Children. (We learned about this website in a previous post and also used it in conjunction with Big Questions to teach about bravery, freedom, free will and determinism, security v. liberty in a time of war, and the Constitutional Convention.)
I looked around a bit aimlessly at first and then stumbled upon one of my all-time favorite children stories: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, which I remembered covered the theme of help and generosity. Seeing connection possibilities but not being able to articulate anything specific yet, I read it again, theis time with a fresh set of eyes and a mission.
Half-way into the story, I saw something.
Here is a spirited attempt to recapture my jumbled throughs at the time:
I thought about the interactions between the boy and the tree. The tree keeps giving things to the boy. The boy receives these gifts throughout his life. The tree seems to be so generous and the boy seems to like taking things. Maybe the boy is giving a sense of purpose to the tree and the tree is happy as a result. I thought about the whole idea of giving and receiving help, which then led me to start thinking about whether or not it is okay to rely on people or instead to rely on ourselves. What is the more honorable way to live? I wondered.
Then, slowly, connections to government surfaced…
People rely on their government to give them lots of things too. Welfare, education, health care…and sometimes the more government gives, the more dependent people feel and the more they expect to be served. Is this bad? Good? What about personal responsibility?
After stewing on the story for a while and drafting questions, one revealed itself: Is the proper role of government to help citizens or to encourage citizens to help themselves?
Bingo!
Then, I just let the question sit in my mind for a few days– all the while evaluating whether or not it was compelling enough to use. I thought about some of the criteria.
Big Questions embrace multiple perspectives: The question asks for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response on its face but actually requires a very nuanced understanding of the issue and demands that students consider many different perspectives in their answers: from a wealthy or poor citizen point of view, for example, or from an urban or rural perspective, or an owner of a small business. Students learn very quickly that ‘yes’ or ‘no’ just won’t suffice and that the answer is way more complex than it appeared.
Big Questions beg for clear definitions: The word “help” needs to be unpacked. What exactly qualifies as help? Can two reasonable people disagree as to what constitutes help? What form must help take to be called ‘help’? In what way is encouraging somebody else to do something ‘help’ and how is that different from direct help?
I knew this was a good one because the more I thought of it, the more confusing it became. That is always a good sign!
This was a success story to be sure but there’s a brutal reality to Big Questions– unless we’re patient and truly slow down our instruction, we’ll struggle mightily to find space for them in our curriculum.
But it can be done.
The next challenge was to figure out how to use the question in creative ways. In the next post I’ll share how to integrate it and brainstorm some other possible applications.
Here’s something to think about after the Super Bowl.
We know why we like instant replay so much. We get to see reality in slow motion
to catch what we missed the first time. With instant replay we have the power to paint a more in-depth, accurate picture of what happened. With a clearer picture in mind, we gain a deeper understanding.
As teachers, we are interested in understanding too, but unlike football, we don’t get the benefit of replay. We must catch our mistakes the first time and make on-the-fly adjustments based on intuition and incomplete information. Thus, we’re always chasing certainty and our picture of reality is always fuzzy. Continue reading
Socrates Questions 