Must Have Been Mid-Afternoon
While jogging to the self described “Best ‘90s Alternative Playlist Ever” the 1995 Dishwalla song “Counting Blue Cars” popped on. Beyond some nostalgia of middle school and the memory of owning it on the ill-fated format of the “Cassingle” the song has never taken up much real estate in my head. However, this play was a bit different. Maybe it was due to it being mile two (the worst mile), but I wanted to take my mind off the huffing, and the only thing I had to think about was this decent(?) song. We all remember the chorus of, “Tell me all your thoughts on God, because I’m on my way to see her”, which has always elicited a distant high-five from me, but this run I was going to crack this cryptic tune. Turns out it is totally appropriate to the book that I am reading, A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger (2014). In the song, a child is asking about faith. The child is curious. In fact, the lyrics address this, “He had many questions, as children often do”.
Berger mentions that, “...the average four-year-old British girl asks her poor mum 390 questions a day” (pg. 4). While adults often ask questions to seek simple answers, Berger found that, “By age four, the lion’s share of the questions are seeking explanations, not just facts” (pg. 40). These questions are based around an understanding of what they do not know, and identifying that someone else may know the answer. They are asking the people around them to help them understand and “categorize what they experience” (Berger, 2014, pg. 41). This unrestrained and curious mind is again illustrated by “Counting Blue Cars” with its most famous line gendering god as female breaking the status quo. What happens between childhood and adulthood to get us to stop seeking explanations?
Why We’re Who We Are?
We were asked to practice questioning through a “quickfire” in which we asked questions of our profession over 5 minutes. Below you can see the results of this exercise:
Maybe due to my role as the vice president of my district’s union, but I noticed that many of my questions have to do with teacher advocacy. Teachers are conditioned to put their students first, but without support from one another and self-care, you have to question our efficacy. Teaching the classes that I do, to the level that I would like to teach them, has required me to work from roughly 6:15 AM - 4:00PM Monday through Friday. Arriving early, I am able to reflect on what is working and create new lessons based on my students' feedback. Often, I collaborate with another early riser who happens to teach the same classes, and we modify, tweak, and create new lessons. I am able to do this due to my limited responsibilities outside of my career. I don’t have kids and I work with my spouse who shares the same schedule. These are not something that all teachers can manage. What are the systemic solutions to managing time in public education? How do the expectations have to change?
Am I Very Far Now? Over the past 3 years, I have worked to design lessons around the students creating questions. This begins with giving them question stems that coach and guide them to “why?” questions. As they read, instead of filling out a reading guide, they write questions, turn those in via Google Classroom, and then they are anonymously shared via a data projector. Our discussions are led by the questions that they have. I have found that there is far more focus on the discussion than when I have relied on old school lectures or asking them questions with simple answers. Despite that, many of our assessments rely on regurgitation of facts, and due to educators being evaluated based on test scores, my colleagues fear not practicing answers and do not practice questions. With our quality of teaching being determined, in part, by standardized test scores, how can we be expected to try new things? Who knew there was so much philosophy in an average rock song from the 90s?
References:
Berger, W. (2014). A More Beautiful Question. Bloomsbury. Dishwalla. (1996). Counting Blue Cars (Tell Me Your Thoughts On God) [Song]. UMG Recordings, Inc. McGregor, D (2021, Novemebr 10). Question Quickfire [Image]
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David McGregorI am an English teacher and cat lover from Genesee County, Michigan who is eager to learn new things. Archives
August 2022
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