Introduction
This is an analysis of my observation of an eighth grade geography class in a middle school in an urban, working class neighborhood in Seattle. I observed this particular classroom for three consecutive days and interviewed two students on each of the final two days of the observation. The school was very ethnically diverse, and this classroom reflected that diversity. However, the girl, Rebecca, and the boy, Daniel, that I interviewed for this analysis were both white. I chose them both for the simple reason that, in class they seemed responsive to questions and were forthcoming with opinions. Incidentally, Daniel's verbal responses often came in the form of classroom disruption, while Rebecca was consistently very quiet in the classroom unless called on to speak.
The Lesson
The course curriculum was divided into units basically centering around each of the seven continents. The first day of my observation coincided with the first day of a new unit on Africa. Mr. Williams, the teacher, introduced the unit by sparking a discussion about Americans' misconceptions about Africa. He had them write down words that come to their mind when they think of Africa. Then he compiled a master list on the overhead from each of their lists. They came up with the following words:
ANIMALS
LIONS
MT. KILIMANJARO
PEOPLE
SAVANNAH
DISEASE
DESERT
THE NILE
VILLAGES
BODY PIERCING
NAKED PEOPLE
TRIBAL CULTURES
PYRAMIDS
MARKETS
THE RED SEA
He then posed questions to the whole class about where they thought we get most of these ideas about Africa, and why we always associate animals with Africa. The general consensus seemed to be that ideas about Africa mostly came from nature shows on TV. He pointed out that the image of Africa as a pre-industrialized society with mostly tribal peoples living in villages with diseases is a stereotype. There was a brief discussion about Africans wearing fewer clothes than westerners and differences in cultural traditions in general that are difficult for westerners to understand. Finally, that was followed by him introducing the "out of Africa" theory of evolution which then sparked a heated discussion about evolution versus creationism. The class ended after he handed out the Environmental Issues worksheet that described both sides of the issue (See the Appendix). He assigned one half of the room to argue against habitat destruction and write four statements supporting their side. The other half of the room did the same for the argument that human needs should come before wildlife habitat. They would turn them in the next day stapled to the completed worksheet and then participate in a debate about the issue on the worksheet.
On the second day, Mr.
Williams began by explaining the "fish bowl" format for the debates.
He explained that there would be two chairs in front of the classroom facing
each other, known as the "hot seats." Only those in the hot seats
would be allowed to talk. Each side of the room would produce a person to sit
in the hot seat to pose their prepared argument as part of the debate. Each
person would remain there for a reasonable amount of time, then someone else
would need to step in and take over with fresh ideas and points to make. Each
person would be required to participate in order to get points for the assignment.
There seemed to be two learning objectives of the debate. One was to learn the
importance of discussing controversy in order to resolve conflicts. The other
was the subject matter of the debate - understanding the problem of reduced
animal habitat in Africa due to increasing human habitat.
The students began the
debate by discussing the cutting down of trees in the forest to make space for
people to live. But before that could go very far, the debate quickly centered
around the issue of "killing animals" and vegetarianism. That is,
for them, the primary justification for depleting animal habitat in Africa seemed
to be centered mostly around humans' need to eat the animals. The students stayed
on that vein for the bulk of the time, eventually entirely narrowing the issue
not only to vegetarianism, but to a discussion about vegetarianism in America,
not Africa. Eventually, when one student argued that, "It doesn't seem
like we're killing all the animals, but they will run out and then we won't
have anything to eat," Mr. Williams stepped in to ask the students if they
eat zebras and lions!? This question successfully redirected the debate for
the remaining five minutes, to the discussion of human land use versus the need
for a diversity of species, but the students had little to say about that, and
there was little time to flesh out any opinions. Mr. Williams then briefly summarized
the issue by saying that every living thing on earth faces the problem of scarcity
of resources, and that in this case the resource is land. The class ended with
an assignment to write a brief paragraph about a reasonable solution to the
problem.
The third day of observation Mr. Williams handed out a blank map of Africa for them to fill in. Because they would have to know the name and location of each country for a quiz the next week, the information on the maps was all political, without any physical geography. They worked on this for the whole period.
