Where’s the Joy? Justice and Caring in Science Education

Introduction

It was May 2003, and Randi and I (Maria) were discussing the uncertainty of the next school year. Under the Children First Initiative, the Community School Districts in New York City had been consolidated into ten super regions. District personnel were being re-deployed, and my position as a district science staff developer was no longer going to exist. I had decided to take a teaching position, but was encountering principals who questioned my desire to teach after being out of the classroom. Randi laughed and said, “Well the greatest part is, you get to be with kids. That’s the best part. You know people have asked me, ‘Are you going to go into administration?’ That’s like the next logical thing, but ‘No!’ Because then, you’re not with the kids and if you can’t be with the kids…” I added, “Where’s the fun?” Randi said, “Yeah. Where’s the joy?” I asked, “Where’s the joy?” Randi replied, “Making decisions about curriculum.”

We begin this chapter with an excerpt from our field notes because we believe that it captures several of the key tensions that many urban elementary school teachers face: educational restructuring and uncertainty, the balance between focusing on children and focusing on content or curricula, and the pervasive belief that "moving up" in the teaching profession means moving out the classroom. Implicit in these reflections is the idea that when we recast our decisions to teach around a desire to help bring about social justice with children and teachers in schools, we also recast those boundaries that frame teaching. In fact, we believe, that this kind of social justice lens "opens up" the practice of teaching because it allows us to focus on the practices and conditions that make a difference—the joy of teaching—rather than to be paralyzed by the deficits which mark institutional practices in many inner-city school systems.

In particular, in this chapter we describe one middle school teacher’s – Randi’s – science teaching practice, and how her belief in a “freedom to teach” offers us one vision for what science education for social justice might look like. To tell this story we first describe the issues that a social justice lens raises in science education. Then, using a personal narratives approach, we tell Randi’s story and focus on the following questions:

· What does a belief in the freedom to teach mean? How does this belief in a freedom to teach frame what science teaching looks like in a 5^th grade science classroom?

· How is this vision transformative for the teacher and her students?

· In what ways does the freedom to teach challenge widely held understandings of access, agency and achievement, and how does reformulating these constructs transform how we enact visions of ‘science for all’ in classrooms?

Re-envisioning Science Education

The need to re-envision science education from a social justice perspective

Current policy initiatives and discussions that focus on urban education and student learning are largely driven by the quantitative findings that low-income urban youth are lagging in mathematics, literacy, science and other academic subject areas. Indeed, key studies have described how urban students in low-income communities, on average, score lower on high-stakes tests, and have lower participation in higher level science and mathematics courses.[i] Other literature has shown that low-income urban students drop out of school at rates significantly higher than more affluent children,[ii] less than half of the ninth graders in central city schools complete high school in four years,[iii] and children attending poor, urban schools have reduced access to new textbooks, scientific equipment, science-related extracurricular activities, or qualified, certified teachers.[iv] Consequently, the process of learning has become obscured by its product, and little attention has been granted to just how much either context or the multiple purposes for learning matters.

In New York City policies are being written and implemented that exchange a focus on learning standards for a standard process of learning. While science education has yet to go the way of mathematics of literacy, where teachers are prescribed page-a-day teaching and teachers and students in all classrooms must be on the same page of the curriculum on the same day, one could easily imagine science education moving along the same trajectory. These policies have hit low-income communities in New York City hard, especially those communities within urban centers where poverty rates are high and where schools serve majority minority populations.

These sorts of discussions and policy initiatives rely on the deficit model. They focus on what students lack and qualitatively draw away from what students do bring to the science classroom. Even the reform initiatives in science education, which hold the egalitarian goal that all students should have equitable opportunities to learn science–Science for All–are steeped in a stance of learning that is separate from context. As the major reform-based policy statements have announced:

All students, regardless of gender, cultural or ethnic background, physical or learning disabilities, aspiration, or interest and motivation in science, should have the opportunity to attain higher levels of scientific literacy than they currently do. This is a principle of equity…and has implications for program design and the education system…to ensure that the standards do not exacerbate the differences…that currently exist.[v]

When demographic realities, national needs, and democratic values are taken into account, it becomes clear that the nation can no longer ignore the science education of any student. Race, language, sex, or economic circumstances must no longer be permitted to be factors in determining who does and who does not receive a good education in science, mathematics and technology.[vi]

The Science for All initiatives in the US and in other western nations have been criticized, and we believe rightly so, for continuing to view the needs of poor, urban youth, non-English language background youth, youth of color, and girls through the deficit model.[vii] As these critiques point out, Science for All initiatives indicate that students who come to school not versed in the culture of western science are “lacking” and need to engage in extra efforts to catch up to their peers. They also assume that schooling operates meritocratically, and that science achievement scores are based on one’s efforts and abilities rather than one’s degree of enculturation into a system. As Kyle (2001) notes, "the rhetoric of 'science education for all' is juxtaposed to the reality of 'science education for the privileged” (p. xi).[viii]

Despite this criticism of Science for All, we agree with the thrust of the policy initiative that an equitable science education is both a moral and ethical imperative. Students need an opportunity to learn science. Our concerns rest in how the issues get framed and the importance this has for how we understand students’ lives and how science instruction might authentically emerge from them. So, we wonder, what would it mean to re-focus a discussion of science teaching and learning in low-income urban communities so that we frame teaching and learning in ways that are productively oriented, empowering, and transformative? In other words, what would it mean to re-envision science education from a social justice perspective?

