ABSTRACT
It was the teacher’s fi rst day of school in her new position as the only science teacher in a small, rural parish (in states outside of Louisiana, parishes are called counties). Her talks with her principal had provided her with important background information. For instance she had learned that 75 percent of her students were African American, and 20 percent were Acadian American. Th e principal had also shared that only 5 percent of her students had their sights set on college. Last school year three science teachers had come and gone. Recognizing that these students were very diff erent from the students in her own White, middle-class educational experience, the young teacher felt the need for an approach that was out of the ordinary. As a White woman with two college degrees, she wondered how well she would connect with her students. Th e school in which she would be teaching was in a rural community on the banks of the Mississippi River just north of New Orleans. In contrast to Huckleberry Finn imagery, the local environment was dominated by chemical manufacturing plants. Th e water was tainted, and the air was stained with the colors and smells of these facilities. Recognizing that students learn best when they are aware of real-life connections to the subject matter, the new teacher decided to begin the school year with an environmental science unit. Her plan was to start by having students construct charts of the cancer rates reported along diff erent stretches of the river. Th e teacher expected her students to naturally wonder about the causes aft er analyzing the data. She imagined that they would ask about what cancer does to the body. She anticipated that the students would ask hard questions about how the polluting effl uents were harmful to human health and damaging to the local ecosystems. Such an approach, she thought, would address important science content even as it was wrapped in real-world issues. Th e new teacher envisioned this unit as a way to help her students, beyond learning the subject matter, recognize the application of science to their lives and also to minimize the management problems her predecessors seemed to have had in motivating the students to learn. By the end of the fi rst week, the teacher felt discouraged. Th e interactive discussions she had imagined would take place in her classroom did not develop. Instead of becoming enthused about learning, the students showed all the signs of apathy: she could hear it in their voices, and she could see it in their body language. Th e data, the graphing, and the topic did not elicit a fl icker of interest. All of the advanced preparation she had invested appeared to be wasted. Aft er one especially grueling day, as the teacher sat at her desk, her eyes fell on the shelves of environmental science textbooks. Th ese thick books, weighing in at six pounds each, were poorly written and full of terminology. Th ere was nothing in these texts that she thought would be of interest to her students, but her innovative eff orts didn’t seem to be any better and were consuming a great deal of her time and energy. To teach from the book instead of trying to implement an innovative unit would save the new teacher an incredible number of hours in preparation. Given the lack of responsiveness from her students, it appeared that the activities she was using were hardly worth the trouble. What was going on? Th e authentic inquiry activity should have worked like a charm. Was this group of kids simply unteachable?