Student Thinking
Jerome Bruner has said,
"...the intellectual technique of arriving at plausible but tentative formulations
without going through the analytic steps by which such formulations would be
found to be valid or invalid conclusions...is a much-neglected and essential
feature of productive thinking..." In other words, students bring the capability
of intuition with them to the classroom. Educator Tom Holt has said it a different
way with regard to social studies specifically: "There is always a gap
between the story accessible through the document and the story to be reconstructed.
It is in this space that the historian brings to bear what one might call a
disciplined creativity." In advocating an activation of the space, or "gap,"
between the student and the subject matter, both of these scholars are acknowledging
that students bring important tools and knowledge with them to the classroom.
Moreover, that knowledge, even if it is in the form of misconceptions, is the
best vehicle to link the students to the subject matter that they need to learn.
From this perspective, the educator's job becomes, what Bruner calls "the
training of hunches," or the unearthing of the thinking capabilities that
one's students already has and guiding them to the places within the discipline
where they can be corrected and expanded upon.
In my interviews with
Rebecca and Daniel it was readily apparent that they brought ideas with them
about both the importance of debate and the land use controversy in Africa to
the class. It was also clear that they had some misconceptions about these ideas.
The very first thing that Daniel said in response to my first question about
his ideas on the purpose of the debate was, "Well, I didn't really want
to do that debate because I am against killing animals." If one of Mr.
Williams's purposes was, in fact, to teach them the importance of taking sides
in a debate and defending one's position, he had a head start with Daniel. He
was at least aware that there was an issue involving two sides about which one
could be "for" or "against." Moreover, Daniel's willingness
to adamantly take a stance on one side seemed to have come from thinking about
the animals in Africa before coming to this class. When I asked him why he thought
that Mr. Williams wanted him to defend a position that he didn't really believe
in, he responded, "I think he did that on purpose 'cause maybe I'd find
out some things that maybe are good...or maybe some things I should know. Even
if I don't believe in it, maybe I should learn more facts about what's really
happening." While Daniel's perspective on this issue may have been fairly
simplified, and black and white, he brought an understanding of the process
of argument in general to this class that could allow for the possibility of
greater complexity than he then was aware of.
As for Daniel's foreknowledge
about the issue in the debate, several times he brought up things that "he
had heard" about animals and life in Africa. When I asked him what he thought
life was like in Morocco, he said, "It's probably pretty hard. I picture
it like on those channels [on TV] where you have to go down to the watering
hole to get water. It'd probably be pretty hard. It's probably work all day
just to survive...Have to kill your own food." Later he expounded on this
idea, "I've heard there are watering holes. There's a big rain every year
and after it starts drying out it just comes into a little hole. And that's
where all the animals drink from." Because his foreknowledge about Africa
thus far seemed to center around animal life there, I wanted to press him about
African society. The following dialogue resulted:
Holly: Do you know about any other issues in Africa?
Daniel: I've heard a lot about the tsetse fly and how people die every day from hunger. They don't have food...enough food. There is food down there, but you can't just catch your food all the time....I think Africa might want to be more natural. I don't really think they'd want to build buildings down there. I just really wouldn't think so.
H: Why?
D: Because I think they have always been natural. They've made their homes and caught their own food and if buildings start moving in they'd just be like the rest of the world basically.
H: Do you think there are cities in Africa?
D: I don't know. There might be like towns. A bunch of huts screwed together or something.
H: Why do you think there are no cities?
D: If you built a building it would be kind of hard, because if you built a building and it rained, it floods and it'd probably wash out the ground and the building could just fall down.
H: Where do you think it is easier to build buildings?
D: In the jungle you'd be tearing everything down. You couldn't just build a building in the middle of the jungle.
H: Do you think we can understand the people in Africa? Do you think we can guess what they want? For example, you say they probably don't want to build cities...
D: I don't think they do. I just think they want to keep it natural basically. I don't think they want to build cities down there. I mean, it'd be easier for them and everything. They'd probably want to have it easier but it just wouldn't really go with their country. All these little kids are just used to running around in all this open land and then there would be cities with pollution and everything.