A social justice perspective

Our approach to social justice is grounded in three bodies of literature: a multicultural approach to students and teaching;[ix] a politics of caring,[x] and critical approaches to science education (Calabrese Barton, 2003; Hodson, 1999; Rodriguez, 2001).[xi] Together, these bodies of literature capture four key meanings when applied to science education:

First, science education for social justice is transformative for all participants. Science pedagogy framed around social justice concerns can become a medium to transform individuals, schools, communities, the environment, and science itself, in ways that promote equity and social justice. Creating a science education that is transformative implies not only how science is a political activity, but also the ways in which students might see and use science and science education in ways transformative of the institutional and interpersonal power structures that play a role in their lives. Transformative science, then, politicizes science education not only "by the provision of opportunities for students to confront a wide range of socioeconomic issues that have a scientific, technological, or environmental dimension" (p. 787),[xii] but more importantly by the explicit belief that science must also have a social, economic, and political effect in students' lives. We claim that creating transformative science can be achieved only by recognizing the specific social, cultural, and political needs of the population doing the science.

Second, science education for social justice is grounded in critical awareness. In supporting this critical awareness of structures and power relations at play in their lives, we see critical science education as nurturing student voice and encouraging students to articulate their critical understandings. Critical science education encourages students to see themselves as agents of change in their lives and their community. That is, it supports student agency. So, by providing opportunities for students to gain a critical understanding, articulate a position, and take action, science education should play a role in reshaping student identities with new, critical understandings.

Third, science education for social justice is only possible when learning communities foster caring relationships between students and their teachers, and among students, so that a sharing of ideas, skills, and experiences in and around the curriculum, or learning, can occur. Noddings explains that caring is more than "a warm fuzzy feeling that makes people kind and likable. Caring implies a continuous search for competence."[xiii] This means believing that all children can learn and organizing the educative process around ensuring that all children do learn.

Fourth, an empowering education in low-income urban schools is one that is grounded in the lives of the teachers and learners who learn in those schools. We believe that the foundations (the needs, experiences and ideas) or the seeds for change rest in the lives of ordinary people (and in particular in the lives of those people who ordinarily have been marginalized) and that is our duty as professional developers and researchers to struggle with people to learn more about those needs, experiences and ideas. In short, students and teachers must be valued for the wealth of experience, knowledge, and skills they bring to the classroom both as members of the learning community and as learners.

Re-envisioning the goals of science education through a social justice lens

We specifically use the term re-envision, to acknowledge that the teachers and students possess and express visions for caring, science, and science education although these may or may not be well-articulated. In addition, the term re-envision incorporates an integral part of our roles in the classroom as professional developers, teacher educators, and researchers, to move teachers and students from their current locations towards actively developing classroom communities that foster respect, caring, inquiry-based learning, problem-solving and student achievement. This is not to imply that some or all of these aspects are not already present. Thus, we also recognize that re-envisioning caring, equity, science, and science education is an ongoing process that in a real sense never ends and we grow and change and re-envision these realities alongside those we work with.

Valenzuela[xiv] documented how schooling becomes a subtractive process in which immigrant students gradually lose their language, culture, and educational values, ultimately leading to low levels of achievement. While her study was with Mexican immigrant youth, schooling may also be a subtractive process for any students whose cultures do not match that of the school, including poor, inner-city students.[xv] One of the main disconnects that Valenzuela uncovered was a difference in the ways that students and teachers perceived caring. Specifically, teachers expected students to care about school while students expected teachers to care about them. As a result, Valenzuela contends that educators must become sensitive to the "politics of caring" as a first step in developing a "more relevant and authentic pedagogy” (p. 255).[xvi]

Drawing from Valenzuela’s work, it is clear that it is not enough to say that science is for all students. Instead, we believe it is important re-envision the ways in which: (1) students access science, (2) how we measure student achievement in science, and (3) the role of agency in the science classroom.

Access. The ways that students access, or gain entry to science typically position students as outside science and require that they assimilate the content, processes, histories, norms for participation, and discursive practices of science. Hodson explains that assimilation "sees its goal as the perpetuation, transmission, and promotion of the cultural beliefs and norms of the dominant community. It is a one-way process, through which members of an ethnic group give up (or have taken away) their original cultural identity" (p. 776).[xvii] Our own research and teaching in urban classrooms suggests that access ought to be thought about in a much more fluid and interactive manner.[xviii] Accessing science, whether it be in the classroom or in daily life is a more of a reflexive process that always involves students playing active roles in shaping the science in their lives. In other words, accessing science is in part about getting into the scientific canon, which most certainly plays a gatekeeping role.[xix] But part of accessing science is critically transforming the form and function of science by situating science as a sociopolitical and cultural practice.[xx] As Ladson-Billings (1995) asserts, students must “develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness that allows them to critique the cultural norms, values, mores, and institutions that produce and maintain social inequities” (p. 162).[xxi]

Achievement. Similarly, rather than focusing solely on traditional measures of achievement, such as performance on high-stakes exams, or paper and pencil classroom assessments, achievement in science should be expanded to include students' self-esteem or self-efficacy with respect to science, the degree to which students elect to take advanced courses,[xxii] and ultimately, greater representation of poor, urban students, in science related careers. Thus, methods of assessing what students know and are able to do must align with how teachers are expected to teach as well as how students are expected to show what they have learned.[xxiii] In addition, in order to align with re-envisioned equity goals, assessments must be reflective of science as a sociocultural activity, include students' worldviews and perspectives, and foster agency (Fusco and Calabrese Barton, 2001).[xxiv]

