Making Learning Joyfully Rigorous for Students

(Photo credit: Brittney Oswald, Center for Inspired Teaching)

At age 16, I invented functions in math class. Functions didn’t look like f(x) to me; I didn’t even know the term “function.” Instead, “functions” looked like fountains. On the first day of class, my teacher walked in, his Einstein-like grey hair pointing in all directions. As students trickled in, he already had a slideshow of various fountains playing on the board and told us to observe them. Over the next four months, we examined how fountains work. We began as biologists, closely examining the cycle of water flow. Next we were architects as we decided how our fountains would look and how the water would flow. Finally, we were engineers as we practiced virtually designing what angle to position the faucet and how to scale a miniature model of our fountains.

I built and rebuilt models out of old shoeboxes and rulers. I discovered the relationship between the angle of spout and the arc of the water. I wrote an equation that would determine the angle of water for all fountains. I eagerly presented my equation to the class, convinced I would blow everyone away. Quickly, I learned the whole class had developed a similar equation as we all shared our reasoning. Our teacher smiled and pointed to our equations on the board. “What you have here,” he said, “is a function.” Maybe I wasn’t the original inventor of functions, but I felt the joy of discovering the equation like I was the first person who ever did. My confidence and excitement as a learner, which my inspired teachers cultivated at school, drew me to Center for Inspired Teaching.

The past summer I watched Inspired Teaching Fellows rediscover what it feels like to truly learn something on their own. As a part of the Inspired Teacher Certification Program, Fellows experience the kind of inquiry-based learning that they implement in their classrooms — the kind of learning that encourages students to ask why, to explore and discover.

Fellows tackled a problem they all know how to solve: 1/4 x 1/5. In unison, they called out the answer: 1/20. Fellows are then challenged even further: Why? The goal is not that Fellows, or their students, simply know the right answer; the goal is that Fellows will know how to find the right answer. In small groups and clusters, the pre-service teachers huddled around markers, graph paper, LEGO, blocks, and other materials on the carpet. They began to explore why 1/4 x 1/5 = 1/20. Fellows drew, discussed, built models, and created stories. One group even wrote a recipe to demonstrate and unpack the problem. After a while of grappling with their reasoning and asking, in a combination of curiosity and frustration, “Why does this work?,” Fellows came back together as a whole group to present their work.

One group said they decided to represent the problem in a way they all knew: food. “Imagine,” one Fellow explained as she stood by the whiteboard, “I was at a dinner party with one leftover pizza and I brought 1/4 home.” She drew a large pizza on the board and shaded in the eaten pieces. “When I got home,” she continued, “my family all wanted some, so I separated my portion of the pizza, one fourth, into 5 separate pieces.“ She continued to draw. “After my family members each took one fifth of the fourth of the pizza I had, in the end, I only had one twentieth of the whole pizza to eat for myself.” The cohort applauded her work and the next group presented their process. They had persevered through their curiosity and frustration, and wound up satisfied by their learning. The room, which was once filled with tension, was now full of joy. Instead of computing equations, they created explanations. Whether they used blocks, pizzas, stories, or graphs, each group discovered why and how the solution works.

When Fellows fully grasped and communicated the concepts underlying the multiplication of fractions – moving beyond mere memorization of the formula, perhaps for the first time –their faces lit up like mine did when I constructed an equation for my fountain. My time with Inspired Teaching has reinforced my belief that there is a profound difference between surface-level learning and learning through discovery. As I work with Inspired Teaching Fellows and hear stories from their classrooms, I am reminded of the joy of learning like a biologist, an architect, an engineer. Inspired Teachers bring joy and discovery into their classrooms every day. I’m hopeful for a world where every student gets to learn this way.

This April, Inspired Teaching spoke with Ms. Lisa Brosnan. A 2014 Inspired Teaching Fellow, Lisa is a kindergarten teacher in DC Public Schools. 

What does being an Inspired Teacher mean to you?

