The Question
The other night was no different than any other. My wife was making some phone calls for work, I was working on getting my two children fed, showered and off to bed. I had gotten my son into the shower and headed downstairs, to check on the progress of my daughter as she finished her dinner, when something extraordinary happened. My daughter, a very pensive young first grader, looked up from her pasta and said, "Daddy, how did the Civil War Start? Like how did the actual war part get started?" The question was not the extraordinary part it is what followed that cemented a fledgling belief for me, but more on that in a second. First, I need to paint a slightly larger picture of this conversation for context.My daughter is a thinker. By that I mean she is always processing ideas. Often times this will occur over days, weeks and sometimes months. Our conversation about the Civil War has lasted for over a month. After a reference to the Civil War in a book she was reading, she has periodically asked me questions from what a Civil War is and when it was, to why did it start and who was involved. Up until her latest question, I was able to provide her with answers based upon my own previous learning and understandings. These were some great teachable moments between father and daughter and a brief opportunity to "step back into the classroom." Due to this history I have with my daughter, the question was not a surprise; however I did not know the answer. Now comes the interesting part.
The iPhone
My first reaction, like any other harried parent trying to get his kids to bed, was to tell her that I did not know and that we could look it up at a later time. I calmly explained that I would have to check on her brother soon and that there was not enough time, maybe we could do it tomorrow. Without pause she responded, "Well do you have your phone? You can just ask Siri real quick and get the answer before you go back upstairs." (If I was telling this story to a live audience, I would pause here for effect.) Now I did not use Siri to find the answer as I find she can be a bit finicky, but I did use my iPhone to search the web quickly and in less than one minute find out that the first fighting of the Civil War began when the Confederate forces fired upon the Union held Fort Sumter in South Carolina.The Revelation
So what is the morale of the story here? I do not hold enough information in my head to fill the curiosity bucket of a 7 year old. And further, she knows it and she knows how do get the information she wants. As soon as she is old enough to have her own direct access to the information (her own phone, tablet, computer, new thing they haven't invented yet, etc.) she won't need me to get answers to her factual questions. She has grown up in and lives in a world where an infinite amount of information can be accessed near instantaneously through a device that fits in my pocket. AND SHE IS NOT ALONE! She is one grain of sand in a beach of students sitting in classrooms across this country. Mobile technology has evolved so much in the past 2-3 years that cell phones have become small computers. You no longer need a computer in your home to be plugged into the internet, which has expanded access to nearly everyone.So What?
We work in a public education system that was not designed for the world we currently live in. Schools and teachers have historically been the keepers of knowledge and information; it was our job to pour that knowledge and information into the empty vessels that were the children in front of us. Kids do not need us for that anymore; that part of our job has been replaced by the iPad. So what should we do? Option # 1 - We ignore the evidence that is staring us in the face, continue doing what we are doing and eventually be replaced by self-adjusting computer software that can provide students with the information they need to pass state assessments. Option # 2 - Evolve.I argue that there really is no choice, we must evolve. The American work force is not looking for employees who can follow rote procedures, produce an expected result and go to their boss every time they have a problem or question. Instead they want people that can analyze, problem-solve, work with a team, use available information to create new ideas and solutions, and make moral and ethical decisions. Today's worker needs to be able to think critically; it is not about the information they posses, but rather the ways in which they are able to use that information. Therefore, our job must be to develop these skills in children. It is our moral obligation to meet this demand.
"But They Are Just in Elementary School"
We are all guilty of a statement reflective of this. What we often ignore is how limiting a thought process this can be for our students. If we enter with an assumption that they CAN'T then they WON'T and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. However, if we assume they CAN, what might happen? To steal a question from Dr. Cheryl Jorgensen - "What is the least dangerous assumption?" Is it more dangerous to assume a kindergarten child can not think critically and fail to cultivate that skill in them, or is it more dangerous to assume they can and create opportunities to foster analysis, evaluation and creation? Is it that their brains are unable to grow and adapt to a new way of thinking or is it that we struggle to change our deeply held assumptions?
I put part of the blame for this belief structure on the developers of Bloom's Taxonomy More specifically, on those that decided it should be represented by a triangle, with Remembering and Understanding at the bottom and Creating at the top. This image of the triangle provides a subliminal message that the lower levels of the taxonomy must be present before the higher levels can be achieved. Additionally, Creating is at the smallest point (the top). Does this mean that their is less creativity to go around? Is creating only for our most sophisticated and elite thinkers? That only those that have trudged though the trials and tribulations of remembering facts and being able to restate them to show understanding could possibly hope to achieve the higher levels of critical thinking? Anyone who has spent any time with a pre-school aged child knows this is not true. The other day, my wife and I took my son for a doctor's appointment and after the appointment stopped for lunch. At the restaurant, they gave him a balloon that, as most 4 year-olds do, he cherished. Well he cherished it for about an hour until we went to pick his sister up at gymnastics and the balloon flew out the open door up into the atmosphere. After calming him from hysterics, he began on his own coming up with ways to get the balloon back. My favorite involved the construction of a special set of stairs that would take us up to the astronaut who probably caught his balloon. At four years old, he is already ready to find creative ways to solve a problem. Should we kill that critical thinking skill by assuming he can not do it, or should we find ways to foster it so that he can apply those strategies later in life and come up with more realistic, but no less creative, solutions?