Agency. Agency in the science classroom has three key elements. First, agency refers to students' active role in the production and reproduction of scientific knowledge both inside and outside the classroom. Second, by providing students with an active role or voice in the process of producing scientific knowledge, science becomes responsive to their individual and collective needs, struggles, and cultures. Third, commitment to caring and social justice reformulates our roles as teachers and researchers, wherein agency "refers to the conscious role we choose to play in helping bring about social change for the collective benefit of all, especially those in lower hierarchical power or disadvantaged positions than ourselves".[xxv] In our teaching and research, we are consciously there to bring about changes that may be necessary, including changes in teachers' philosophies and practices, changes in students’ attitudes towards science, motivation, behavior in science classroom, and ultimately, student outcomes. Thus, it is not enough for teacher educators or researchers to gather data about teaching and learning…we have to make a substantive difference in the lives of the children and teachers we serve.

Transforming science learning in middle school science through a social justice perspective: A case study

In the remainder of this chapter we use the social justice framework to tell a story about how teaching relationships built on caring can serve as the basis for a transformative science education practice. In particular, we tell the story of one teacher, Randi, a 5^th grade teacher in a large middle school, located in heart of a low-income community. We use the case of Randi to explore the relationships between the teacher’s lived experiences and beliefs and the enacted science curriculum within a particular urban context. In addition, this study explores critical issues, unique to the context and constituents, which arise and ultimately shape the students’ and teacher’s transformative pathways. The story that we tell is part of a larger set of studies that explore the interplay between the theory and practice of caring and social justice in the context of an urban science professional development lab.

The qualitative methods employed include narrative inquiry and life history. Narrative inquiry draws upon the natural role of stories in the way we make sense of our lives and experiences both in and out of the classroom.[xxvi] By situating these stories within teachers’ lived experiences, we gain a greater sense of the intersections between teachers’ beliefs, motives, practices, and contexts.[xxvii] Also, by drawing from narrative inquiry, we gain a more authentic first hand experience of how it is that the teacher in our study understood what social justice and science education were about. Taking our cues from other narrative inquiry researchers, we therefore draw upon lengthy quotes in an attempt to remain true to the voice and perspective of the teacher with whom we worked.

Data for the study were obtained through a series of semi-structured interviews focused on the teacher’s life history, beliefs, and experiences, as well as classroom observations and journal entries spanning the 2002-2003 school year. As in praxis-oriented research, a primary goal was to help participants reflect upon and transform their situations.[xxviii] As a result, the methods draw upon principles of reciprocity and collaborative theorizing, or mutual negotiation of meaning.[xxix] In addition, there is a blurring of the roles of researcher and researched, such that our interactions are characterized by an ability to listen to and learn from each other and to reflect candidly upon our experiences together.[xxx]

A guiding purpose for this study was to construct narratives that help us understand how students’ and teachers’ participation in urban science professional development lab programs may allow them to re-envision science in their lives, their position with respect to science, and their roles in the science classroom. Specifically, we were interested in describing what a transformative science lesson might look like in a 5^th grade, urban, science classroom to address the following questions: What does a belief in the freedom to teach mean? How does this belief in a freedom to teach frame what science teaching looks like in a 5^th grade science classroom? How is this vision transformative for the teacher and her students? In what ways does the freedom to teach challenge widely held understandings of access, agency and achievement, and how does reformulating these constructs transform how we enact visions of ‘science for all’ in classrooms?

Investigating Owl Pellets

I[1] work as a district staff developer, in a model science lab, in a large, K-8 school in New York City. The school enrolls more than 1500 students, 90 percent of whom are eligible for free lunch. About 4 percent of the students are recent immigrants and 14 percent are designated as English Language Learners. 64 percent of the students are Hispanic students and 34 percent are Black. The school is divided into a Primary School for grades K-4 and an Upper School for Grades 5-8. While each school has its own principal, the two principals work closely together to facilitate a unified vision of teaching and learning across grades K-8. Nevertheless, the school struggles with low student achievement on State-mandated literacy and mathematics tests, particularly at the middle school level.

Randi is a white, female teacher in her late thirties. She describes herself as an upstate New Yorker, having gown up in Rochester. She comes to teaching following a career in hotel management, explaining: “Well, in the restaurant business the thing that I was the best at was training other people and management. You know, getting the work done that needed to be done. So training, that became my thing. I can teach people how to do things.”

Randi’s favorite grade to teach is fifth grade – the entry grade in the middle school – because fifth graders are “very needy...in so many other ways than any other kid.” Randi explains how they go through so many changes “…mentally, physically, maturity-wise, emotionally…I mean you name it. And they kind of don’t know what to do with all these changes. No one really talks about it yet because they think that they’re only 10 and 11. They’re not teenagers yet but really they’re adolescents. It starts at 10... So they have all these things going on and they don’t know how to cope with them and they don’t know how to talk about them so it’s my grade.” While this is her first year with the Department of Education, seven years teaching experience make her a veteran teacher and the lead teacher for her grade.