As a result of Inspired Teaching, I’m more thoughtful in the way I approach children. It can be very easy to dismiss kids as not being capable of a lot of things. Becoming an Inspired Teacher has shaped the way I see children and how much they are capable of doing. Their thoughts are valid and meaningful and can contribute powerfully to the classroom. This mindset — it’s a seed that was planted in me by Inspired Teaching, and one that I have cultivated and grown over time — influences the things I do in my classroom every day.

In my classroom, being an Inspired Teacher means that I never really answer kids’ questions straight off. I usually turn it back on them: What do you think? What made you answer that way? What do you know about this already? It’s important to gauge what kids know, but also to allow them to think about the question they are asking. This helps teach them how to think, not what to think.

Imagination also plays a large role in my classroom, pushing students beyond what they would usually come up with on their own. For example, the kids make a lot of props for various lessons, and I challenge them to use props in a different way than the norm, to see them in a new light. A painted orange piece of foam can be a hotdog. Pushing students outside of their comfort zones like this is a fundamental part of learning.

What does being a changemaker mean to you?

It can be really easy to get bogged down in that mindset of not valuing kids for who they are. A lot of schools focus on compliance — kids behaving in a certain, very prescriptive way. Being a changemaker means acknowledging that is one way to do things, but it is not the way I will do things. It means having that conversation with your colleagues so they can change their mindsets.

It would be easy to go to a school with a ton of Inspired Teachers — but what would I be learning if I only worked with people who think like me? I am intentional about where I work; I chose not to be surrounded by people who necessarily share the Inspired Teaching philosophy. Sometimes I feel like I’m alone, but I’m getting a different perspective and other people get a different perspective from me.

What brought you to Inspired Teaching?

I didn’t know that I wanted to be a teacher for a long time. For many years, everybody who knew me said I would be so great at it — but I had my doubts. Then when a friend taught in China, he made it seem really appealing to me. I had been working at Starbucks for fourteen years, and I was feeling like my work didn’t have a lot of meaning. Teaching makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile with my life.

I remember really wanting to work with Inspired Teaching once I participated in Selection Day, the final step for applicants to the Inspired Teacher Certification Program. I remember how good I felt that day — immediately, I knew this was an organization I wanted to be a part of.

Specifically, I remember starting the day with stretching exercises. I didn’t realize how tense I was — I had been driving; it was raining that day — and the staff put me at ease. My immediate first impression was that I didn’t have to feel tense like in other high-stakes interviews. Even on the interview day, it felt like I could be part of an existing community.

What was the transition to teaching like?

Initially, it was scary. For the first days and weeks in the classroom, I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this.” But I drew upon my skills as a barista. I thought of managing my students and parents like working with customers: What can I give them that they want and need?

Teaching appeals to every facet of my personality. I get to be the goofy person and the serious person. I get to incorporate my love of reading and art. It hits every mental note for me. I can be my most authentic self because there is no part of me that I’m suppressing when I teach.

You just completed the Inspired Teacher Certification Program at the end of the last school year (2015-2016). What is it like being an alumna of the program, in your second year as a teacher of record?

I am still very much a part of the Inspired Teaching community. Of course, I talk to my cohort of Inspired Teaching Fellows — we just had a potluck at my house! We reconnect as a group every so often. I’m friends with many other alumni, too. I try to go to as many Inspired Teaching events as possible, like the happy hours and training hosted by the Fellows Advisory Board (FAB). I recently went to an LGBTQ competency training workshop with SMYAL, which was eye-opening and interesting. It’s easy to stay involved if you make the effort.

With teaching, there are ebbs and flows over the year. There are times when everything is going great and then there are times I want to tear my hair out. I have enough knowledge in my bank, though, to recognize that I’m feeling stressed because it’s that time of the year and I need a break; my kids need a break. The moments of stress will pass. Overall, I’m so happy to be a teacher. My time with my kids each school year is short and I need to cherish it. I must appreciate it while I have it.

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