Over the course of the week of watching the UE1 class it's become pretty clear to me that many of the teachers, especially Heather want to get at what pure energy really is beyond all this business about the different forms in can be in. This morning Eleanor finally brought up the question "what is energy?" with the intention of starting to answer it. First of all, as soon as she said she would give them that answer, all the teachers said "YAY!," a very understandable exclamation since they have been struggling with the concept all week and have always been joking that they just want to be told the answer already.
The first thing Eleanor said about the answer was that there is no scientific consensus on how to answer that question. In response to that remark Heather alone said "YAY" again. It seemed to me that she was very excited (any maybe even relieved) to hear that even scientists (whoever those people are out there who package up this information ready for consumption) don't have a full answer. I think this response makes sense because she had been working the whole week to try and come up with an idea about energy that felt good to her as a learner, but that also wasn't "wrong" based on what scientists said. By hearing that scientists actually didn't know what to say completely she was suddenly free to in fact go off on her own road and make ideas that make sense to her. I think she began to express some of this feeling of freedom today during the discussion with the videographers. I'm not sure if the video from this morning or this afternoon will be ready in time for me to look at, but it might be interesting for someone else to track her progression.
On a slightly different note about videographer-teacher interactions:
I'm still very impressed with the number of ideas that Heather and I have shared this week in our thinking processes about energy. I'm a little jealous of the UE2 class where it sounds like the videographers had more interaction with the teachers. There were so many times where I felt like I was right with them and I really wanted to participate in the conversation or at least let them know that I was right there on the same page with them. Also, the teachers in the UE2 class seemed to like having the interaction as well.
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