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I teach chemistry.

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(Explosion)

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All right, all right.

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So more than just explosions,

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chemistry is everywhere.

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Have you ever found yourself at a restaurant spacing out

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just doing this over and over?

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Some people nodding yes.

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Recently, I showed this to my students,

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and I just asked them to try and explain why it happened.

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The questions and conversations that followed

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were fascinating.

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Check out this video that Maddie

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from my period three class sent me that evening.

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(Clang) (Laughs)

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Now obviously, as Maddie's chemistry teacher,

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I love that she went home and continued to geek out

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about this kind of ridiculous demonstration

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that we did in class.

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But what fascinated me more is that Maddie's curiosity

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took her to a new level.

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If you look inside that beaker,

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you might see a candle.

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Maddie's using temperature to extend this phenomenon

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to a new scenario.

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You know, questions and curiosity like Maddie's

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are magnets that draw us towards our teachers,

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and they transcend all technology

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or buzzwords in education.

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But if we place these technologies before student inquiry,

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we can be robbing ourselves

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of our greatest tool as teachers: our students' questions.

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For example, flipping a boring lecture from the classroom

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to the screen of a mobile device

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might save instructional time,

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but if it is the focus of our students' experience,

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it's the same dehumanizing chatter

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just wrapped up in fancy clothing.

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But if instead we have the guts

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to confuse our students, perplex them,

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and evoke real questions,

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through those questions, we as teachers have information

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that we can use to tailor robust

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and informed methods of blended instruction.

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So, 21st-century lingo jargon mumbo jumbo aside,

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the truth is, I've been teaching for 13 years now,

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and it took a life-threatening situation

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to snap me out of 10 years of pseudo-teaching

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and help me realize that student questions

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are the seeds of real learning,

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not some scripted curriculum

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that gave them tidbits of random information.

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In May of 2010, at 35 years old,

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with a two-year-old at home and my second child on the way,

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I was diagnosed with a large aneurysm

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at the base of my thoracic aorta.

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This led to open-heart surgery. This is the actual real email

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from my doctor right there.

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Now, when I got this, I was -- press Caps Lock --

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absolutely freaked out, okay?

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But I found surprising moments of comfort

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in the confidence that my surgeon embodied.

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Where did this guy get this confidence, the audacity of it?

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So when I asked him, he told me three things.

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He said first, his curiosity drove him

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to ask hard questions about the procedure,

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about what worked and what didn't work.

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Second, he embraced, and didn't fear,

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the messy process of trial and error,

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the inevitable process of trial and error.

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And third, through intense reflection,

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he gathered the information that he needed

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to design and revise the procedure,

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and then, with a steady hand, he saved my life.

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Now I absorbed a lot from these words of wisdom,

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and before I went back into the classroom that fall,

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I wrote down three rules of my own

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that I bring to my lesson planning still today.

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Rule number one: Curiosity comes first.

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Questions can be windows to great instruction,

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but not the other way around.

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Rule number two: Embrace the mess.

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We're all teachers. We know learning is ugly.

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And just because the scientific method is allocated

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to page five of section 1.2 of chapter one

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of the one that we all skip, okay,

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trial and error can still be an informal part

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of what we do every single day

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at Sacred Heart Cathedral in room 206.

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And rule number three: Practice reflection.

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What we do is important. It deserves our care,

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but it also deserves our revision.

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Can we be the surgeons of our classrooms?

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As if what we are doing one day will save lives.

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Our students our worth it.

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And each case is different.

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(Explosion)

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All right. Sorry.

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The chemistry teacher in me just needed to get that

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out of my system before we move on.

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So these are my daughters.

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On the right we have little Emmalou -- Southern family.

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And, on the left, Riley.

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Now Riley's going to be a big girl in a couple weeks here.

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She's going to be four years old,

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and anyone who knows a four-year-old

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knows that they love to ask, "Why?"

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Yeah. Why.

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I could teach this kid anything

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because she is curious about everything.

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We all were at that age.

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But the challenge is really for Riley's future teachers,

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the ones she has yet to meet.

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How will they grow this curiosity?

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You see, I would argue that Riley is a metaphor for all kids,

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and I think dropping out of school comes in many different forms --

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to the senior who's checked out before the year's even begun

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or that empty desk in the back of an urban middle school's classroom.

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But if we as educators leave behind

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this simple role as disseminators of content

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and embrace a new paradigm

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as cultivators of curiosity and inquiry,

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we just might bring a little bit more meaning

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to their school day, and spark their imagination.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)