I have always known that wonder-rich learning involves emotional connection and discovery. Over the years, I have placed a high value on having students produce quality end-products through hands-on teacher directed learning environments. The “I Wonder” brainstorm has been a ritual activity that I do at the start of most units. This fall, Gunner’s “I Wonder” leaf took us on a learning adventure that proved to
be quite different than I was used to. The change was initiated by a desire on my part to allow for more student autonomy and choice. The New Curriculum’s “Big Idea” on living things (Grade One Science) was broad enough for us to let our interests and questions guide our learning. This time, the “I Wonder” activity had a greater purpose.
It was Gunner’s wonder about roots that opened up an invitation for authentic investigations. As I trace back on my Journal reflections, I notice that we followed a path of inquiry influenced by the places we found ourselves – physically, cognitively and emotionally (i.e. Arbour Day, Stillwood Camp, counting pumpkin seeds, comparing trees and people, sharing about our Remembrance Day peace tree). More importantly, my reflections about my pedagogy used words like: “listened”, “responded”, “allowed time for”, “reflected on” and “changed”. I was beginning to experience curriculum as an emergent, living process (Fels and Belliveau, 2007) and see the importance of modelling this posture for my students. Just the other day, a student asked, “Mrs. Toews, I have a wonder that I would like to share with the class”. My response was what Schön (1987) describes as “reflection-in-action”: I saw myself as a researcher open to listen, reflect and reshape my learning assumptions.
Resources:
“Educating the Reflective Practitioner” (Donald A. Schön, 1987). This reading caused me to reflect on my own teaching style. Imbedded in my presuppositions about learning is the view that my role as an educator is to be an expert whose behaviour is to be modelled (objectivist). Schön suggests that reflection-in-action takes place when there is a “reflective conversation with the materials of the situation”. Instead of knowing all, the teacher see herself as the researcher who is open to listen, reflect and reshape learning assumptions. This process constructs new meaning and anticipates change and adjustment.
“First Flight into Performative Inquiry” (Lynn Fels and George Belliveau, 2007). The authors speak of “enactivisim” – learning as an “embodied cognitive interplay in which the environment and the organism are simultaneously formed by the presence of each other in relationships over time (pg. 27).” Curriculum becomes an emergent, living process. We learn in this generative space where “components of a system never quite lock into place and yet never quite dissolve into turbulence (pg. 25).” I have been challenged by this “Complexity Theory”. I have seen how teaching within the confines of a static, procedure-driven curriculum curtails the opportunity for deep, enduring growth. Control may give the illusion of stable, effective learning conditions, but living in the tension of question is so much more dynamic and life-giving. It is in this place that I strive to find myself as a practitioner and life-long learner.