When Randi asked me to visit her class because they were dissecting owl pellets, I wondered why she was doing owl pellets when the students were in the middle of their physical science unit. For the last several weeks, the fifth grade classes had been cycling through the District’s Science and Technology Lab to learn how to use triple beam balances. In class, the teachers were focusing on other aspects of measurement, such as length and volume. I had also been working with Randi and the other fifth grade teachers to develop science centers as a way to utilize limited materials for science. Each teacher would set up a science center in their room and the students would cycle through during the course of a week. The center activities were designed so that students should be able to follow the instructions and do the activity with little or no direct assistance from their teacher. Sometimes the teacher might need to do a whole-class lesson first. Then, students could begin cycling through the activity, followed by a whole class discussion. The first center activity was designed to give students extra practice with the triple-beam balance. The students would measure equal volumes of sand and water, find the mass of the sand and water by subtracting the mass of the cup, then compare the mass of sand and water to determine that equal volumes of different substances have different masses. The science center approach was less than ideal, but at least the students were getting some hands-on activities. Our goal was to provide students with more opportunities to learn science in their classrooms.

As I thought about the owl pellets, I could see how it might connect to their study of animals, including birds, later in the year during the life science unit, but I did not know what the connection was now. I went up to Randi’s classroom the following day and arrived several minutes after the students had begun working on their pellets. I noted that each student had their own owl pellet. Since they had already started, small mounds of fur and separate piles of bones were beginning to take shape in front of the students. “Look what I found!” Liliana exclaimed, brandishing a skull complete with long, orange incisors. “I found one too!” Jason replied. “What’s this?” students were asking. I watched as students laboriously teased apart bones and fur. The excitement was contagious and I realized that I had to document this.

I ran down to the Lab to get the digital camera. I returned, and for a while, I focused on capturing the images…students delicately using toothpicks to clean the fur off the tiny bones, painstakingly matching bones to skeletal diagrams, and skeletal forms of rodents and birds taking shape. I also saw Randi conferring with students, showing them how to clean the bones, helping them compare and contrast the bones to the chart to determine which part of the skeleton they came from. Periodically, she would remind students of the time and where they should be by that point in order to finish. Jasmine asked me to help her remove the bones and fur from inside the skull she found. The material was packed in tight and she didn’t want the skull to break. As I held the skull, I was struck by how delicate it was. Before long, I was digging in too.

One of the students, Diana, had the idea of matching the bones directly to the skeletal diagram, like pieces of a puzzle. Soon, students at other tables caught on and began trying the same thing. I realized that there were not enough diagrams for each student to have their own, so I asked Randi if she had more. Randi said she only made one copy per group and that she didn’t think the copy room staff would make more of them since you had to request copies three days in advance. I offered to make them on the copy machine down in the Lab. I quickly borrowed one of the student’s diagrams and ran downstairs again. When I came back, Randi helped me distribute the diagrams. The students were enthusiastic. Now they all would be able to complete their puzzles. During this time, the principal came in. As she circulated among the students, she was positive about their engagement with the task, but queried Randi about the next steps. When she saw that I had the digital camera she said, “Great! Randi can use the pictures for her bulletin board.” By this time, we were well into the second period and the students were still on task. Many students were actively helping each other. They were sharing ideas, methods, and bones so that their classmates could complete their skeletons.

Towards the end of the period, Randi distributed construction paper and began encouraging students to glue the bones of their skeletons to the construction paper. It quickly became clear that she did not have enough glue bottles to go around, since almost all the students were ready to begin gluing. Once again I ran down to the lab to get some more glue. Upon returning, I told Randi that I had to leave to prepare the Lab for a class that was coming after lunch. She thanked me for coming and helping out. I told her, “That’s what I’m here for.”

Later, after many conversations with Randi, I began to realize that Randi’s decision to conduct the owl pellet investigation was about her desire to build an instructional program across the subject areas that was responsive to her students’ needs and interests. While I initially viewed her teaching decision to conduct an owl pellet investigation as a “deviation” from the science curriculum of the moment, I began to see that this activity was not a deviation at all. Randi did not abandon the grade’s instructional goals to introduce students to measurement skills in physical science to do a more exciting life science activity. Rather, as a self-contained classroom teacher, she creatively used her schedule and her knowledge of the students’ progressions through each of the academic subject areas to design an emergent learning opportunity. This seemed especially powerful to me given the schools’ strong emphasis on test scores and subject attention to mathematics and literacy instruction at the expense of other subject areas.

Furthermore, as I reflect upon the owl pellet activity, I have come to the realization that the students were building more than skeletons that day, and they were learning more than life science that day. They were building a community of learners and ways of talking and doing science. They were learning that the boundaries of science activities are not defined by a progression through a curriculum. Randi and I were also building something. We were building a relationship that was about making science happen for kids.

Freedom to Teach Equals Opportunity to Learn

So, I think the biggest barrier is just let me shut my door and let me teach my kids. Don’t tell me how to teach them. Don’t tell me what works best for my students. I know. If I’m a professional and I’ve done all the things that I’m trained to do. Then I know. Let me do what I have to do. Because if I have to spend three days talking about measurement, then I need to spend three days on it. Don’t tell me I’ve got one day and I’m not on the pacing chart. I need to move on. Don’t tell me that. So leaving me alone to do my job…[Laughing]…is half the battle. Because I’m not getting stuff done (Interview with Randi).

In working with Randi across the course of two school years, it has become clear to us that Randi’s practice is grounded in two principled ideas: that freedom to teach equals an opportunity to learn, and that teaching is a process that is deeply contextual, involving deep knowledge of subject matter knowledge, students, and how the systems works.

