Wonder and Curiosity as a Remedy to Teaching to the Test
In 1928, an overworked Dr. Alexander Fleming inadvertently left a petri dish of the culture Staphylococcus aureus bacteria open to the elements. When he returned several weeks later he discovered that the mold Penicillium notatum had inhibited the growth of the bacteria. Upon this discovery, Dr. Fleming had two choices. He could either discard the entire mishap and vow to be more careful with his cultures in the future or he could take the time to allow curiosity to drive inquiry about what exactly had happened in that petri dish. His curiosity has saved millions of lives to date because it led to the discovery of the use of Penicillin as an antibiotic.
We are working in the age of “teaching to the test,” a phrase often used to describe what happens when educators are asked to raise standardized test scores by narrowing the scope of classroom instruction to those topics most likely to appear on the tests. Despite the fact that teaching to the test has been proven ineffective, it remains the expectation in many districts and meaningful moves away from the practice are slow, particularly as funding remains flat in many areas of education and seems under new threat every year.
Cultivate Curiosity
My first teaching experiences were not in the traditional classroom, they were in the forest as an Environmental Educator. The cultivation of wonder and curiosity are central principals of environmental education pedagogy. By incorporating these concepts into the traditional classroom setting we can provide a powerful anecdote to this ineffective practice while helping form the sorts of students who will be able to cope with the changing world, standardized tests and all.
This post will contrast the practices of environmental education as expressed through the cultivation of wonder and curiosity with common traditional classroom practices to show how the two can be effectively blended to maximize the strengths of both approaches.
Experiential Learning and Critical Thinking
Environmental education (EE) focuses on teaching participants how to think, not what to think. This is often in contrast to the practice of teaching to the test. EE practitioners capitalize on the unique capacity of the natural world to give participants opportunities to work through problems - whether an outdoor team building exercise or a social justice issue - in 360 degrees. Students can use their whole bodies to learn, an especially effective approach for our diverse classrooms.
Experiential learning is the primary tool of EE through use of models, hikes, virtual generations of geologic processes, hand on experiments and the like. It is also the primary avenue through which students find and maintain wonder and curiosity. Traditional classroom teachers necessarily operate within stricter boundaries, yet there is a common thread: classroom teachers will instantly recognize that EE practitioners simply exercise their freedom to expand the definition of a text. This door can be passed through in either direction.
Patrick Curry explores wonder by defining first what it is not. According to Curry, wonder is not a force of the will, but is instead wonder and the first of what we will call the “partner concepts,” namely “enchantment, astonishment, delight, joy,” are “experiences that are not, and cannot be, simply willed into existence or manufactured on demand”. This presents a predictable problem for the traditional educator in that we cannot build a rubric around this. In other words, if we take this definition alone, wonder becomes very difficult to entrench in the classroom experience as a formative practice because we could not make it happen. This is still a useful idea for us for two reasons. First, it gives the idea of wonder more shape by pairing it with four other, more relatable concepts. Second, we can start to see how we will need to trust wonder as a process instead of a standalone entity. We cannot “plug and play” wonder and expect that it will have an effect. It is something that must be experienced by our students. Curiosity is how wonder gets from place to place by asking questions, trying new processes, researching a problem, or proposing a solution
What does this mean in the classroom?
While wonder and curiosity seem imprecise and immeasurable, we can use them as tools for learning that increase literacy skills in our students. Multi purpose practices accomplish the following:
They stimulate ongoing thinking and inquiry.
They raise further questions.
They spark discussion and debate.
Consider how the following could be implemented in your discipline.
Bring awareness to concepts as they exist and ask students to make observations. Literacy practices such as the Cafe Conversation allow students to find this awareness while also increasing information literacy
Increase your use of project based learning, which allows students to follow their curiosity while aligning with standardized learning goals as opposed to memorizing information.
Listen to the experts in the field through interviews or videos and allow your curiosity and wonder push you to plan in a new way. Let enthusiasm guide you.
When designing curriculum, consider how to provide opportunities for exploration, improvisation, imagination and personal interest.
Build Partnerships in Environmental Education
Environmental education has the understandable reputation as being strictly about environmental issues, but the reality is that because it deals with the real world around us, any discipline can incorporate its tenets. I encourage you to build partnerships with EE practitioners in your state. As an educator who has practiced in the EE world and in the traditional classroom, I can attest that requests to work with the EE practitioners near you will be met with gusto. They are accustomed to aligning with state standards and take what they do very seriously. Together you can build a more curious and thoughtful future.