They’re a grown radical unschooler and I love them. Secondly, I would like to talk about this video and my #PracticingScienceTogether pillars that say there are no facts in science and primary sources are important at every level.
Also, though… Sir, if you have taught history for 25 years and no one has asked you for your sources, I would argue that you haven’t been teaching history and you haven’t been connecting with teenagers. Teenagers are natural skeptics and the skill set of an Historian is to search for primary sources. You, sir, have been standing in front of a sleeping and/or frightened mass of captives who are too intimidated or bored to engage. Go ahead and be embarrassed. I don’t usually like shame, but it’s time.
THE SKILLS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR CANON OF PERCEIVED FACTS. It’s as true for Science as for any other field. I used to tell students I would punch anyone who said “the mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell,” because it’s a thing adults remember from their science education without having any idea what it means or implies or why they should care. When I taught 5th grade, I gave a homework, which was for students to ask the grownups in their lives about organelles. I told them there was a magic phrase and that I would ring a bell every time I heard it. Believe me when I tell you that tons of parents remembered nothing but ye olde “powerhouse of the cell” factoid. And, for why!?! Kids don’t know what a powerhouse is. If you want kids to know about mitochondria, here are some ways to facilitate their learning: Microscopic images and stories about the scientists who developed the endosymbiotic theorem, lists of the types of cells that are rich in mitochondria to help them think about what those cells have in common (and the images that help us know that), what happens if cancer cells are deprived of their mitochondrial function, what people can do to fill their muscle cells with more mitochondria…and how we know all of this! Anyway, I’m off-topic.
The skills are finding the data that were used to develop the concept, fitting concepts together to explain phenomena, developing experiments that test isolated variables, and looking at what all the possible explanations were before someone figured out the actual mechanism. But, more than any of that, the whole entire point of science is questions and skepticism. Doubt and curiosity.
BOTTOM LINE: Questioning sources is a skill. If learners around you aren’t doing it, practice it together.
When people are super multisensory, the skillset is still questioning what we’re told. My dad used to say, “Kids are Philadelphia lawyers.” He was talking about our natural inborn tendency to negotiate, recall precedent, and support our arguments. One way to #PracticeScienceTogether is to answer kids’ questions by asking more questions, helping them identify experiments that will answer their questions, and being encouraging when they ask us where we get our information from (intentional bad grammar to recall song lyrics).
Bonus points if you are now singing this song: