0:00:00.829,0:00:03.048 I teach chemistry. 0:00:03.048,0:00:04.414 (Explosion) 0:00:04.414,0:00:07.572 All right, all right. 0:00:07.572,0:00:09.853 So more than just explosions, 0:00:09.853,0:00:11.464 chemistry is everywhere. 0:00:11.464,0:00:14.104 Have you ever found yourself at a restaurant spacing out 0:00:14.104,0:00:16.449 just doing this over and over? 0:00:16.449,0:00:18.654 Some people nodding yes. 0:00:18.654,0:00:20.982 Recently, I showed this to my students, 0:00:20.982,0:00:25.331 and I just asked them to try and explain why it happened. 0:00:25.331,0:00:27.952 The questions and conversations that followed 0:00:27.952,0:00:29.603 were fascinating. 0:00:29.603,0:00:31.417 Check out this video that Maddie 0:00:31.417,0:00:34.587 from my period three class sent me that evening. 0:00:45.104,0:00:47.569 (Clang) (Laughs) 0:00:47.569,0:00:50.763 Now obviously, as Maddie's chemistry teacher, 0:00:50.763,0:00:53.869 I love that she went home and continued to geek out 0:00:53.869,0:00:56.487 about this kind of ridiculous demonstration 0:00:56.487,0:00:57.909 that we did in class. 0:00:57.909,0:01:00.855 But what fascinated me more is that Maddie's curiosity 0:01:00.855,0:01:02.549 took her to a new level. 0:01:02.549,0:01:04.682 If you look inside that beaker, 0:01:04.682,0:01:06.242 you might see a candle. 0:01:06.242,0:01:09.251 Maddie's using temperature to extend this phenomenon 0:01:09.251,0:01:12.028 to a new scenario. 0:01:12.028,0:01:15.266 You know, questions and curiosity like Maddie's 0:01:15.266,0:01:18.232 are magnets that draw us towards our teachers, 0:01:18.232,0:01:21.184 and they transcend all technology 0:01:21.184,0:01:24.325 or buzzwords in education. 0:01:24.325,0:01:28.426 But if we place these technologies before student inquiry, 0:01:28.426,0:01:30.549 we can be robbing ourselves 0:01:30.549,0:01:35.483 of our greatest tool as teachers: our students' questions. 0:01:35.483,0:01:39.863 For example, flipping a boring lecture from the classroom 0:01:39.863,0:01:41.640 to the screen of a mobile device 0:01:41.640,0:01:43.477 might save instructional time, 0:01:43.477,0:01:46.376 but if it is the focus of our students' experience, 0:01:46.376,0:01:49.496 it's the same dehumanizing chatter 0:01:49.496,0:01:51.728 just wrapped up in fancy clothing. 0:01:51.728,0:01:54.003 But if instead we have the guts 0:01:54.003,0:01:56.873 to confuse our students, perplex them, 0:01:56.873,0:01:59.149 and evoke real questions, 0:01:59.149,0:02:02.149 through those questions, we as teachers have information 0:02:02.149,0:02:05.177 that we can use to tailor robust 0:02:05.177,0:02:08.868 and informed methods of blended instruction. 0:02:08.868,0:02:14.040 So, 21st-century lingo jargon mumbo jumbo aside, 0:02:14.040,0:02:18.244 the truth is, I've been teaching for 13 years now, 0:02:18.244,0:02:20.718 and it took a life-threatening situation 0:02:20.718,0:02:23.665 to snap me out of 10 years of pseudo-teaching 0:02:23.665,0:02:27.280 and help me realize that student questions 0:02:27.280,0:02:30.401 are the seeds of real learning, 0:02:30.401,0:02:32.515 not some scripted curriculum 0:02:32.515,0:02:35.811 that gave them tidbits of random information. 0:02:35.811,0:02:39.283 In May of 2010, at 35 years old, 0:02:39.283,0:02:42.376 with a two-year-old at home and my second child on the way, 0:02:42.376,0:02:44.992 I was diagnosed with a large aneurysm 0:02:44.992,0:02:47.512 at the base of my thoracic aorta. 0:02:47.512,0:02:50.564 This led to open-heart surgery. This is the actual real email 0:02:50.564,0:02:52.098 from my doctor right there. 0:02:52.098,0:02:55.623 Now, when I got this, I was -- press Caps Lock -- 0:02:55.623,0:02:58.088 absolutely freaked out, okay? 0:02:58.088,0:03:02.307 But I found surprising moments of comfort 0:03:02.307,0:03:05.997 in the confidence that my surgeon embodied. 0:03:05.997,0:03:09.441 Where did this guy get this confidence, the audacity of it? 0:03:09.441,0:03:13.033 So when I asked him, he told me three things. 