Students May Not Have Ever Had These Experiences

Teachers may be surprised when they ask their students to do some tasks, play some games, or explain some things because they simply have no experience in those areas. For example it is probably not unusual that many students do not know how to play chess, but you might have thought that most students would know how to play checkers. In a typical class today, you might only find 1/4 that really know how to play checkers, although more may say they know how to play, they may not know the rules of the game. In many cases the two players play by common rules they have agreed upon, but not the official rules.

Students today may not know how to jump rope, play ping pong, tennis, hop-scotch, battleships, scrabble, connect the dots, use a yo-yo, top, gyroscope, compass and although they may now know how to use a cell phone, an i-pod, the internet there is a significant shift when this is considered as a whole. The shift is away from things that required exercise and/or playing along with others.

Because they don't know how to do these tasks or play these games it is important that you do not simply expect them to do them correctly or safely. A gyroscope can break a finger, a yo-yo can hit you or others, a jump rope can cause trips and falls etc.

This lack of experience is not limited to things like games however, students may not have had certain experiences with science equipment or experiences. For example the experience of twisting a wire around a bar of steel, connecting it to a battery and thus making an electromagnet is not part of many students educational experiences.

As a test, a science teacher may give students a flashlight light bulb and a 9 volt battery and then ask them to light the bulb with no wires. Many students (and adults) are confused about how to do this, but others in a the class do this immediately. The ones that could not do this task will watch the others and immediately be able to copy the feat, but still may not understand how this works.

It appears that there may be a large number of "experiences" that students have not had in science. It would be interesting to compile a list of such experiences that students should have had at some point in their education. These experiences are often primary concepts that form a backbone of understanding. At one time I watched a science teacher start a small fire inside a milk bottle and then put a hard boiled egg (without the shell) on top of the milk jug. As the oxygen was consumed by the fire it caused the egg to be pulled and pushed into the milk bottle. The air pressure outside was greater than the air pressure inside the milk jug. This experience is one that is just a bit more difficult to do today, because glass milk bottles are a bit harder to find and eggs are somewhat smaller.

It is important that we respect the new things that students are learning, but we can also make an effort to reconnect them with experiences that were provided to students in the past and at the same time we might reconstruct the connect to the adults around them. Students can be asked to learn a bit from us and we can make the effort to learn a bit from them. We might enjoy learning how to use an i-pod and they might enjoy learning to play chess.