Episode title: UE1 120628 1000 T5&ET vulnerable and learn
(Loose) transcript: [00:00:00.00] Ana: Can, can I also encourage you, we've talked a little bit about that there's, we're here as adults learning adult content and then but just as teachers, we're also always thinking about how can I do this in my classroom? How does this fit in my curriculum? Or let's try to (?) work with my kids. But we have, as instructors, we've planned this class for adult learners. So the focus isn't, if we had the time, we wouldn't bring in 28 fifth graders and do this with them, necessarily. You know, so this, we're not saying, oh, this is how you teach energy to students. So, it is, and this is definitely planned as a class for adult learners.
[00:00:41.22] Ana: And we will certainly (?) in my classroom, use Energy Theater, and we know that teachers who have taken this class before have used a number of these strategies, tied to their curriculum in their classrooms. (inaudible) So just be sure you're still kind of keeping those things separate.
[00:01:03.23] Mike: And that's, um, maybe that should be made, maybe pound that into our brains a little more when we come in. It is really difficult to take off that teacher hat. I mean whenever, I find that when I read anything, even if I'm trying to read for pleasure, that it's still seeping in in how can I use this in my instructional life, in my teaching life?
[00:01:25.02] Mike: So it's really hard to take off that teacher hat. Maybe that when you walk in, you should be very, you know, wear a little teacher hat and rip it off and light it on fire! (Laughter) Something to show us that we're, we are, we need to be sitting here as just learners and absorbing the stuff and getting it, rather than analyzing it as professionals. Because it's very difficult to take off that hat.
[00:01:50.14] (I can't really tell what's going on, too much talking.)
Ana: Lighting it on fire may not make a difference. We just, this is what teachers, this is what we do.
Lezlie: Yes, Ana mentioned it before, too.
Ana: I'm always hammering on it. (Lezlie says something) I said it three times on Monday...it's just what we do as teachers.
Lezlie: Yeah.
[00:02:08.09] Lezlie: Our first thought is how does this work in my classroom? How would it, what do I do with my kids? And we can be better about reminding you, wait a minute here, we're not there yet. We'll let you be, really be teachers for the last part of the day today, and some more on Friday.
Someone off camera: I'm okay just being a person right now and not being a teacher. We don't ever have to do that, I'd be okay. As far as I'm concerned, this is my vacation (inaudible).
[00:02:36.11] Lezlie: Yeah.
Douglas: I just wanted to say that, you know, I learned a lot, and I don't know if I would have understood it as well had you done it any other way. So for me, this is really working. It's been a positive experience.
Lane: I just want to follow up on Ana's point to sort of (inaudible). Um, I think while we're certainly not, this course wasn't structured with the idea to be, to be replicated with fifth graders, um, I think there are lots of ways, we all feel like there are elements of what we're doing. Because there are things in teaching and learning that are universal.
[00:03:23.11] Someone (Lezlie?): Or just good practice.
Lane: So I think, you know, for example, the, while you wouldn't negotiate it the way we did with your own students, the concept of idea first and language later, I think, is something that (inaudible). I mean, the idea that it's frustrating to be using words before you agree on the meaning, that's something that is true of all of us and I think possibly could apply really well to ELL learners in the sense that once they have an idea. Cause while they don't have access to the language of science, they may have even less access than other learners, they certainly have the language with which to construct their ideas.
[00:04:27.01] Lezlie: And they have access to the experience and to pictures and to those kinds of things, too. Um, Sean had his hand up.
Sean: Yeah, I was gonna say as teachers, I think oftentimes it's nice, especially in this kind of curriculum, to know what you're talking about when you're looking for those strategies, questioning and getting kids thinking about topics that they haven't. On the other side of it, you probably don't have the time to teach this way all the time in your classroom. So you need to be able to lead students to the answers, if possible, or to see what they're, what kind of information they have provided that you can build on.
[00:05:09.25] Sean: And if you don't have the answers, if you haven't gone through the learning process, which is what I think this class is really about is us as learners learning to (?) back on our own teaching strategies at the same time to help students learn better. Without that, I don't think you can be as powerful a teacher.
Lezlie: Thanks for sharing that.
[00:05:28.27] Jeannie: I was just, I think the timing of this is great for us to try to not think of being teachers, cause it's easier every day to think of summer vacation. But it also helps me realize that really, as an elementary school teacher, I don't have the responsibility so much to teach content of science, but to teach kids how to think scientifically or to help them continue to think scientifically. Because I think from toddlers on they already do. So to help them have this great experience about how wonderfully fun it is to, and have all these different instructional strategies and to, and then go forth with this great ability to do inquiry science so that, you know, they'll get a lot of content later.
[00:06:08.22] Lane: As a college instructor, I always, I'm much less concerned about the content that the students learn in college than I am about the fact that they still love science and feel empowered as scientists. And have a sense of what, what science is, how it works. And if they come to my class with that, you know, you can, we can work out (inaudible).
Lezlie: Go ahead.
[00:06:42.02] Dan: I think (inaudible) this discussion, that we as adult learners, the bad habits that we might pick up or things like (inaudible) for me it's that I don't want to participate in any discussion if I don't have the right language for it because I don't want to sound like an idiot. So all of those stories that I think we begin to tell ourselves along the way.
[00:07:02.26] Dan: Whereas kids, if we can still help them to still be playful, and to explore, to take risks, and to suspend that judgment. You know, it's like Ana said, I remember her saying, yeah, easier said than done. (inaudible) It's what we do over the course of time to be intelligent, functioning people. To appear knowledgeable about things. But to take that risk, I guess...
[00:07:32.28] Dan: ...and for me, it's like, since I don't know this subject, it's not pretending. It's that fear of, okay, let's just be vulnerable. And learn. For learning's sake.
Commentary: Renee Michelle posted about a portion of this clip here, and I was so curious to know more that I went back to the video records to find what happened before and after this. There was another piece that was significant to me, so I went ahead and clipped it for my records.
As context, just before the clip begins, a teacher is talking about how she teaches mostly ELL students, so it's very hard for her to imagine not giving them words before concepts, since they just don't have the words. (This was noteworthy to me as well, as was Lezlie's and Lane's beautiful response that they have their experiences to draw from.)
That extra, significant piece in the clip was when Mike comments on how difficult it is for him to take off his teacher hat. I've said elsewhere (though I can't find where at the moment) that I think it's very difficult to separate teachers' science identities from their science teacher identities. I love that Ana oh-so-gently reminds the teachers that they are here primarily as learners and how this seems to melt away some of the frustration that I sensed in the room just before she said it.
I don't yet know what to do with this clip, other than to appreciate Mike's candidness, and to feel like he's affirmed something that I (and many others) have sensed.
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