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Teachers take teens to source
Learning
here involves more
than textbooks
04/12 12:23 AM
By MARTA MURVOSH The Daily Herald
PAYSON
- Branden Russell poked at a tan, smooth-skinned caterpillar with his
finger.
The larva curled up in a circle.
"I like the fuzzy ones," said the 15-year-old Russell. "They
curl up in a ball."
Russell is one of 20-odd Payson Junior High School students who are taking
Science and Self-expression this year. They are outside most days walking,
biking, observing nature and possibly poking at caterpillars.
"I've always felt science belonged outdoors," said Tom Willis,
science teacher. "Science isn't in a book. The science I like to
teach is outdoors."
Affectionately known as four-hour science, Willis' class isn't new to
the junior high.
But for the last two years, students who take four-hour science are also
taking their ninth-grade English from language arts teacher Lu Ann Staheli.
And their grades are up, Staheli said.
Both teachers were recognized statewide in March for their work.
Staheli received the Utah English and Language Arts Teacher of the Year
from the Utah Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts.
Willis was named the Outstanding Science Teacher of the Year by the Brigham
Young University chapter of Sigma Xi, a scientific research fraternity.
Before students were assigned to take the two classes together, the two
teachers noticed they had many of the same students.
"We were keeping tabs and noticed those in both (classes) were excelling
more," Staheli said.
Freshman Natalie Brown, 14, is one of those students who is taking both
classes this year.
"My graders are better because I want to stay in the class,"
Brown said.
Students aren't picked for the class because they make the best marks,
Brown explained, but they are expected to keep their grades up. The science
class covers physical education and photography.
The two teachers combine assignments and overlap lessons.
When the students read a book in Staheli's class about a boy who finds
the skull of a murdered American Indian boy. Willis will teach them about
identifying animals based on their skulls, Staheli said.
Students learn more when they see connections between the two disciplines,
Staheli said.
"By the time they are in high school, they are compartmentalized,"
Staheli said.
The two teachers meet after school or between classes in the hall to compare
notes on the students.
While their teachers track them, students track birds, plants, other wildlife
and they write about their discoveries.
Willis took the class hiking for more than an hour to tracking birds.
While recording birds may have been the lesson's goal Monday, Willis found
lessons everywhere.
Before the students left school property, Willis paused and stood above
a lone weed sprouting in a crack in the asphalt. They had to identify
it. By the year's end, they will have learned 50 plants.
In Staheli's class, students don't always sit still.
Students demonstrate stealing bases as part of analyzing the poem "The
Base Stealer."
For Staheli, the ninth-graders have written historical fiction based on
research done during a three-day trip to Yellowstone in January. Their
work must be set in the 1800s and include what they have learned. For
example, they could describe real plants that they learned about while
in Wyoming.
Staheli and Willis share their knowledge, but they guide their students
to learn independently.
Willis has an interesting method to do this.
As the year passes, he forgets things.
"The first term I know everything," Willis said. "The second
term I know less, the third term even less. By the fourth term, I know
nothing because they have to gain confidence."
By the fourth term, he won't answer students' questions. He sends them
outdoors to observe and then to reference books to compare their observations
with others. Then, Willis will confirm the student's theory and research.
"I want them to struggle," Willis said. "I want them to
learn."
This approach seems to work for the 15-year-old Russell.
"We get to come out and do this," Russell said. "If you
just get in a book, you aren't going to learn things."
Article Reprinted with permission:
The original article titled "Teachers
take teens to source, Learning here involves more than textbooks"
written by Marta Murvosh was published in the Local & Regional Section
of the The Daily Herald, (Provo,
UT) April 12, 1999.
This page was last updated on Monday, 21-Feb-2011 18:19:04 MST
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