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