The scientific method is about as useful as the rhythm method--it works fine once you remove the human element. And like the rhythm method, takes a bit of spontaneous joy out of the room.
I like humans, and that's who I teach, and we all could use joy.
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If you break down a "successful" experiment, it reads like a successful curriculum vitae. Things are all lined up in order, as though coordinated sequentially by the scientists. But that's not how things work.
No matter how polished a resume, even one condensed to one page with no gaps, everyone's life is full of waterfalls and eddies, whirling moments blending into a chaotic river marked by events that choose us as much as we choose them. Some of us get buffeted around clinging to flotsam, some of us manage to build a tiny canoe with paper paddles--in the end, we have less control than we acknowledge, and we all drown.
Kids still know this even though the adults around them have managed to fool themselves.
So what do we do?
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| From Clastric Detritus--a wonderful geology blog |
Toss out the canned classroom experiments for a week. Ask a child to hypothesize and test a very simple idea. What makes something fall faster than something else? Does a slug have a food preference? Do earthworms hear?
Then let the child design the experiment. Most will get stuck. Sadly, most will need permission to get unstuck. They've been trained to get it right the first time. Ask them to keep notes along the way, but use them as guides, not as a graded assignment.
Most of their initial attempts will fail miserably. Gleefully (but not meanly) celebrate the fine points of failure as the child modifies and modifies and modifies. Eventually (and it will happen in a safe classroom), you will hear a child laugh at herself, modify her work, and carry on--without you.
Which is really the point, no?
No one leaves the river alive, and no teacher reasonably expects to outlive his students.