” So what is your local ecology?” asks Judy Meyer K12 Education/Outreach Senior Program Coordinator, Mcdonald Observatory, University of Texas. I find, the question fascinating, as I was just preparing to launch the teachers’ program “Ecology Leadership in the Classroom” in a very multicultural context with teachers from France, Portugal, Finland, and India. I was not in a hurry to offer a response, so Judy continued “Ours is the dark, dark sky”.
Why do we need dark? To study the light “ by exploring the light from stars we can discover secrets about our universe”
McDonald Observatory, Texas
Teaching as the Joy of “not being alone
Teaching as a partitioning (Sertillanges, “Intellectual Life”), subtracting the subject from the whole of the learning and understanding, left teachers “lonely wolves” (Lonka,2018). By creating or allowing, through reflection, links, or open questions from their subjects or lessons, teachers facilitate connection to real life for students. And just like with constellations they “leave students learning after the lesson is over”.
On Integrated Curriculum: Integration will make everything easier , mind will grow more receptive, approach the center through different paths
The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods A. G. Sertillanges
From frenetic teaching and learning to building peace curriculum
As I listen to Judy Meyer, I hear what I was as well hearing from teachers’ training: the feeling of so many demands, some or most competing (contradictory) put on teachers. Leaves with little space for autonomous, if we do not have space for autonomous teachers, we cannot offer spaces for “autonomous learners” (Lonka, 2018). This is mostly an adaptive problem we answer with technological solutions: more teachers training on skills of this and that, for them to do MORE of this and that in the classroom. And then change again, leaving everyone stuck in “change for the sake of change” ( Hill, 2014) There is this linear by design almost chronological “immunity to change” (Kegan) teachers have built in this frenetic reality “to survive”: I need to teach all as quickly as possible, teach them to pass exams and tests, that actually do not demonstrate learning happening, another form of abstraction, so we can get to the “fun” part, like visiting inspirational places as McDonald Observatory, Fort Davis Texas. And there we can learn how to teach with “dark”, and everyone gets finally excited about learning. Most of the time we spent stuck all academic year with few exceptions in the frenetic learning to have 1 or 2 days of excitment learning that builds space for curiosity in our minds and hearts. It is absolutely amazing to get with a class to McDonald Observatory and such inspirational places of science and learning yet that should not be a chronological exhausting process that leaves teachers and students always “running”. “In this school, everyone has the right to live, learn, and work in peace” was written big on the wall of middle school in Vantaa, Finland. I keep that close to all our programs.
Teaching and learning as JOY
Teachers as Students, and Students as Teachers
Highlander Center, TN
Judy, shares from their offerings every year, data showing what teachers enjoyed most from these programs:
1. In the program, they act from the students’ perspectives, and the Mcdonald Observatory staff as teachers, and that is FUN as well it leaves them with a sense of “I know what I can do in the classroom upon return”.
2. Hands-on, learning by DOING, not presentations (boring), yet by experimenting;
3. Meeting one another and sharing, getting to know and learn from one another as teachers
4. Staff, as “real scientists, astronomers.
5. They stay on site as a camp, overnight, and in the amazing place McDonald Observatory offers.
Seem like teachers enjoy the same things as students if we look at what students ask or enjoy most in everyday learning. Can we make space for this in our lessons? The FUN, as I decode it working with teachers and interviewing students around the world, as the encounter of doing and learning something there is an interest in (motivation), with something concrete ( for teachers having a good class activity, for students would be as I listen to them going to some low stake competition, like proposing the work for an exhibition, for example.
When it comes “to meeting the real scientist, astronomers”. Here is my decoding, as I move through the dialogue with Judy. It goes back to the inherent motivation (Thomas A. Kolditz), that accelerates learning, hence making something that is actually hard, as stretching learning capacity feels almost easy and effortless. As Einstein (book Dear Professor Einstein) said it takes a lot of science to explain something simple, not simplistic, yet simple. And simple is clarity, and clarity is kindness (Brene Brown). It goes back to teachers actually having a lot of help out there: when it comes to teaching with STEAM, we do not have to know everything, there are guests we can involve in our planning and class projects. Teachers feel support and students feel “ the inherent motivation” in the classroom, getting a clear simple perspective on very difficult and complex matters, and that is what ScieComm, science communication does.
Constellations, connecting & we learn by passing on the learning
With McDonald Observatory, teachers’ training, teachers selected and invited to be part of the program, demonstrate a willingness to share what they learned with other teachers in school. For some it is just how a way one learns, for others is an effort of cooperation. Creative collaboration, defined by Vera as walking our talk what in pedagogies of the 21st century we call “teaching with attitude”, mutuality “we learn from each other by teaching what we know we engage in mutual appropriation, solo practices are insufficient!! oo meet the challenges and the new complexities of today”.
There is another decoding element here, by opening ourselves, and teachers do, they have this as part of their social capital (Fullan, 2016) to meet other teachers from many different realities, these encounters are like stars, they hold clues “to secrets about our own context, own classrooms”. As we create connections, we are able to practice what David Bohm called proprioception, the ability to notice how we create patterns of thoughts, to notice internal struggles and “theater of emotions” and to practice new learning. That is critical inner skill, for a knowledge creator. To support students as creators of knowledge not consumers of 21st-century reality, we offer teachers spaces and ways, to practice and strengthen to model for students. Just like with constellation, teachers and students “make sense” and create meaning through learning and lessons,(O’Brien, 2021) they stretch their critical thinking by integrating the partition by lessons and subjects. Equipping students with scientific thinking called for when facing “wicked problems” of our complex realities, this generation more than any other generation before will dwell with.
Let them learn or “look up”
As I continue to ponder on what in the USA education called “student engaging with the subjects, with the topics” in the Finnish curriculum we talk about “ students caring about what they learn”, Judy mentioned this summer time small group of students meeting periodically and they explore and keep the process for what students feel more interested in learning. That seems simple, yet simple involves a lot of process and planning from the adults. It seems when you observe, as I observed and followed the work of high school students in the STEM Outreach Lab at Vanderbilt University, that the adults “do nothing”, students do all the work self-directed. Yet there is a tremendous effort and pedagogical skill with the “silent teacher”, “with the adults” holding the process while students lead their learning. Teachers have the space and time to observe the learning happening. An essential inner skill for teachers, and again modeling for students is “being fine with messiness”. Judy, and I can feel the excitement, shared when we are with students like this, periodically over the same and working with challenges, it can get messy both space-wise and ways wise, I would say, holding the process not controlling, allowing as the adult in the room not to control the result, needing to know how exactly learning will happen, how activities will play out. You plan with other teachers, adult facilitators and then you observe how actually is learning happening. That, in our frenetic classes and education systems moves one away from burnout and leaves the teacher excited about learning with a fresh new perspective, “beginner’s eye” the subject she teaches maybe for a long time still holds passion and that is part of the inherent motivation in the classroom. As teachers preserve and embody excitement about what they teach, so do students, moving away from learn out, as lack of engagement, or caring about what they learn. The excitement pedagogically is students practicing what in post humanistic approach we call dwelling, enchantment, and then caring, creating new meaning. What Paulo Freire calls it is “progressive teaching”, teaching as shaping new realities, and futures is a continuous process.
“See the big picture. Be a star. Keep looking up. Don’t be afraid of the dark. Stay full of wonder. Expand your horizons. Turn of the lights”.
McDonald Observatory wisdom
Note: I am thankful to Judy Meyer for her time and attention, the insightful dialogue, visiting the McDonald Observatory, University of Texas, ideas expressed here do not represent the official standpoints of the institute or Judy’s, and are my reflections.
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