Here’s a curious question:  How do we talk to kids in a way that encourages them to make sense of their world?  One would think that we do this all of the time, but all too often we give children answers when what we ought to do is very different.

Let me see if I can’t share a story or two that will help to explain what I mean.  It was some time ago now when my son came home from Kindergarten and reported around the dinner table that he had learned something new, something that was neat.  The moon didn’t shine by its own light.  Instead, it reflected light from the sun.  I was pleased that he was so excited about what he had learned, but also convinced that he didn’t really understand it. That’s why I asked him:  “But if that’s so, Pete, how can we see the moon at night when the sun isn’t even there?”

He didn’t know, and before long I was standing in the hall with a mirror and he was in the bathroom looking at the reflection of a bedroom light he couldn’t see directly.  Now he could appreciate that even though we couldn’t see the sun at night, that didn’t mean it was gone.  Maybe it was just somewhere where we couldn’t see it, and the moon was far enough away so that it could still see the sun.  Here, for a five year old, was the difference between a fact and an argument, the difference between something that was simply there and something you could understand.

The differences between teaching the right answers and fostering right reasoning is at the heart of what we should be doing in the classroom.  It is my belief that the natural foundation for education is where the child learns through making sense of his or her world.  This presents a radical challenge to our work.  The sciences, for example, are a long haul from common sense, and the hallmark theories of modern science are stridently counter-intuitive.  Ordinary language everywhere calls a sunrise “sunrise” not “earth-spin”.  Atoms are real objects, but we cannot experience them; fire can be experienced, but is not a real thing.  And evolution?  The over-whelming experience of us all is that nature reproduces its own kind.  Cats have kittens, dogs have puppies, and acorns give us oak trees.  In these and a myriad of other examples, the problem is the same.  There is a well-formed answer, but the way to get there is tough, especially for young students; and the careful exercise of reason may well lead them to very different places.

It may seem a little strange to suggest that the right answer is not important.  Surely, we want our students to build an effective understanding of modern science and this is such a huge edifice we need to set a solid foundation.  I agree.  But that foundation should be anchored in understanding.