Dr. Free-Ride: So, what kind of science are you learning in school these days?
Younger offspring: I don’t know.
Dr. Free-Ride: You don’t know?! You have been going to school, right?
Younger offspring: Of course.
Dr. Free-Ride: When [Dr. Free-Ride’s better half] was in the classroom helping with the lesson this week, what did you learn about?
Younger offspring: About Fall, and pumpkins, and pumpkin seeds.
Dr. Free-Ride: There’s science in that, isn’t there?
Younger offspring: I guess.
* * * * *
Let the bullets commence!
- With the younger Free-Ride offspring’s kindergarten science curriculum, I’ve hit a patch of … not disenchantment, exactly. Let’s call it curiosity about the pedagogical strategy. It would seem that some weeks the “science” lesson is much less about science than about coloring, cutting, pasting, and all those other mad skillz one is supposed to acquire in kindergarten. And sure, some day those very skills may come in handy in the preparation of a science fair project (or a AAAS poster), but I can’t help but think that the coloring, cutting, and pasting might be more fun if they were connected to more compelling science content.
- Is it possible that most of the other kindergarteners haven’t been exposed to “growth of a seed to a plant that yields fruit with more seeds” narratives? In other words, does this just not feel like real science content to us because Younger offspring knows this story from preschool (and home)?
- Another thought: Could it be that the underlying plan here is to make science-y content seem ubiquitous, rather than artificially confining it to one specified lesson or set of activities per week? I think I might be able to get behind that, but I think I’d need to see more evidence that science-y content is casually dropped into learning how to write letters and numbers, coloring inside the lines, following directions, and so forth.
- Or, is the plan to starve them of science content in kindergarten so they’re hungry for it when they start doing Real Science Classes in first grade?
Meanwhile, Elder offspring still identifies science as the highlight of school each week (despite the fact that this year it’s on Monday rather than Friday). Highlights from second grade science class:
- The tadpoles in the classroom haven’t started changing yet. Maybe next week there will be preliminary limb sightings to report.
- This week was all about levers and fulcrums. The hands-on highlight was using a small block of wood and an “old, splintery board” to move a “heavy metal block — with our pinkies!”
- It gooes without saying that a dinner-table discussion of a spoon’s potential as a lever ensued. Thankfully, no peas were launched in the course of said discussion.
- There was, however, talk of improving the kindergarten unit on the growth of pumpkins by introducing levers to launch pumpkins.
- While we’re talking about fulcrums and levers, Elder offspring recommends a computer game called The Return of the Incredible Machine, wherein one gets to design all manner of fanciful contraptions using fulcrums and levers — “see-saws and teeter-totters” — pulleys, gears, and more exotic machine components like cats and dogs. I suggest confining the use of cats and dogs as machine components to computer games, at least until you get the hang of it.
- If anyone could enlighten me on the difference between a see-saw and a teeter-totter, I’d be much obliged!
* * * * *
Pictured above: a beaded lizard, made by Younger offspring. Perhaps soon we’ll be ready to move on to a beaded digestive system.
There is no difference in the objects–it’s just a dialectical difference: kind of like ‘porch’ versus ‘stoop’, ‘bucket’ versus ‘pail’, ‘water fountain’ versus ‘bubbler’, ‘hoagie’ versus ‘grinder’, and so on and so forth.
In my kids’ world, see-saws and teeter-totters were synonyms, but my kids were kids 10 years ago, and things could have changed on the street since then.
Thanks for the postings about your kids – but I still can’t figure out if they make me feel old, or young again!
I think “The Incredible Machine” had to have been one of my favorite computer games when I was a kid. I’m sure that some of the Rube Goldberg-esque designs that I came up with ended up being built out of Lego afterwards to (sans dogs, bowling balls, or rockets, or course).
Highly recommend it!
I think the phrases “see-saw” and “teeter-totter” are interchangeable, but reflect a bit of regionalism.
We always called them “see-saws” in upstate New York, but my wife (who is from North Carolina) calls them “teeter-totters”. Of course, she also calls knit caps (aka:toques) “toboggans”, so her judgement is suspect.
You may be right that Younger Sprog doesn’t recognize that simple stuff as Science because he knows more than that already. You also have a point, one I’ve been gnashing my teeth over this year, about the ultimate “pedagogical” goals of some of these school activities–even in 4th grade, I think a good half of The Girl’s day is spent “teaching” her how to ultimately sit in a desk for a few hours to take a standardized test and make the school proud. She gets more challenge at home, when we have time after nightly homework. I think it is important for kindergartners to learn those “mad skillz” but can’t they do something while they work on, say, scissor skillz? Does it have to be a mimeographed worksheet that all 20 kids do at the same time? Does it have to be about teaching procedure rather than the wonder of the universe and learning? Yeesh! What the hell happened to SCHOOL?
Just consider yourself lucky that they haven’t
learned about “potato guns” in science class.
BTW, I grew up in the northeast, where we had
see-saws, not teeter-totters.
I think the school system seriously underestimates the students’ abilities, and the problem starts in kindergarten (or before as the case may be.) On top of that, too many teachers teach to the lowest common denominator. I don’t know why schools don’t teach kids better quantitative skills younger in life. It has been my experience that kids will achieve more if you raise the bar. My middle school science teacher slept during class.