Daniel brought some definite
ideas about life in Africa to this discussion that were based on things he "had
heard" and seen on TV. He combined some of the information on the worksheet
with what he already knew about watering holes and flooding in what was probably
an arid region of Africa. Then he began to formulate "hunches" - about
why it might be difficult to construct buildings in that environment, and about
how Africa may try to avoid some of the environmental problems America has.
Even though much of his thinking about Africa is driven by stereotypes and misconceptions,
there is plenty of evidence that he has the intuitive capabilities that a teacher
can work with to connect his thinking with the elements of geography.
My interview with Rebecca
also revealed thinking capabilities indicative of the intuition that Bruner
and Holt say is so crucial to learning. When asked why she thought Mr. Williams
had them do the debate, she responded, "...maybe it's good if you're going
into politics, so you know how to explain what you mean instead of just putting
it down on paper." When I asked her if she had ever participated in a debate
before, she said that she hadn't but that she had talked about it with a friend
who "has to do debates all the time" in a different class. She also
mentioned that her mother is going to law school and talks about the importance
of knowing issues and discussing them. Later, when I asked her why she thought
Mr. Williams had her argue a position that she didn't believe in, she said,
"You need to know how people feel so that you won't put them down and such,
even if they do have an idea...But you have to stand up for what you believe
in." It is evident that she brought fairly sophisticated ideas about discourse
to this debate. However, she is quite shy and her participation in the debate
was minimal.
She said less about the two-sided dynamics of the debate than Daniel did, but
in the second day's interview she showed a particularly strong understanding
of the purpose of discourse regarding difficult issues. On this day I provided
a list of items that in some way related to the lesson or the class as a whole.
I asked both Daniel and Rebecca to connect the items in a concept map, in any
way in which they wanted (See the Appendix). I asked them to tell me what they
were doing while they did it. As Rebecca was connecting the circles she said
the following:
Understanding people and animals relates to rain forest destruction because some poor people live in the rainforest, and that affects the people and the government because they get money [from timber]... We don't really know how we are going to solve these problems, but governments discuss and debate about them...and have misunderstandings, so maybe that is how they can figure it out....And cultures goes with geography, because if this culture worships on this mountain and then that mountain gets gone, then where do they go?...They all relate!
From this it is clear that Rebecca was able to connect the idea of discussing issues with other elements of geography - cultures, landforms, and issues. It is difficult, however, to know from the data how much of this was foreknowledge. As the debate itself only peripherally referenced the issues she brought up, or not at all, it is likely that she had been introduced to these ideas before coming to this class. In any case, it is evident that there are plenty of intuitive capabilities, or "hunches," within her thinking for a teacher to work with.
The Teaching-Learning
Process
In her essay, Twenty-four,
forty-two, and I Love You: Keeping it Complex, Eleanor Duckworth argues that,
"...a teacher who presents a subject matter in all its complexity makes
it more accessible by opening a multiplicity of paths into it." Her point
is that the complexity within disciplines need not be an obstacle to students'
learning, but rather a vehicle to it. In his experience with education, "The
more surprises people encountered, and the more possibilities they became aware
of, the more they wanted to continue to do and think." In beginning a unit
on Africa with a debate about the multi-faceted and complicated issue of environmental
conservation amid impoverishment, Mr. Williams seems to have been in agreement.
Perhaps he believes, similar to Duckworth as well as Holt, that when the students
would pose their prepared arguments in the debate only to find that they would
be refuted by another argument, they would perhaps be intrigued by the many
layers of the issue and enticed to think more about it. Further, he likely thought
that the level of social risk and emotion brought on by the debate would generate
enthusiasm for learning more about the new continent to be studied.
The argument in favor
of complexity in the classroom has been strongly defended by a variety of scholars
in education. Each of them seem to take a stance similar to Duckworth, who advises
that complexity should be "...accepted as a pedagogical resource, rather
than avoided." That is, it is generally assumed that educators will tend
toward teaching monotonous lists of tools of the disciplines that merely improve
memory skills, rather than attempting to convey more complicated ideas and concepts.