0:03:13.033,0:03:16.415 He said first, his curiosity drove him 0:03:16.415,0:03:18.690 to ask hard questions about the procedure, 0:03:18.690,0:03:21.875 about what worked and what didn't work. 0:03:21.875,0:03:24.969 Second, he embraced, and didn't fear, 0:03:24.969,0:03:27.045 the messy process of trial and error, 0:03:27.045,0:03:29.554 the inevitable process of trial and error. 0:03:29.554,0:03:32.530 And third, through intense reflection, 0:03:32.530,0:03:35.206 he gathered the information that he needed 0:03:35.206,0:03:37.112 to design and revise the procedure, 0:03:37.112,0:03:40.633 and then, with a steady hand, he saved my life. 0:03:40.633,0:03:44.309 Now I absorbed a lot from these words of wisdom, 0:03:44.309,0:03:46.289 and before I went back into the classroom that fall, 0:03:46.289,0:03:49.547 I wrote down three rules of my own 0:03:49.547,0:03:52.327 that I bring to my lesson planning still today. 0:03:52.327,0:03:56.369 Rule number one: Curiosity comes first. 0:03:56.369,0:03:59.468 Questions can be windows to great instruction, 0:03:59.468,0:04:02.158 but not the other way around. 0:04:02.158,0:04:05.792 Rule number two: Embrace the mess. 0:04:05.792,0:04:08.463 We're all teachers. We know learning is ugly. 0:04:08.463,0:04:11.334 And just because the scientific method is allocated 0:04:11.334,0:04:14.785 to page five of section 1.2 of chapter one 0:04:14.785,0:04:18.240 of the one that we all skip, okay, 0:04:18.240,0:04:21.442 trial and error can still be an informal part 0:04:21.442,0:04:23.359 of what we do every single day 0:04:23.359,0:04:26.691 at Sacred Heart Cathedral in room 206. 0:04:26.691,0:04:30.713 And rule number three: Practice reflection. 0:04:30.713,0:04:33.057 What we do is important. It deserves our care, 0:04:33.057,0:04:36.289 but it also deserves our revision. 0:04:36.289,0:04:39.067 Can we be the surgeons of our classrooms? 0:04:39.067,0:04:42.063 As if what we are doing one day will save lives. 0:04:42.063,0:04:43.614 Our students our worth it. 0:04:43.614,0:04:46.049 And each case is different. 0:04:46.049,0:04:47.144 (Explosion) 0:04:47.144,0:04:49.091 All right. Sorry. 0:04:49.091,0:04:50.999 The chemistry teacher in me just needed to get that 0:04:50.999,0:04:53.834 out of my system before we move on. 0:04:53.834,0:04:55.619 So these are my daughters. 0:04:55.619,0:04:59.291 On the right we have little Emmalou -- Southern family. 0:04:59.291,0:05:02.073 And, on the left, Riley. 0:05:02.073,0:05:04.728 Now Riley's going to be a big girl in a couple weeks here. 0:05:04.728,0:05:06.422 She's going to be four years old, 0:05:06.422,0:05:08.672 and anyone who knows a four-year-old 0:05:08.672,0:05:11.872 knows that they love to ask, "Why?" 0:05:11.872,0:05:13.356 Yeah. Why. 0:05:13.356,0:05:15.666 I could teach this kid anything 0:05:15.666,0:05:18.516 because she is curious about everything. 0:05:18.516,0:05:20.999 We all were at that age. 0:05:20.999,0:05:24.474 But the challenge is really for Riley's future teachers, 0:05:24.474,0:05:27.296 the ones she has yet to meet. 0:05:27.296,0:05:29.788 How will they grow this curiosity? 0:05:29.788,0:05:35.270 You see, I would argue that Riley is a metaphor for all kids, 0:05:35.270,0:05:38.664 and I think dropping out of school comes in many different forms -- 0:05:38.664,0:05:41.988 to the senior who's checked out before the year's even begun 0:05:41.988,0:05:47.006 or that empty desk in the back of an urban middle school's classroom. 0:05:47.006,0:05:49.681 But if we as educators leave behind 0:05:49.681,0:05:52.263 this simple role as disseminators of content 0:05:52.263,0:05:54.600 and embrace a new paradigm 0:05:54.600,0:05:57.644 as cultivators of curiosity and inquiry, 0:05:57.644,0:05:59.869 we just might bring a little bit more meaning 0:05:59.869,0:06:02.584 to their school day, and spark their imagination. 0:06:02.584,0:06:04.168 Thank you very much. 0:06:04.168,0:06:09.861 (Applause)