Well, what if you don’t find anything?! Musings on Emergent & Inquiry-Based Learning
There are a wealth of “buzz” words floating around the world of education and schools across the province; rhetoric thrown out to parents and learning communities at large, often used, but rarely authentic.
I’ve quickly learned that majority of inquiry based, and emergent learning that is sold to parents, is contrived by the teacher at the front of the four wall classroom; I have in fact, at one time, been that teacher. The open-end problem is carefully created within a unit of study that has also been selected and planned - not by those learning, but arbitrarily by adults, some who work directly with children and some who haven’t in many, many years. Skilled teachers then offer their students a cleverly crafted and meticulously planned “hook” to engage them in the problem that they will be working on, usually with a variety of (pre-selected) materials that students can choose from in order to tackle the problem - wait, did you catch that? Say that again?
We need to “hook” kids into engagement?
Teachers work tirelessly to do this everyday, many with wonderful skill and passion. The problem is not actually theirs, but rather it’s that such a meticulously prescribed curriculum with hundreds of specific expectations leaves little room for authentic inquiry and emergent based learning. We set up problems for students in order to check off those expectations, none of which are chosen by the young minds and hearts of the learners. It is to no surprise then that masterfully planned, partially effective “hooks” must be used to engage students into learning.
…
Let’s skip ahead. It’s Thursday morning and we are out on our daily morning adventure, exploring nature and all that it has to offer. We are playing, we are creating, we are looking for animals, we are looking at the changing leaves, and sometimes we are just walking and talking. And then … it’s spotted.
“I found a dead bird!” I hear from a little voice.
We all rush over.
“There’s one over here too.”
Our footing quickly switches as we head to the other side of the path to see the second discovery.
What quickly unfolds after sounds a little like this:
“Are they dead?” (Yes, says another, they aren’t moving at all)
“Maybe it’s the mommy and daddy bird”
“How did they die?” (A long silence, no one is really sure)
Enter a teacher-led conversation on predation, and what we might observe if the bird died as prey.
“But the bird is fine? It hasn’t been attacked” (Another long silence from everyone)
Now it’s time to cue and prompt more observation and critical thinking.
“Look all around you, what else is close by?”
After hearing the natural first responses of five and six year-old - “leaves and trees” - one little voice pipes up:
“WIRES!!”
“Yes! Look up, at the hydro lines” I say.
“There’s electricity in the wires - that’s how they died!” one student exclaims.
In the flurry of excitement, questions, and chatter, I smile, thrilled at what has just transpired. Thrilled that I have done so little, and thrilled that they solved this themselves. No walls, no desks, no calculated “hooks”, no prescribed materials - just a real problem, an authentic learning opportunity.
“Katherine, can we dissect it?” (Says a returning student)
“What is dissect?” (From a new student)
“You cut is open and look at the inside”
(Perfect the returning student has connected to the frog we dissected last year - that smile of mine is growing even larger!)
“YEESSS let’s do that!!! Can we do that?!?! Can we do that?!”
…
With delicate hands we placed the two birds on a large leaf (enter another discussion - touching dead animals and bacteria), brought the birds back to school, and over the next two days studied the exterior and interior (some new vocabulary acquisition) body parts.
We compared the external parts of the bird to external human body parts, and through student generated questions discovered that birds, like us humans, also have tongues!
We used an interactive anatomy diagram while we dissected the bird together.
We examined the ribs, the liver, the small intestine, the esophagus, and the brain (cerebral hemisphere)
And we learned when, why, and how to safely dissect.
Were we studying a unit on birds? No. Were we doing a unit on anatomy and body parts. No (although we had just talked about joints when reading The Wizard of Oz. Things sure have a way of coming together!) Did we have other learning tasks planned. Yes. Did we throw them out the window. Absolutely!
No hooks. No forced engagement. Inquisitive little minds and whole lot of opportunity. Authentic learning, authentic problems, authentic engagement.
We have been asked time and time again by parents, by friends, by other colleagues, and by teacher candidates
“Well, what if you don’t find anything?”
Then we’ve spent time moving our bodies, calming our minds, immersed in nature. And when we make our next discovery, it will be even more exciting, even more magical.
“Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself that child is kept from inventing it and consequently understanding it completely” - Jean Piget
So we will wait.
Wait for our next discovery.
Wait for our next emergent, inquiry-based opportunity.
Wait for student driven engagement.
Wait for authenticity in learning.