The freedom to teach, as Randi alludes to in the interview transcript shared above, involves a combination of professional knowledge, a proclivity towards practicing teaching in a way that is driven by students’ needs, and a desire to make a difference. Randi passionately believes that she and her students can accomplish many things together if she were “free” to teach the way she knew best. A closer look at Randi’s practices shows us that her belief in what we refer to as “the freedom to teach” is grounded in three practices: 1) blurring the boundaries between subject areas; 2) making time for science by reframing or resisting what, when, and how one is mandated to teach science and other subjects; and 3) using specific knowledge of “how the system works” to justify one’s decisions. We describe each one of these points below, offering examples from Randi’s practice that help to both contextualize the points we make and advance our understanding of the importance of the freedom to teach.

Blurring the Boundaries between Subjects

The first practice that marks Randi’s belief in the freedom to teach is her decision to blur the boundaries between school subjects. While Randi often blurred boundaries between many of the subjects she taught, she paid particular attention to how she could blur the boundaries between literacy and science. Making connections between literacy and science was particularly important to Randi because she teaches in a school where student scores on the high-stakes literacy exams are low, and thus the fifth grade curriculum is supersaturated with literacy blocks.

Randi’s specific knowledge of science and literacy also influenced curricular decisions that allowed science to enter into literacy instruction seamlessly. For example, read-alouds are encouraged by the school principal and are a main component of balanced literacy instruction in all fifth grade classrooms. Randi often chose science-related books for these read-alouds that she believed would be interesting for students to read and listen to. In discussing the content of the read-alouds with her students she often looked for student ideas that might offer springboards for other activities, projects and discussion. In fact, the owl pellet activity, described at the beginning of this chapter, was a project that had its initial origin in a literacy-block read aloud.

Randi explained that they had been reading Poppy, by Avi. She described the book as a “total science book” and gave the following re-telling of the story:

Well it’s about Poppy the mouse and her family. So in the first chapter of the book Poppy and her little boyfriend are on a hill where they’re not supposed to be in the forest and Ragweed steps out of the little leaf he was hiding underneath and Mr. Ocax the owl comes down and eats him…So they talk about the talons, and the owl comes down and grabs the mouse, and then later on, you found out that Poppy is in the forest under the owl’s nest and sees the pile of owl pellets and notices the earring that Ragweed had in one of the owl pellets…Then, we also learn Mr. Ocax’s trick that he’s playing on the mice. He tells the mice that they’re not allowed to leave or go anywhere in the forest without his permission. There’s the irony, right? Because he hates them, but they need his permission, so they go get his permission and he’s going to eat them. Well, he scares the mice into believing this because he says porcupines are in the forest and that porcupines eat mice. Well, of course we know, porcupines are not meat eaters. So that’s where this survival of the fittest, and survival, and food chains, and all of that comes into play.

This read-aloud sparked numerous questions on the part of the students, as Randi explained:

…They wanted to know a lot about the porcupine. They wanted to know what a quill was, which I showed them because I have one in my room. They wanted to know how you know that a porcupine is not a meat eater. What do porcupines eat? They wanted to know all about the pellet. They think that it’s puke. They’re totally curious about the pellet. So when the curiosity comes out, I have a pellet in my room and I bring that out. They take it out and they get to touch it and that creates even more questions like, “What’s that bone?” or How does it do that? How does it regurgitate it? What’s digestion? Why doesn’t it digest bones? What kind of animals does it eat? How many animals can be in there? Can birds be in there? I mean just all…you name it. They want to know about it.

Although Randi described the owl pellet activity as “not teacher directed,” it was clear that she introduced it in a structured way and had a process in mind for how the activity would proceed:

I had to give them some brief skill information. How they were to unwrap it. How they were to pull it apart. Why they had to keep it on the mat and then separating the bones from the fur. That was their first big deal. And then we had the charts, the bone sorting charts. They were supposed to categorize their bones so then they could put them up to the chart and see where it belonged. And then after all of them were sorted, they had to reconstruct, based on the chart, whatever creature they had found. It’s not exact because I don’t know the difference between a vole bone and a mole bone…

Thus, as this quote suggests, in addition to the read-alouds, Randi explained how other tools of literacy, such as writing narrative procedures, also became a place of science investigation for students. Randi viewed this blurring of boundaries, however, as moving in multiple directions. While she was able to use literacy time to engage in science investigations with her students, she also drew upon the excitement of exploring the owl pellets as a student generated reason for practicing methods of scientific communication. As she explains:

Then they had to write about what kind of animal they thought it was and why. So if they thought it was a vole, or mole, or whatever, they had to talk about, basically the teeth in front and the size of the skull. Those were really the only two discerning factors. If they had a bird, obviously they would have a beak. They had to talk about what kind of animal they thought it was. And then, we kind of had some discussions about the eating process again. So, I asked them to write up in step form, what happens when an owl eats something...You know, he eats it, digests what he can, builds up the fur until it’s too much, then pukes it out. So, if I’d continued the lesson and talked more about life science and the food chains and all that stuff I could have gotten more processes out of it.

Although Randi believes that she creates opportunities to blur boundaries on almost a daily basis, she also recognizes that she is constrained by the system from doing so as often as she believes would be beneficial to her students. She constantly reminded us that “Every subject is separate” in her school and that “It’s just not set up that way.” In criticizing her own teaching actions around the owl pellet activity, she states that she could have “gotten more processes out of it” if she could have spent more time on the project in both literacy and science.

