Jonathan Paul Loomis

March 24, 1999

Independent Study: Education

Mona Wineburg

This particular Wednesday was one of my most enjoyable at Hyde because it was the day that the fourth and fifth graders presented their science projects. Last year I was snagged as an available person to judge the projects, so once again I got to play the part of the judge. The projects themselves were displayed on colored cardboard and were arranged in the open space in the upstairs of the school. In order to be judged the students had to give a short presentation of their projects in which they explained what they had done and how.

Most of the students that I had the pleasure of judging had also included a variety of visual aids or the actual objects of the experiments themselves. A number of specific examples stand out in my memory. One was the work done by one of our more outstanding fifth graders in which she damaged an apple and let it rot. Then rubbed the rotten apple on a collection of other apples to find out if the infection could be spread by contact. Her presentation included showing us the apples, even though they didn't smell so wonderful.

Some of the presentations won the students awards. For example, a fourth grader did a project on the telephone. His project itself was rather standard, consisting mostly of just your regular paper cup and string telephone. However, his presentation was dynamic. He was confident and incorporated us into a demonstration of the actual experiments he did. I believe we gave him a high place mostly because his presentation was so outstanding.

Although most of the presentations were clearly taken from books of science projects the couple that were not also stood out in my memory. One of our fifth graders did a fairly good project on the graphics a various video games. I didn't interview him; this was done by another set of judges. But by glancing over his projects I was impressed with the fact that he came up with a subject to study on his own, that it was one that obviously interested him, and that he was able to come up with a fairly good way of measuring the quality of the graphics. We decided to give him a ranking because of his ability to ingest the concept of the science project and produce his own. He is the sort of student who often takes what we teach him and adapts it to his own situation. In many cases we have a hard time convincing him to practice a skill simply because he, perhaps wisely, rejects the concept of separating skills from life. Either we must provide some real life situation in which he can work or he will be unhappy. I think this is a fully appropriate challenge for us as teachers and I think the other students learn better because of the convoluted practice methods we invent for this one student. The students who reject these real life practice situations are the unfortunate result of old teaching methods and will eventually have a harder time applying what they learn in school to what they do in life.

In general I would say that judging the science projects is both one of the most educational and enjoyable things that I get to do at Hyde.

This particular Wednesday was also interesting to me because I sort of came to an epiphany about the way children play in connection to the way in which they construct schemata. For the past two years I've always been impressed with the fact that the students on the playground no not really have a set concept of where their games begin and end. Of course there are some boundaries, such as on the basketball court, or with goals for the soccer games, but in general the children don't seem to have a concept of where one game starts and another begins. In many cases various groups of children will play games that fully overlap in physical area but are separate concept. This is often the case with games of football and tag which both require the large open area of the playground.

After observing this for some time I came to the conclusion that the reason the children do not have a well established sense of boundaries is because their schemata is not yet well constructed, not because our playground is small and necessitates this overlap. There are a number of specific examples where I was able to actually see teachers and supervisors jump-start this construction of schemata in regards to the way the children play. On one occasion a first or second grader chased a stray soccer ball through the basketball court. Upon seeing this, a teacher chastised the student for "interrupting" the other game and told the student that next time he should go around the court to pick up the ball on the other side. I watched all this and what struck me the most was that the second grader was entirely amazed that he had done something wrong. It never occurred to him that running through the other game was a problem.

I think that our elementary aged students might be capable of higher order thinking at younger ages if we didn't force them to construct schemata of boundaries. I think that when they build up schema that says, for example, the line around the basketball court fully encompasses the basketball game and no other game will enter that perimeter, that this schema teaches them to build up other boundary schema as they grow. This, I believe, helps lead students to believe that math and science are separate events and concepts, that school and life are disconnected, or that recess and class are not related.

I think that teaching our students to build up these boundaries in a physical sense (on the playground or in the classroom) will inhibit early construction of conceptual boundaries that inhibit cross-curricular learning and cognitive thinking. Instead, we should make an effort to ignore our own schemata of boundaries and build an environment that encourages students to think of events as overlapping.

To implement this theory students should not be reprimanded for playing in what appears to us as overlapping areas on the playground. Classrooms should be structured in that the library corner can become the math corner, or the science corner, etc. Student events inside the classroom should overlap as well. The teacher should downplay the importance of students having particular desks. Students should be able to use whichever desk is available at the moment and is convenient for the project at hand. If at all possible desks should be eliminated in favor of tables. In whichever case, these should be moved about at will to facilitate different activities.

In conclusion, I believe that students whose thinking is not restricted by boundary schemata are more likely to develop patterns of higher order cognition earlier in life. Students are born this way, and only learn that concepts and events must have boundaries as they grow. Elementary educators can take advantage of this natural state by avoiding constructing boundaries for their students, rather letting the students build necessary boundaries for themselves.