In my first few years of teaching, nothing made me more nervous than when students asked science questions I couldn’t answer. I’d be teaching about energy and someone would raise his hand and ask about nuclear power plants—something that wasn’t in my lesson plan for that day or included in that unit at all. In the midst of studying circular motion, I’d mention satellites as an example only to have someone raise her hand and ask if satellites ever collided while orbiting earth. (Umm, no, well perhaps yes, who really knows anyway? Should I just act like it’s a dumb question? Oh wait, there’s no such thing as a dumb question.) When questions like these came up I would try to avoid them, brush them off as unimportant, or change the subject—anything to avoid having to admit that I, the teacher, did not have all the answers.
Now I look at questions like these as an opportunity. An opportunity to admit that I, the teacher, do not have all the answers. An opportunity to illustrate that I, along with my students, am continually learning. An opportunity to practice humility with my students. An opportunity for students to contribute to the class and teach me, the teacher, something new. And an opportunity for me to be intentional about living out the Christian virtues that I value in my classroom.
Since those first few years, I have worked to be more intentional about incorporating these virtues into my classroom in tangible ways. While I always strive to incorporate my Christian faith into the classroom, I have at times wondered how to do so in a real and useful way. Sure, I can always exemplify humility by admitting that I don’t have all the answers. But how could I encourage my students to embody the fruit of the Spirit both in and out of the lab? How could I encourage Christian community in the collaborative scientific process? My work with the FAST project team has led me to be more intentional about incorporating faith into my classroom and has given me a broader sense of what that can and should look like. Rather than seeing faith as tacked on to the science curriculum, I now recognize the many ways faith can be infused into both what we learn and how we interact while pursuing scientific understanding.
Practicing Humility and Celebrating Contributions
Now, back to those awkward questions I used to avoid. The questions that previously were anxiety-provoking now develop into the highlights of each semester I teach. Not only do I now welcome such questions, I actually require them as part of a semester-long assignment called “That’s a Good Question” (see the “Labs and Community” Activity Map at teachfastly.com). When good questions come up in class that are beyond the scope of my planned curriculum, I assign a student (typically the one who raised the question) the responsibility to research it and report back to the class. I have made a habit of sitting at students’ desks while they present their findings, rather than standing off to the side or sitting at my own desk. I do this intentionally in order to equate myself with the class and to convey that, like my students, I am a learner who can benefit from the student presenter’s insight. At the conclusion of each presentation, we take time for the learners (myself included) to ask questions of the presenter. We always end with a round of applause, thanking the presenter for his or her contribution. While admitting to my students that I do not have all the answers has been incredibly humbling, it has also been a blessing and is just one example of how classroom interactions can be used to value others for their ideas and to express thanks for their contributions to the class.
Community in the Science Classroom
In a similar way, I try to intentionally foster classroom community and relational virtues within the context of learning science. Since students frequently work together in science classes, collaboration is nothing new. However, it’s my hope that students leave recognizing that we work in lab teams not because we have only enough lab supplies for six groups but because everyone’s experience can be richer through collaboration and because good scientific work demands working well together.
I set the tone for this on the very first day of school with an activity that requires collaboration and ends with the class being divided into lab teams (see the “Lab Groups and Patterns” activity at teachfastly.com). As each student walks through the door, they receive a notecard with a single word on it. This word may be something like Mercury, Lincoln, Jupiter, or Ford. On the back of the card, students write their names, one thing they are an expert at, one thing they struggle with, and a value or virtue that they believe is important for working together in the science classroom. After students have written on their cards, I tell them to stand up and move around the room in order to form groups of four based on the words printed on their cards.
This is where the activity gets fun. When students raise questions like, “Is Mercury a planet, an element, or a car?” my response is, “Yes.” I try to say as little as possible as they sort themselves into groups. Often, students need to shuffle around, leaving one group and joining another, since many words belong to multiple categories. They need to work together and use other people’s knowledge (and the words on their cards) to figure out where they belong.
The final categories become the semester’s lab teams. Once my students are seated with their teams, I take time to debrief with the class. This activity leads into our discussion of the nature of science and also gives us an opportunity to discuss how virtues relate to learning science—not exactly what one expects from their first day of a science class! Perhaps students had to exhibit humility when they recognized that their original ideas for categorization wouldn’t work, or perhaps they had opportunities to show kindness to their classmates. If students don’t bring it up on their own, I highlight how the activity required them to be attentive to each other. Listening well to each other’s ideas is part of communicating well, was necessary to complete the task, and will continue to be important throughout the course.
This activity and its virtues can easily become a distant memory for both me and my students by the end of the first month, if not well before. To continue emphasizing these virtues and their relevance both in science and in life, I have gotten into the habit of drawing my and my students’ attention back to them during class prayer time. While I have long made it a practice to pray with my students on a regular basis, before my participation on the FAST team I had never thought about beginning new lab activities by praying for the Spirit to enable us to be Christlike in our interactions with each other. Even further from my mind was the thought of ending each unit by thanking God for the virtues that were present and lamenting any missed opportunities to practice love, gentleness, and self-control.
Kristin Visser earned her BS in secondary math and physics education and her MA in curriculum and instruction at Calvin College. She currently teaches physics but has also taught physical science, algebra, and calculus.