Making Time for Science

Having time to teach science was a particularly tension-filled issue with Randi and the other teachers at her school. As described earlier, Randi teaches science in a middle school formally labeled as low-performing. Consequently, instructional priority has been granted to mathematics and literacy instruction. In fact, it was the case at the school that many teachers at her grade level often did not even teach science and little administrative attention was given to its absence. Having “time” to do science for Randi, though, was not always about scheduling a class block. As the previous theme of blurring the boundaries between science and literacy shows, Randi viewed subject matter knowledge instruction as something that could emerge from any activity if the teacher is attentive enough to the interests of her students.

In addition to blurring boundaries across subject areas, Randi challenged the time to do science by actively reframing or resisting what, when, and how she was mandated to teach. In the case of the owl pellets, Randi originally introduced the book, Poppy, as a read-aloud for “pure enjoyment.” She said, “Just a read aloud for enjoyment only and then all this other stuff happened. I thought, “Well, I’ll do the owl pellet now.” Despite the fact that in science class, they were studying properties of matter, Randi decided that it was important to facilitate the students’ interest in owls. Thus the “what” to teach was decided by students’ interest and in order to capitalize on students’ immediate desire to learn more about owls, Randi had to change “when” she would introduce the owl pellets. Likewise, by pursuing students’ interests from literacy into science, Randi was forging connections between subjects in ways that the current curricular structure did not allow. Randi explained:

I think that things need to be connected. We keep asking kids to make connections and everything is separate. This is the time for math. From here to here. That’s it. We’re not asked to teach Science and Math together even though we all know they go hand in hand. We’re not asked to teach Social Studies and Reading together. So if it’s not done in that time frame you feel like you can’t do it.

Randi explained that she made time for the owl pellet lesson even though it did not fit with the science curriculum at the time and we recalled that she had used several morning periods although science was usually in the afternoon. Randi admitted to using “Social Studies” time to be able to fully incorporate the owl pellet experience. While Randi explained that she learned to be flexible with her teaching schedule – she has a self-contained classroom – she was also clear that she could use her knowledge of how different subjects intersected in support of curricular decisions that countered official school policy. Randi confidently stated, “Give me one of those webs, I can stretch it wherever I need to.” Thus, Randi actively resisted the arbitrary borders between subjects by expanding the boundaries of what constitutes science and ultimately transforming literacy and social studies as well.

Knowledge of the System

Having knowledge of how the school system worked allowed Randi to feel confident taking teaching risks – risks she felt were necessary to provide her students with opportunities for meaningful leaning. As Randi describes:

Well, here, in this school, I feel very constrained. Here, in this school, in order for me to do that, I would have to know my reasoning behind it and be able to justify or defend why I’m doing that particular activity at that particular time, when it’s not in the map. If I know that I can do that and feel confident about it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it any chance I get... I need to get my kids motivated. My kids are not motivated to learn. If they’re motivated about something and I have the chance to squeeze that in somehow, I’m going to squeeze it in. What I just do is I make sure I have a defense. And I always do.

Randi explained that being able to justify or “having a defense for” what she doing was critical to her ability to have the freedom to teach:

We’d already been through the scientific method but I was pushing my kids last year to go beyond and start to think about variables and how we’re going to change a variable for an experiment. So I brought out the everlasting gobstoppers and I have an experiment around everlasting gobstoppers that gets them to think in this way. Now if the Principal comes in to see these kids looking at candies in a bowl and every kid’s got a gobstopper in their mouth, I have to be able to justify that. But there’s not one kid who’s not participating.

As this quote suggests, in Randi’s school the principal and even sometimes the superintendent make unannounced visits. She also knows that when they walk into her room during a literacy block, they expect to see literacy happening. Randi also recognizes that her definitions of what constitutes meaningful learning in literacy may not match the vision advocated by the school or the district. She knows that if she is to continue to serve her students well, she needs to be able to explain why she is teaching both what she is teaching and how she is teaching it, “If I can’t say that in my head, “Why I’m teaching this lesson?” I have no business teaching it. So in my enthusiasm, if I can show a superintendent, or a LIS[2], or a RIS[3], or a principal, or even a parent how the owl pellets came to be based on this piece of literature, everybody’s happy, everybody wins!” Thus, Randi’s specific knowledge of “the system” or her ability to effectively communicate why she is doing what she is doing allows her to take risks in a climate of increased teacher scrutiny.

Randi recognizes that her actions to “beat the system” are tempered by the reality of her situation. Randi is the lead teacher on the grade and visitors are often brought to see her class. As she explains, “And people have said to me, ‘Randi shut your door and do what you need to do.’ Well, I can’t shut my door. My room is too hot. It’s open all the time. That’s the logistics of it. And I have visitors all the time in my room. So I have to be doing it the District way. God forbid the [principal] should come into my room and I’m not doing it the District way. I’m sure it’s because I have experience and I have the class that I have but it’s frustrating.”

Discussion: Re-Envisioning Equity: Access, Achievement and Agency

Freedom to teach as the source for students’ opportunities to engage in meaningful learning is at the heart of Randi’s practice. The practices that make up Randi’s belief in the freedom to teach provide a vision for how one teacher worked within a set of less than optimal conditions to make transformative teaching happen. If we look across the themes, we can see that freedom to teach also helps us to envision science education differently. In particular, freedom to teach reformulates our understanding of equity in terms of access, agency, and achievement.

