LEARNING

To become more knowledgeable, more understanding, more enlightened is what it means to be a learned person.  That is an accepted premise, for me, as I begin the school year delivering an educational process designed to meet these expectations.

George Washington Carver, the famous American born-into-slavery botanist and inventor, who Time magazine in 1941 called the “Black Leonardo da Vinci.” He said: “Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.” The learning process that we call education is really a transitory means by which people fulfill their own expectations of themselves, while providing a pathway to become loving and loveable people within our society.

The diversity of students’ abilities to learn, comprehend and articulate is as widely dispersed as grains of sands on a beach.  To hold students accountable in the classroom to learn is like piling up buckets of sand with each new disbursement as impactful as the previous one and at the same time disruptive to final outcomes.  Each new idea, new concept and new resolution to problems leads to further questions, more changes in mindsets of people and increased intrinsic motivations to want to know more. Learning is a physiological and psychological disruptive process.

But it is learning. It is what we work toward for our children and for our own well-being.  To become learned opens doors of opportunities and it leaves us with a greater awareness of our measure in life with respect to all that has been given to us and with respect to the people that fill our lives.

The ability to think critically and solve problems is not innate.  It takes a certain level of both understanding and experience, together, to be able to perform when called upon to do so.  Education and the learning that takes place in the classroom lays a foundation for students to develop self-efficacy and move forward with confidence and with a sense of resoluteness.

Next generation science standards provide a framework for science teachers to operate and design curriculum with, but it is not a substitute for measuring real learning in the classroom. Real learning is a human endeavor as diverse as the population it serves.  Learning reflects the broad composition of human experiences with its complexities and its uniqueness.

Twenty-first century education models in science are doubling-down on standards-based curriculum as a method of documenting student performance, but it is the diversity of our student population, driven by social economic factors in our society, that ultimately determine true outcomes in student performance.

Learning is a human endeavor that demands continual vigilance and fortitude on the part of the teacher.  The goal is to deliver a curriculum to students that provide them the means and opportunity to develop and express understanding and knowledge, to solve problems and to increase their awareness of the universe that surrounds us all.