Thus, the encouragement toward complexity comes also as a warning against what
one group of scholars calls the "dates-facts method," where the student
"...[learns] the facts and dates that the teacher and the text [deem] relevant..."
They further argue that, "Unfortunately, many teachers do not present an
exciting approach to history, perhaps because they, too, were taught in [this
method]..." The pervasive resistance to the more "exciting" classroom
is perhaps due to apparent lack of control on the part of the teacher through
that type of teaching. However, it is precisely this sort of letting go of that
control that these scholars are advocating. Holt "insists that students
take on...'the whole tangled mess' - historical facts, documents, secondary
sources, the problems of evidence and interpretation - from the outset."
As for classroom discussions such as debates, he suggests, "...the most
successful classroom discussions are neither predictable, controllable, nor
closable. And that is as it should be."
In fact, the debate in
Mr. Williams's class did reveal the complexity that is fundamental to the study
of geography. Further, the atmosphere in the room, being not strictly controlled,
was far from boring. However, my observation of the debates and my interviews
with the participants suggests that perhaps the complexity they had been exposed
to was more of an obstacle to learning than the vehicle it was intended to be.
It seems that Mr. Williams could certainly appreciate the complicated nuances
of his discipline. Moreover, it seems that he could appreciate his students'
ability to grasp it as well, by virtue of the fact that he was teaching it.
However, in merely opening up the vastness of geography to his students, the
crucial link between them and the discipline was not provided. They came to
the debate with intuitive capabilities about the subject matter, as well as
misconceptions. However, as the complexities of this particular aspect of geography
largely remained out of their reach, their intuition was little challenged while
their misconceptions remained intact.
During the debate, students
took on this very large issue with a lot of energy, but with few resources.
It quickly became apparent that most of them could argue about why not to destroy
animal habitat, but understanding what would justify its destruction was beyond
their experience. Relying on only the worksheet and what they could come up
with on their own, they arrived at the idea that Africans (and even Americans)
would want to eat the animals as a probable reason for habitat destruction.
Not knowing what motivates people to move around and how different peoples utilize
natural resources within the world economy, the "killing animals"
argument was a logical conclusion for the students. Further, given stereotypic
misconceptions about Africa, such as Daniel had, about it being a "natural"
place, prevented him from imagining there being a scarcity of land there, and
no discussion about land use ever really came up. Thus, relying on what knowledge
they already had, the debate, with arguments based on erroneous assumptions,
immediately diverged off of the subject. When Mr. Williams brought up the point
that neither they nor Africans typically eat the animals whose habitat is in
question, the students had little response, not knowing what to make the focus
of the debate.
In
his book, The Unschooled Mind, Howard Gardner suggests:
The content of the various disciplines is typically encountered in forms quite remote from the conceptions the student brings to the class. The student learns about the laws of physics or the causes of war by reading a textbook or by hearing the teacher lecture. Hence the challenge for the educator is threefold: (1) to introduce these often-difficult or counterintuitive notions to the students; (2) to make sure that this new knowledge is ultimately synthesized with earlier ideas, if they are congruent with one another; (3) to ensure that the newer disciplinary content supplants previously held conceptions or stereotypes that would in some way collide with or undermine the new forms of knowledge.
Mr. Williams's lesson
accomplished the first of these imperatives - he introduced some difficult and
counter-intuitive notions. To be fair to him, he simply may not yet have gotten
to numbers two and three. It was the beginning of a unit. However, within this
lesson, the students seemed to be left with little that they could claim as
learning. Instead, the gulf between their misconceptions and the issues within
the study of geography seemed to be widened.
What was lacking was the teaching of fundamental structures of the discipline. Bruner defines the learning of structure as the learning of "how things are related." The fundamentals of geography pertain to weather, landforms, migration, peoples' relationship to land, etc. Once a student is introduced to these concepts in one place, they can begin to predict how they may occur in another place. This was not the first unit in this geography course, nor was it the first continent they had studied with serious land use issues. They had just finished a unit on South America - a region with problems very similar to Africa. In addition to the concept map activity that I had them do in the second day of interviews, I also had Daniel and Rebecca look at physical maps of South America and Africa and tell me what they could say was similar or different between them. When I got Daniel to identify the Amazon Basin, I asked him if he knew about any of the issues that had to do with that area. He said,
People want to preserve it because some people are trying to tear it down, but when people are all done tearing it down then it's not going to be there anymore. You can't just put it back. And all these animals will be extinct. I think it has something to do with food.
