I teach chemistry.
Predajem hemiju.
(Explosion)
(Eksplozija)
All right, all right. So more than just explosions, chemistry is everywhere. Have you ever found yourself at a restaurant spacing out just doing this over and over? Some people nodding yes. Recently, I showed this to my students, and I just asked them to try and explain why it happened. The questions and conversations that followed were fascinating. Check out this video that Maddie from my period three class sent me that evening.
U redu, u redu. Hemija je više od eksplozija, nalazi se svuda. Da li ste ikad zatekli sebe kako u restoranu zamišljeno samo ponavljate ovo? Neki ljudi klimaju glavom. Nedavno sam pokazao ovo svojim učenicima, i samo sam ih pitao da pokušaju da objasne zašto se to desilo. Pitanja i razgovori nakon toga bili su fascinantni. Pogledajte ovaj video koji mi je poslala Medi sa treće godine, te večeri.
(Clang) (Laughs)
(Smijeh)
Now obviously, as Maddie's chemistry teacher, I love that she went home and continued to geek out about this kind of ridiculous demonstration that we did in class. But what fascinated me more is that Maddie's curiosity took her to a new level. If you look inside that beaker, you might see a candle. Maddie's using temperature to extend this phenomenon to a new scenario.
Kao Medin nastavnik hemije, očigledno je da me je oduševilo što je otišla kući i nastavila da istražuje o ovoj nevjerovatnoj demonstraciji koju smo imali na času. Ali još više me je fasciniralo to da je Medina radoznalost odvela nju na novi nivo. Ako pogledate unutar te posude vidjećete svijeću. Medi koristi temperaturu da ovaj fenomen pogura do novog scenarija.
You know, questions and curiosity like Maddie's are magnets that draw us towards our teachers, and they transcend all technology or buzzwords in education. But if we place these technologies before student inquiry, we can be robbing ourselves of our greatest tool as teachers: our students' questions. For example, flipping a boring lecture from the classroom to the screen of a mobile device might save instructional time, but if it is the focus of our students' experience, it's the same dehumanizing chatter just wrapped up in fancy clothing. But if instead we have the guts to confuse our students, perplex them, and evoke real questions, through those questions, we as teachers have information that we can use to tailor robust and informed methods of blended instruction.
Pitanja i radoznalost poput Medine su magneti koji nas vuku prema našim nastavnicima i oni prelaze granice svake tehnologije ili krilatice u obrazovanju. Ali ako te tehnologije stavimo ispred pitanja učenika, možda ćemo ostati bez najvećeg nastavničkog alata: pitanja naših učenika. Na primjer, prebacivanje dosadne lekcije iz učionice na ekran mobilnog uređaja možda će vam sačuvati nastavno vrijeme, ali ako je u središtu učenikovog iskustva, to je isto neljudsko ćaskanje, samo umotano u kitnjasto pakovanje. Ali ako umjesto toga imamo hrabrosti da zbunimo svoje učenike, stavimo ih u rebus i izazovemo prava pitanja, kroz ta pitanja, mi kao nastavnici imamo informacije sa kojima možemo da napravimo moćne i informativne metode kombinovane nastave.
So, 21st-century lingo jargon mumbo jumbo aside, the truth is, I've been teaching for 13 years now, and it took a life-threatening situation to snap me out of 10 years of pseudo-teaching and help me realize that student questions are the seeds of real learning, not some scripted curriculum that gave them tidbits of random information.
Ako sklonimo na stranu moderne izraze 21. vijeka, istina je da predajem već 13 godina i morala je da se desi situacija opasna po život da me probudi iz 10 godina kvazi-predavanja i pomogne mi da shvatim da su pitanja učenika korijen pravog učenja, a ne napisan nastavni plan koji im daje komadiće nasumičnih informacija.
In May of 2010, at 35 years old, with a two-year-old at home and my second child on the way, I was diagnosed with a large aneurysm at the base of my thoracic aorta. This led to open-heart surgery. This is the actual real email from my doctor right there. Now, when I got this, I was -- press Caps Lock -- absolutely freaked out, okay? But I found surprising moments of comfort in the confidence that my surgeon embodied. Where did this guy get this confidence, the audacity of it?
U maju 2010, sa 35 godina, sa dvogodišnjim djetetom kod kuće i drugim djetetom na putu, otkrili su mi veliku aneurizmu na početku moje torakalne aorte. Došlo je do operacije na otvorenom srcu. Ovo je pravi imejl od mog doktora. Kada sam dobio ovo, bio sam - pritisnite Caps Lock - potpuno poludio. Ali me je nevjerovatno utješilo samopouzdanje mog hirurga. Odakle mu to samopouzdanje, ta odvažnost?
