The title of this post is really a play on words in the sense that good teaching is characterized by an emphasis on student involvement, inquiry, and innovation. It happens naturally if we plan lessons that put the student in the center of learning, rather than the curriculum.

Source: Denali School District Website

I was motivated to write this post when I read Doug Noon’s piece entitled A Natural Enthusiasm, which you can read on the New Times opinion pages written by a half-dozen teachers entitled Lesson Plans: Teaching in a Complicated World. Doug Noon is in his 26th year of teaching and currently teaches sixth-grade at the Denali Elementary School, in the Denali School District, in Fairbanks, Alaska. He has spent his entire career teaching in this community, and has this to say about the students and his school:

My school’s demographic profile roughly matches that of the state overall, except that in our urban location we have a higher representation of blacks and Hispanics. Our student body population is roughly 55 percent Caucasian, 15 percent Alaska Native, 15 percent black, and the rest Asian and Hispanic. We have enough low income kids to qualify for Title 1 supplementary funding. It’s a richly diverse mix of people who bring a variety of cultural experiences to share.

One of the questions raised by Barton and Upadhyay for a theme publication on teaching for social justice of Equity & Excellence in Education (in yesterday’s post) was: What does it mean to teach science for social justice, specifically in settings that serve racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse populations? The article by Doug Noon, it seems to me, addresses some aspects of this question.

Although Doug is not technically a science teacher, he is participating in a University of Alaska education project which has provided him with a “scientist in residence,” a graduate student (Tumi) from Iceland studying plant biology. Doug explains that Tumi works with his students on math and science projects, and has brought enthusiasm for science for students in his class.

An interesting comment Doug makes about his students about their prior knowledge about plants is this:

You might think that kids in interior Alaska would know a few things about plants because we’re surrounded by forests. But really, kids who live in town aren’t any more likely than any kid, anywhere, to know what’s what in the plant kingdom.

Doug and Tumi design lessons that you might call active learning; for instance, a short walk to a patch of woods near the school to find samples from two different species of tree, shrub and herb. On the way back to the classroom Doug casually listens in as students talk about their “finds” and use their own language to describe their experience (these are pokey plants; look!, you can whip these).

Doug summarizes the meaning he attaches to the students’ comments, and underscores what is the real value and importance of teaching science:

This chatter was like music for me. In the age of test-driven accountability, kids spend too much time pinned to their desks preparing for tests to mark their progress along a standardized continuum of skills. But what are they actually learning? Not much that matters to a kid, if you ask me — especially a kid who doesn’t like to read or write, and sees no value in doing math. Doing science is about learning to read the world. It’s about understanding how things are organized and what makes them tick. It requires us to get close to things and to wonder about them. It’s about making ourselves at home wherever we are, and getting excited about it (emphasis mine).

Teaching science for social justice means not only involving the students in experiential learning experiences, as Doug Noon has described in this opinion piece. But it also involves a social activist philosophy in which students are involved in social responsibility as it relates to science. In my own view, a humanistic approach to teaching is at the heart of teaching for social justice.