What relates the issues
in the Amazon to some parts of Africa are patterns of behavior in regard to
humans' relationship with the land on which they live - the structure of geography.
These patterns are what fill the gap between the students' intuition and the
vastness of the social sciences. It seems that Daniel's experience has been
centered more around learning specific facts about each region, rather than
what relates them to each other. This map comparison activity indicated that
he had learned about some of the issues in the Amazon without learning the larger
structure that underlie the issues. When asked to relate the South American
issues to African issues, the tool that was available to him was the idea that
habitat destruction was primarily about food - a misconception that was reinforced
by the debate a day before.
There is ample evidence that Daniel and Rebecca and the rest of the students in their class had more than adequate thinking skills to understand the complexities of social studies. It also seems that Mr. Williams was confident that they could, indeed, grasp this particular intricacy of human-land interactions. But they were not provided with the crucial concepts that would facilitate their linking their own ideas with the actual elements of geography. In this way, it seems that their own ideas largely remained mired in misleading stereotypes. Structure is the essential tool in making the disciplines accessible to the intuition of young minds.
Implications
As a perpetual learner
of the social sciences myself, it will be extremely beneficial to my future
teaching to have had the opportunity to see that young learners really go through
the same process that I do. We all come to subject matter in general with preconceived
notions. Correct or incorrect, they are the only vehicles we have to understand
the problem at hand. While it may be tempting to reduce the complexity of the
subject matter in some way to accommodate the learner of new material, that
is not an honest way to approach learning. At my own level of learning, that
amounts to changing the nature of things so that it fits what I already have
learned - a type of dishonesty that results in intellectual stagnation. Somehow,
at the level of young learners it tends to be more acceptable to reduce the
nature of our subject matter to such a degree that its essence has been "changed,"
or misrepresented.
The key to maintaining
the complexity of the social sciences, which is what makes it endlessly interesting,
is distilling it down to its fundamental structure. Those are the elements of
it that are applicable across the social sciences and even across other disciplines.
While I am an advocate of "keeping it complex," I can see from this
observation that the other half of that principle is to make sure complexity
is accompanied by structure. Otherwise, students are simply confused by the
vastness of the subject matter, which is the reason complexity is shied away
from in the first place. In my teaching it seems the main task for me will be
a continual process of learning, not just what the fundamental structures are,
but which ones are most necessary and most universally applicable in learning.
Reflections
The observation in conjunction
with the write-up of this paper turned out to be very beneficial to me. Before
I began writing, I was generally very unimpressed with Mr. Williams's teaching,
and had thought of several ways in which I would have done it differently. However,
as I formulated my ideas in this paper, I realized that he was probably approaching
the subject matter not too differently from how I might. That is, he wanted
to expose them to some of the gritty unanswerable complexities surrounding some
of the problems in Africa. Those too are very interesting to me. Also, he avoided
the traditional pitfall of presenting a series of facts and dates to be memorized
- a method I am particularly opposed to. But by observing the ways in which
his lesson was not very successful, I was able to realize how the complexity
that I love so much must be accompanied by structure, otherwise the students
will be lost. It is a principle that might not have been so convincing had I
not observed it. In fairness to Mr. Williams, I would be interested to see how
the whole unit proceeded. While these few days may not have entailed the students
grasping many of the issues in Africa, perhaps by the end they may have been
able to understand it better.
If I were to do the interviews
over again, I would have spent more time thinking about what specifically were
the principles being taught. Mr. Williams did not explicitly say what his objective
was, and it was difficult to tell given the nature of the lesson. But if I had
a more specific principle to focus on, I could have probed more effectively
about how much they understood that particular thing. As it was I ended up asking
more shallow questions about the whole breadth of geography, and had little
data on the principles of debate and discussion, and land use issues in Africa,
that I ended up thinking the lesson was mostly about.