So when I asked him, he told me three things. He said first, his curiosity drove him to ask hard questions about the procedure, about what worked and what didn't work. Second, he embraced, and didn't fear, the messy process of trial and error, the inevitable process of trial and error. And third, through intense reflection, he gathered the information that he needed to design and revise the procedure, and then, with a steady hand, he saved my life.
Kada sam ga pitao, rekao mi je tri stvari. Prvo je rekao da ga je znatiželja vodila da postavlja teška pitanja o proceduri, o tome šta jeste, a šta nije funkcionisalo. Drugo, prihvatio je i nije se plašio zbrkanog procesa pokušaja i griješenja, tog neizbježnog procesa. I treće, kroz intenzivno razmišljanje, skupio je potrebne informacije da smisli i preradi proceduru, i onda je čvrstom rukom spasio moj život.
Now I absorbed a lot from these words of wisdom, and before I went back into the classroom that fall, I wrote down three rules of my own that I bring to my lesson planning still today. Rule number one: Curiosity comes first. Questions can be windows to great instruction, but not the other way around. Rule number two: Embrace the mess. We're all teachers. We know learning is ugly. And just because the scientific method is allocated to page five of section 1.2 of chapter one of the one that we all skip, okay, trial and error can still be an informal part of what we do every single day at Sacred Heart Cathedral in room 206. And rule number three: Practice reflection. What we do is important. It deserves our care, but it also deserves our revision. Can we be the surgeons of our classrooms? As if what we are doing one day will save lives. Our students our worth it. And each case is different.
Upio sam dosta toga iz ovih mudrih riječi i prije nego što sam se te jeseni vratio u učionicu, napisao sam tri svoja pravila koja svaki dan stavljam u planiranje nastave. Prvo pravilo: znatiželja je na prvom mjestu. Pitanja mogu biti prozori do sjajne nastave, ali nikako obrnuto. Pravilo dva: prihvati zbrku. Svi smo nastavnici. Znamo da je učenje nezgodno. I samo zato što je naučni metod određen za stranu 5 odjeljka 1.2 prvog poglavlja, kojeg uvijek preskačemo, pokušaji i greške još uvijek mogu biti neformalni dio onoga što svaki dan radimo u Katedrali svetog srca u prostoriji 206. Pravilo tri: vježbajte razmišljanje. Radimo bitnu stvar. Ona zaslužuje našu pažnju, ali i razmatranje. Možemo li mi biti hirurzi u učionicama? Kao da će ono što radimo jednog dana spašavati živote. Naši učenici su vrijedni toga. I svaki slučaj je drugačiji.
(Explosion)
(Eksplozija)
All right. Sorry. The chemistry teacher in me just needed to get that out of my system before we move on.
U redu. Izvinite. Moj unutrašnji nastavnik hemije je morao da izbaci to iz sebe prije nego što nastavimo.
So these are my daughters. On the right we have little Emmalou -- Southern family. And, on the left, Riley. Now Riley's going to be a big girl in a couple weeks here. She's going to be four years old, and anyone who knows a four-year-old knows that they love to ask, "Why?" Yeah. Why. I could teach this kid anything because she is curious about everything. We all were at that age. But the challenge is really for Riley's future teachers, the ones she has yet to meet. How will they grow this curiosity?
Ovo su moje kćerke. S desne strane je mala Emalu - mi smo južnjačka porodica. A sa lijeve je Rajli. Rajli će za nekoliko nedjelja biti velika devojčica. Imaće četiri godine i svako ko poznaje dijete tih godina zna da oni vole da pitaju: "Zašto?" Da. Zašto. Ovo dijete mogu da naučim bilo čemu jer je sve interesuje. Svi smo bili u tom dobu. Ali izazov je za Rajline buduće nastavnike, one koje tek treba da upozna. Kako će njegovati tu radoznalost?
You see, I would argue that Riley is a metaphor for all kids, and I think dropping out of school comes in many different forms -- to the senior who's checked out before the year's even begun or that empty desk in the back of an urban middle school's classroom. But if we as educators leave behind this simple role as disseminators of content and embrace a new paradigm as cultivators of curiosity and inquiry, we just might bring a little bit more meaning to their school day, and spark their imagination.
Rekao bih da je Rajli metafora za svu djecu i mislim da napuštanje škole postoji u raznim oblicima - od starijeg učenika koji odustane prije početka godine do praznog stola u pozadini učionice urbane osnovne škole. Ali ako mi kao nastavnici napustimo ovu jednostavnu ulogu distributera znanja i usvojimo novu paradigmu kao kultivatori radoznalosti i ljubopitljivosti, možda doprinesemo sa malo više značenja njihovom školskom danu, i pokrenemo njihovu maštu.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)