Putting it to Practice
So what does this mean for us in the elementary classroom? It means we must start with a thoughtful analysis of our own approach. What assumptions are we making about what the children in our classrooms can and can not do? What are these assumptions based on? Have we done extensive research on the topic of the cognitive development of children and performed MRI scans of each of our students brains so that we can say without a doubt that, "_____ graders can't do that"? Or are we basing our assumptions on things that have been said so many times, they must be true?
Once we analyze our assumptions in a honest way and decide to make the least dangerous assumptions about students cognitive ability, then we need to examine the types of learning opportunities we are creating for children. Take a look at the questions you ask your students in the course of a given day (orally, on quizzes, spelling tests, after reading, etc.) and put them on one of two categories: critical thinking or not-so. The not-so are for questions like, "How do you spell counter?" or "In, your own words, describe the water cycle?" They require a student to either simply recall information or demonstrate their understanding in a different way that rote repetition. The critical thinking questions are questions that force students into the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Questions like, "Categorize these words in at least three different ways: cat, muskrat, silt, sap, dog, mice, pond, fox, lake." or "You are planning a birthday party for your friend who is about to turn 10. You have been given a budget of $200 dollars to use as a budget. The party will run from 10-1 and his parents have insisted that all 20 guests are busy during the entire party and that they do not repeat any stations. Using the chart provided (a table with different 'vendors' like balloon animal making, their cost per 30 minute segment and maximum # of children taken at one time) create a schedule for all the attendees that fits within the budget. Create a visual schedule that is easy to follow and can be provided to each guest so that he/she knows where to go and when to be there."
The key is thinking about the questions you want to ask kids, and finding ample opportunities for them to work collaboratively on difficult and cognitively demanding problems. Often it is better for students to wrestle for 20-30 minutes on a really good problem, than do 20-30 repetitive drill practice problems. That being said, it is important that the lesson and the learning does not lose its rigor. Students spending 20-30 minutes creating a 3 dimensional heart for Valentine's Day may be engaging and look like rigor, but it does not pass the rigor sniff-test. Be mindful of fluffy activities that have the kids busy, but have low cognitive demand. The world we are sending our students into is not ready to spoon feed them information. Today's world knows that they information is easily accessible; today's world is interested in what people can do with that information once they have located it.
Here is a link to a quick one page article on Bloom's Taxonomy that provides a list of verbs to use in your questions to raise the cognitive demand.
Also, it is important to remember that technology can be our friend. Follow This link for a list of iPad apps organized by their level of Bloom's. Kathy Schrock has also compiled a list of web 2.0 apps that are organized by Bloom's as well. See it here. There you will also see her visual take on Bloom's Taxonomy, of which I am a big fan.
Once we analyze our assumptions in a honest way and decide to make the least dangerous assumptions about students cognitive ability, then we need to examine the types of learning opportunities we are creating for children. Take a look at the questions you ask your students in the course of a given day (orally, on quizzes, spelling tests, after reading, etc.) and put them on one of two categories: critical thinking or not-so. The not-so are for questions like, "How do you spell counter?" or "In, your own words, describe the water cycle?" They require a student to either simply recall information or demonstrate their understanding in a different way that rote repetition. The critical thinking questions are questions that force students into the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Questions like, "Categorize these words in at least three different ways: cat, muskrat, silt, sap, dog, mice, pond, fox, lake." or "You are planning a birthday party for your friend who is about to turn 10. You have been given a budget of $200 dollars to use as a budget. The party will run from 10-1 and his parents have insisted that all 20 guests are busy during the entire party and that they do not repeat any stations. Using the chart provided (a table with different 'vendors' like balloon animal making, their cost per 30 minute segment and maximum # of children taken at one time) create a schedule for all the attendees that fits within the budget. Create a visual schedule that is easy to follow and can be provided to each guest so that he/she knows where to go and when to be there."
The key is thinking about the questions you want to ask kids, and finding ample opportunities for them to work collaboratively on difficult and cognitively demanding problems. Often it is better for students to wrestle for 20-30 minutes on a really good problem, than do 20-30 repetitive drill practice problems. That being said, it is important that the lesson and the learning does not lose its rigor. Students spending 20-30 minutes creating a 3 dimensional heart for Valentine's Day may be engaging and look like rigor, but it does not pass the rigor sniff-test. Be mindful of fluffy activities that have the kids busy, but have low cognitive demand. The world we are sending our students into is not ready to spoon feed them information. Today's world knows that they information is easily accessible; today's world is interested in what people can do with that information once they have located it.
Here is a link to a quick one page article on Bloom's Taxonomy that provides a list of verbs to use in your questions to raise the cognitive demand.
Also, it is important to remember that technology can be our friend. Follow This link for a list of iPad apps organized by their level of Bloom's. Kathy Schrock has also compiled a list of web 2.0 apps that are organized by Bloom's as well. See it here. There you will also see her visual take on Bloom's Taxonomy, of which I am a big fan.
The Scary Next Steps
Since the Industrial Revolution, our country and society has never been in a greater time of growth and change. The Digital Revolution has created a new work force, new forms of communication, new social norms, new ideas about privacy and the ways we acquire information. As a result, we are not educating the same type of learner. Just as public education had to evolve to meet the demands of the Industrial Revolution, so will we have to evolve to meet the demands of the Digital Revolution. The first steps into this new world will be scary. We will surely make some mistakes. However, if we are willing to see the world as it is, mold ourselves to meet the needs of our students, and rely on our collective strength we will succeed.
