It’s been a long time since I’ve written! The start of the school year has come and gone, and now we are back from winter break {although today was a bonus break day, due to extreme cold in the midwest}. I’ve been neglecting the blog for many reasons, including having too many hobbies and prioritizing spending time with some pretty awesome people. I’ve also been doing lots of reading of teacher books. For the most part, I have been reading all kinds of stuff on teaching science!
While I love teaching science, I definitely don’t think I’m good at it. I want to be a super-duper science teacher who writes all her units from scratch based on the kids’ interests, and knows exactly how to guide her students to finding the most interesting science facts in the world. I basically want to be a Bill Nye for kindergarten.
But I hesitate to steer away from our (boring) (scripted) science curriculum, because I haven’t been taught how to teach good science without it! I know many teachers share my hesitation. It’s pretty shameful how little science is emphasized in teacher education programs. When I was in college, we had one science methods course in the entire five semester program. It was a wonderful, rigorous course that taught me to love teaching science – but it wasn’t enough. Now that I am in the classroom, it’s clear how little science is valued in school districts. We don’t get professional development in it. It’s all literacy and math all the time. So no wonder I hesitate to say I’m good at teaching science! And I am known as one of those “science people” at my school!
Anyway, I decided to take matters into my own hands several years ago, when I realized how little schools are helping teachers become better at teaching science. If they weren’t going to teach me, I would teach myself. Since then, I have read tons of books, attended workshops, and even quit teaching in the school system in order to teach environmental education. (That only lasted a few years – it was so much fun, but I missed being in the classroom.) I continue to talk to other science teachers, participate in committees, and find good science resources. And my new goal for 2015 is to share my findings here, on my little corner of the internet!
This is me, reading all the science teacher books:
There are so many to choose from!
To begin with, I picked up a new book called Starting with Science: Strategies for Introducing Young Children to Inquiry. “Inquiry-based science” has long been an elusive term for me. Everyone says it’s the best way to teach science for all ages, but I never quite knew what it meant, and what made “inquiry science” different from hands-on science, or lab science, or environmental science. When this book came to my attention, it seemed like the perfect start! I teach kindergarten, and teaching science to young children can be an extra challenge. So this book, which is geared towards preK-3 teachers, will hopefully speak to those challenges as well.
I plan to read a chapter each week, and post what I learn here on the blog. I’ll also include links to helpful resources that are mentioned in the book or that I come across on my own. I’m excited to share, as I love reading book studies by other teacher bloggers! If you’d like to join me, you can purchase the book here or here.
Happy reading!