These days we are all well aware of the power of the essential question to organize a unit of learning into a cohesive set of lessons and experiences for our students. We also know that essential questions, if used well, can motivate students to care about what they are learning and, therefore, learn better. Essential questions also help teachers to focus their thinking as they plan, develop, and assess each unit.
Think, then, about how successful you feel about your essential questions.
I, for one, often feel frustrated about the extent to which my students have truly delved into these questions. There are many reasons why this may be so: running out of time at the end of a unit, realizing halfway through that your students have much less prior knowledge than you originally thought, the convergence of far too many standards and skills into one unit, etc...
Lately I've been thinking more about this and wondering if the quality of the questions themselves are the biggest part of the problem. For example, this year our big essential question is "What does it mean to be an American?" We recently had a unit question that asked, "To what extent should the government be responsible for the needs of its citizens?" I think when Reena and I were planning we half-knew that these questions were probably not going to be greeted with excited "I want to know mores!" from our students, but we went with it anyway. After all, we're teaching "American History!" Mustn't our questions have to do with America? And government? And economics? And geography? I mean, these are the standards, so....
So, question number one: Do essential questions need to be geared more toward the content you wish to teach (what we hope students will be "interested in" by unit's end) or the current interests of the students? Clearly, if we effectively taught our economics unit, students will be somewhat interested in and able to think and speak about the government's role in the economy. As I reflect on this past unit and grade unit tests I am realizing that yes, some of them definitely "get it" and some "kind of get it", and others still have little more than a clue. And maybe there are two or three students who demonstrate some real enthusiasm and flare when engaged in these topics. But the collective "they" that we always speak about did not "get it" the way we wanted them to. But, most of them can now restate the question in a short response! And they can say things like "for example" etc. Isn't that grand?
In some ways, yes, it really is good. We definitely are teaching real-world writing skills. But, really? My new thinking is making me wonder if we should have true humanities units that ask questions about the human condition more generally, and that mean something to an 11 year old boy or a 15 year old girl. Might we start thinking about essential questions like "What makes people happy?", "Why do friends fight?", or "Should we have rules and who should make them?". In this way, we tap into the real issues our students are facing and illuminate their understanding by exploring the history, literature, sociology, economics, and arts that help us dig deeper into these questions.
So, stop and ask yourself an essential question. Why am I teaching? Yes, we need to teach our students survival skills--reading, writing, and the like--but do we not also need to inspire? Motivate? Build a better world? I was encouraged by an article in the most recent issue of American Educator called "The Burden and Beauty of the Humanities" in which the author, Wilfred M. McClay states,
It is the humanities that instruct us in the range and depth of human possibility, including our immense capacity for both goodness and depravity. It is the humanities that nourish and sustain our shared memories, and connect us with our civilization’s past and with those who have come before us. It is the humanities that teach us how to ask what the good life is for us humans, and guide us in the search for civic ideals and institutions that will make the good life possible.
It is the humanities that make me want to be a teacher, not ELA, not Social Studies, and not measurement topics. I am not sure where this leads me, or us, next, but we must question on...
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