Access

Students’ access to the science of owl pellets was mediated in three important ways that contribute to teaching for social justice. First, the access was initiated by students’ interest, rather than a scripted curriculum. Randi explained, “It was pure exploration based on their curiosity.” By allowing students voice and choice in the curriculum, Randi allowed students to access science in a more reflexive way. Second, the entry to science was achieved via literacy, through a read-aloud from a fiction book, which for many students may have rendered the scientific discourse around terminology, such as regurgitation and digestion, as well as conceptual ideas, including food chains more accessible. It is important to note that none of the students in this class were designated English Language Learners, so a read-aloud in English was accessible to all students. In addition, since students were not required to read the text on their own, poor reading skills did not hinder their access to the scientific knowledge embedded in the text or the class discussions that ensued. Finally, the narrative nature of the text and the dramatic telling of the story may have allowed students to identify with Poppy the mouse and imagine the interactions between Mr. Ocax and the mice, or predator-prey relationships within the forest setting in creative ways, whereas a nonfiction description of owls and their prey might not evoke such imagery or personal connections with students.

For Randi, what makes science accessible to students is that it is “high interest.” She explains, “They like doing it. These are the things that happen around them all the time and it’s available. You just have to have the materials. And even with a limited amount, you can still at least get science in.” So as a teacher she strategically tries to create the conditions of “high interest.” The owl pellet activity is something that Randi has taught before and planned to teach again later in the year. What she did not anticipate was that the read aloud of Poppy, would spur such interest in the students and blur the boundaries between literacy and science. Thus, the students’ opportunity to learn was facilitated by Randi’s ability to reframe the boundaries of what, when, and how science would be taught in relation to other subjects, her willingness to take risks and invest her own money so that every child could dissect an owl pellet. Finally, students were able to enact their own methodologies for removing the bones and constructing the skeletons. By shaping what constitutes knowing and doing in science, students were able to access science as insiders, rather than outsiders.

Agency

By being innovative in their methodologies of removing the bones, sorting them, and constructing the skeletons, students were also able to develop a sense of agency with respect to knowing and doing science. The students were innovative because they were not taught specific methodologies, they were only told to be careful because the bones were delicate. As a result, the students had to develop their own ways of accomplishing these tasks. While there was a good deal of “trial and error,” when a particular student developed a really useful method, other students and even the teachers were able to imitate that method. This placed students in the roles of independent learners, co-learners, and teachers. For example, one student, Diana, was trying to construct a skeleton of a rodent and was having difficulty keeping track of where the bones should go on her mat and what she need to get, next. She began to match the bones directly to the diagram, as if she was completing a primary puzzle. This idea spread very quickly:

Randi: All the years that I’ve done this, I’ve never seen that done.

Researcher: So that was really innovative of them.

Randi: Very innovative and creative and I remember the child that did it.

Researcher: Who was that?

Randi: Diana…One of the reasons that stands out is because I hadn’t seen her take initiative ever, in anything up to that point, especially not in science. So to take the initiative because she wanted to do the activity…and apparently she was interested in it…She took the initiative to do it in that particular way, by placing the bones on the chart.

Researcher: And it caught on like wildfire.

Randi: Totally. And one part of me feels like maybe that’s how I should tell them to do it but on the other hand, that was really a great learning moment, teachable moment, whatever you want to call it.

Not only did Diana have an active role in the production of scientific knowledge, but for this child it was the first instance that Randi could recall her showing initiative with respect to learning. For this particular child, who initiated this way of doing science and received the acknowledgement of her peers and teacher, the owl pellet activity became a source of agency. As the teacher, Randi recognized how this became a source of empowerment for her students, particularly Diana, and as a result she explained that she would be reluctant to tell future students to do the skeletons the same way, even though it really worked, because of the value that discovery had as a “teachable moment.”

Despite the clear parallels between the owl-pellet activity and the work of real scientists who study owls, Randi resisted labeling this activity as one in which students were positioned as scientists, although she would label it as a science-like performance.

Well I think because scientists are curious, they have to start with their curiosity. And from there they go on and make their experiment, or draw their conclusions, or make decisions and I think one of the ways that I relate science to real life is just by using it as a decision-making process. And so just under the umbrella of science and under the umbrella of owl pellets you get kids to think in that methodological way then, you’ve got them to be problem-solvers. And isn’t that the point? I’m not raising scientists in my classroom. I’m trying to raise problem-solvers. So I think it’s linked to science in that way. Having these questions. Working through the process to either have more questions because you don’t have an answer yet that you need. Or just seeking more information maybe that sparked something else in, you to go another avenue. So in that way, I think it’s linked to scientists.

Thus, student agency derives from their ability to use science to make decisions.

From a teaching perspective, Randi’s sense of agency is derived from her ability to leverage her knowledge of the system to teach in the way that she knows works. This primarily means that her students are motivated about learning. One of the ways Randi garners student interest is by giving them voice and choice in the curriculum. When students see that they have a role in determining the learning goals, at least sometimes, this is also a potential source of agency. However, it is important to note that part of the reason why students were allowed voice and choice in science is because it is a relatively undervalued subject. In other words, do students also have opportunities to establish learning goals in literacy or mathematics as well?

