Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Crazy Composter Revisited
A few highlights from my presentation at the teacher training:
- I worked in my favorite saying "Answers are easy, questions are the hard part." By that I mean questioning is where learning really happens and you can't ask them for someone. Answers are always easy to come by, once the question is asked.
- One of the teachers harkened back to the reduce, reuse, recycle lessons that they learned in school but was upset that they are not present in today's curriculum. I suggested a compost bin as a way to create that awareness.
- Someone asked why compost rather than let things decompose naturally when you throw them away. I thought, "if we were in a bar, so many bottles would be getting broken right now." I explained to her that researchers have found recognizable food in 15 year old garbage because decomposition does not occur in the landfill. It was a good question because nobody would expect an intelligent society to spend money and space storing organic material for all time.
- When the worms were being passed around, I lost the class' concentration for a minute. I got their attention as well as mad educator street cred at the same time. I clapped five times in rhythm, the class answered in kind and resumed concentration. It's a little trick I learned back in Nam or while tutoring, I forget which one.
- I worked in my favorite saying "Answers are easy, questions are the hard part." By that I mean questioning is where learning really happens and you can't ask them for someone. Answers are always easy to come by, once the question is asked.
- One of the teachers harkened back to the reduce, reuse, recycle lessons that they learned in school but was upset that they are not present in today's curriculum. I suggested a compost bin as a way to create that awareness.
- Someone asked why compost rather than let things decompose naturally when you throw them away. I thought, "if we were in a bar, so many bottles would be getting broken right now." I explained to her that researchers have found recognizable food in 15 year old garbage because decomposition does not occur in the landfill. It was a good question because nobody would expect an intelligent society to spend money and space storing organic material for all time.
- When the worms were being passed around, I lost the class' concentration for a minute. I got their attention as well as mad educator street cred at the same time. I clapped five times in rhythm, the class answered in kind and resumed concentration. It's a little trick I learned back in Nam or while tutoring, I forget which one.
