Experience In A Shoebox

It will happen to you if you have the good fortune to have taught young people and live long enough. I was struck by this thought the other day while I was pawing through some of the rubble of my career stored in the nether reaches of my garage. I came across a shoebox fashioned by a student in 1974, in which she had rendered her version of seafloor topography from wheat paste and strip of newspaper. It was a better-than- average student construct, with a clearly defined gulf, continental margin, deep sea fan, and a bifurcated mid-ocean ridge. This box was not alone. Some 15 - 20 other boxes with models constructed from cardboard or plywood or Legos demonstrated some students' emerging understanding of the sea floor. Each lid was pierced by some 400 neatly spaced holes that allowed an inserted bamboo probe to measure depth at each “station.” Why, I asked myself, do I keep these things for more than 30 years, and more to the point, nearly 10 years after my retirement from the classroom?

The easy answers would be ego, fond memories, a predilection to pack-rat behavior, or just being a bit around the bend. But, it is more than that. In today's high tech classrooms, students can access a topographic map of any place on Earth. They can find pictures of marine organisms, photographs of sand samples, and carefully constructed models of the ocean floor. Without lifting more than a finger, a student can access these things and more. Complicated mathematical calculations can be reduced to a few keystrokes and the “answer.” All this can be accomplished without ever engaging the mind or the soul, and it passes for education. Fill in the correct bubble on the state-mandated test and the state certifies that you are educated. Think for yourself: dare to feel; and the state will decertify your school. Poppycock!

The reason that “stuff” clutters my garage is that I am a true believer. I think it's more important for a student to construct a topographic map than to know how to access one. It is more important to visit a tide pool and really know a few organisms than to be able to find hundreds of coral reef species when no self-respecting coral reef would be caught dead within 500 miles of your home. It is better to hold a sample of sand in your hand and put it under your microscope and marvel at the infinite variations found in this “common stuff” than to be able to read about someone else's experience on some distant website.

I'm sitting here now, on a Sunday afternoon on the Oregon coast. The wind is howling and pinecones are bouncing off my windows. The tops are being ripped off the waves and there is chaos in the surf zone. None of this is computerized, digitized, or distant. It is meant to be experienced in the first person singular. This is what we risk losing when education is defined by a score on an achievement test. A wise man once observed that weighing a pig, no matter how often you do it, will not make the pig any heavier.

I have just returned to Oregon from Alabama. A group of gracefully aging marine educators gathered there to share ideas, enjoy each other's company, and once again participate in the ritual of life-long learning. Andy Wood found a newt he had never seen; Jeff Sandler went swimming in the chilly waters of the Gulf; and I discovered that the weather in Alabama is really nice…in January. We all walked the beaches and visited environmental learning centers and we marveled once again at all that we do not know; all that we have to learn from each other and from the environment.

I believe that current educational policy stands a very good chance of failing to produce life-long learners. But, perhaps the pendulum is about to swing. And that's why all this “stuff” clutters my garage. I want to pass the knowledge along to anyone who will listen. If you want a model of the seafloor in a shoebox, and an explanation of how to use it with kids, I'm your man. If you need a sample of sand from an Oregon beach, or from the Bahamas, or Antarctica, I can probably find one gathering dust. I want a student's understanding of the purple sea urchin to come not from a computer screen, but from standing knee-deep in cold seawater in a howling gale. I want them to feel and to smell the beach and its sand grains, or even collect their own. I want students to use all their senses to breathe in the excitement and the wonder of the oceans. It's not the “stuff” in my garage that's important; it's the experience and the feeling that comes with it that is important. And that experience is what fosters understanding. That's what I believe.

Gene Williamson taught marine science to middle school students in Oregon for 30 years before retiring to the coast where he now waits patiently for the subduction zone earthquake that will usher in the next and perhaps final phase of his life.