Achievement

Randi described the owl pellet activity as a “performance assessment.” Specifically, she wanted to know, “Did they complete it? Were they able to follow the steps? Were they able to talk about the steps of the regurgitation process? Were they able to physically use this guide to put back the [skeleton]? Did they understand why they were doing it?” The students could have relied upon what they learned from the book, Poppy, or read more about owls to answer their questions about owl pellets. Instead, they engaged in an authentic process of learning about what owls eat that blurred the distinction between learning and assessment. At the same time, this performance assessment communicated to the students that a broader set of skills and capacities, such as working cooperatively, gathering evidence, sorting, categorizing, thinking critically, and solving problems, were valued besides simply being able to recall information or use information to answer questions. Embedded within the owl pellet activity was attention to the process of science, which for Randi means the scientific method:

What did I want students to learn? I think generally, getting a feel for how an experiment works, scientific method, how to get from your prediction or your hypothesis all the way through the end of an experiment. It’s not the topic that you chose, or what was in the curriculum, it’s just that basic knowledge. That it’s not just fun and games. It’s formulating questions, observing… answering your questions. Or making new questions about what you’ve observed.

Beyond process, Randi explained that although writing was part of how she asked students to summarize what they learned, she was more concerned with getting students to think than to write.

Because the writing is hard for some of them. It was hard for me as a kid. So if I can get them to think about it and then we can have meaningful discussions about it and all the kids are actively participating in a meaningful discussion or dialogue. That to me is far more superior than asking them to write.

According to Randi, what makes dialogue “meaningful” is that “everyone can do it.”

Everyone can do it no matter if they can’t express themselves, fully, with really good vocabulary, they can, however, express themselves somehow and a lot of kids can’t do that in writing. It’s difficult for them and it’s a chore. Well, talking is never a chore for any of those kids. [Laughing] It’s always something they want to do. That’s why I hate forcing them to have to write all the time. Forcing someone to write is not making them want to do it.

Randi’s primary goal is to motivate her students to want to learn because she feels everything else will flow from there. To make learning accessible, she tries to scaffold the process so that even students who cannot express the understandings that they have developed through writing, have the opportunity to communicate their ideas. Thus, performance assessments have the potential to individualize learning goals for students and move beyond “one size fits all” approaches to measuring student achievement in science.

Implications

Randi stands out among her peers as a leader, an innovator, a person who is willing to learn, and as an advocate for her students. To her, the joy in teaching stems from “being with kids” and “making decisions abut curriculum.” At the same time, being with children and making decisions about curriculum occur within the social, political, and economic aspects of schooling in general and her school, in particular. The current policy arena of No Child Left Behind points to increasingly scripting teacher activity in the classroom, including the structure of daily lessons, rigid pacing charts, specific educational programs and materials to be used, and continuous oversight. In the effort to raise literacy and mathematics scores, funds and time are spent disproportionately on these subject areas to the detriment of quality teaching in science, social studies, and the arts, sending a clear message to students and teachers that all subjects are not equal. Furthermore, the sorting and segregating of students into higher and lower tracks belies the ideal that “all children can learn.”

While concerns for equity necessitate clearly identifying the problem that our schools do not currently serve all children, Randi’s case illustrates that by removing the decision-making power from teachers, we run the risk of severely constraining teachers’ abilities to motivate all students to learn. If we continue to prescribe for teachers what, when, and how they must teach, we diminish the potential for student and teacher agency in schools and classrooms and create a climate that requires teacher resistance in order for transformative science teaching and learning to occur. We also limit the pathways by which students can access science in meaningful ways. This scenario provides little hope for improving achievement of poor, urban students by any measure.

Alternatively, connected learning opens up a realm of possibilities for student access, agency, and achievement in science. It is at the nexus of authentic caring, a more “general curriculum,” and teacher and student voice and choice that transformative teaching and learning can occur, teaching and learning that more closely approximate our goals of social justice. Thus, our vision of “science for all” goes beyond raising standards to creating real opportunities for all students to learn science. Oakes explains: “An effective urban teacher cannot be skilled in the classroom but lack skills and commitment to equity, access, and democratic participation. Likewise if one is to be a teacher, a deep caring and democratic commitment must be accompanied by highly developed subject matter and pedagogical skills.”[xxxi] Thus, attention to the ways in which students access science, how we define student achievement in science, and the role of agency in the science classroom help us to re-envision equity in science education and the case of Randi, demonstrates the need for a contextual approach and a multiplicity of models for transformative teaching and learning in science.

Useful Sources for Teaching Science for Social Justice

Readings for Teachers

Banks, J. A., McGee Banks, C., Fennimore, B., Allen-Brown, V., & King, S. (1997). Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. Journal of Teacher Education, 48(2), 136-146.

Calabrese Barton, A. (2003). Teaching Science for Social Justice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Tate, W. "Science Education as a Civil Right: Urban Schools and Opportunity-to-Learn Considerations." Journal of Research in Science Teaching 38, no. 9 (2001): 1015-29.

West Harlem Environmental Action Group: http://www.weact.org/

Curriculum Resources

Rekindling Traditions Cross-Cultural Science & Technology Units (CCSTU) Project http://capes.usask.ca/ccstu/.

Linking Food & the Environment Program! An inquiry-based science and nutrition program http://www.tc.edu/life/life.htm.

The Secret Lives of Owls

http://www.carolina.com/owls/guide/pellets.asp

Hawks, Owls, and Wildlife: The Owl Pellet Specialist

http://www.owlpelletkits.com/pages/513061/index.htm

Sources for Students

The Electronic Naturalist: Cough It Up: How Owls Deal with Bones and Fur

http://www.enaturalist.org/topics.htm

KidWings: Virtual Owl Pellet Dissection

http://www.kidwings.com/

[1] We switch from “we” to “I” because one of us, Maria, was the district staff developer involved in the teacher-research.