I’ve heard a lot of teachers talk about how important “authentic tasks” are to real learning.  This is often lumped in with project-based learning, but this morning an article in the New York Times drove home for me the difference between the two.

Project-based learning, a beautiful thing in its own respect, requires active participation on the part of the learner, challenges the learner in new ways, often requires teamwork and outside materials, and generally evaluates student learning in a more complete way than the more traditional, multiple choice exams.

Authentic tasks can be the same, but not necessarily.  Cornelia Dean writes about “When Science Suddenly Mattered,” the time when America entered the space race and, consequently, educators began treating science as relevant and engaging.  No one made it a law, no one set down the rule, but the teachers knew this was suddenly important, they brought in the news, and the students jumped onboard.

Amazing what students can learn when we let them!

Today, like millions of others, I reflect on September 11, 2001 and the incredible loss out country suffered that day.  Loss of so many lives, and the loss of a feeling security that most of us took for granted.  Working in a K-2 school, September 12, 2001 was also a very important one for us, as staff – sorting out how to help guide our little ones through such a tragedy, while trying to take care of each other, and ourselves. 

We held an emergency staff meeting the morning of September 12^th, as I’m sure was held in just about every school across the United States.  We talked about our own feelings around the events, but then quickly moved on to how the attacks should be addressed with our students.  With students as young as those in our school, the most important approach is to keep the daily routine as “normal” as possible… “business as usual”.  Teachers and staff were told to acknowledge the tragedy if a student were to bring it up, but we weren’t to dwell, or have lengthy conversations about the events.  

Of course, the adults… the staff… had much more of a problem dealing with the events than the students, but educators are amazing in how they can pull themselves together to be there first and foremost for their students (compartmentalization can be a wonderful defense mechanism!).   And working with children the day after such a horrible event was an incredible blessing…. because the children were too young to fully comprehend what had happened… the losses suffered… the fear imposed.  Working in a school, especially with young children, was a wonderful, glorious distraction… yet with an important purpose.  It also reaffirmed my “north star” – my “knowing” that I was doing exactly what I was meant to do, and that I was in the place I was meant to be.

The most clear memory I have of that “day after” was of a second grade student I passed in the hallway that day.  His mouth was circled with white… it looked like frosting, so I asked him if his class was celebrating someone’s birthday… if he was eating a cupcake.  He responded, with the biggest, happiest, most excited grin, “No!  We’re doing science!”  Apparently his teacher was moving forward with her lesson plans – without skipping a beat - a wonderfully constructive science project involving cake frosting.      

That moment, with that student, was such a bright light during such a dark, gloomy, sad time – and it was a wonderful reminder that live goes on, that it was still okay to be excited about life and learning, and that there’s a lot of important work we all have to do as we help students learn, and grow, and “be” this world that is both wonderful, and often uncertain. 

It’s September!  Growing up in the Northeast, I associate September with autumn leaves, apple picking, and school starting.  And every year I think of this story:

 The little boy came into school, and the teacher showed him where to sit.  She taught him where to put his bag, and how to keep still when she spoke.  She reminded him that grass is always green, or maybe brown, but never pink or blue.  For five years he learned where to sit, how to listen, when to write, and what colors to use.  The little boy grew up.

One September the boy (who was no longer so little) walked into a new classroom.  The teacher, he had heard, was crazy.  He put his bag in the cubby space, sat down at his desk with his feet forward, and arranged his pencils in their box.  The teacher came into the room.

“Today we are drawing flowers,” she said.  The class got to work, taking out paper and crayons, each drawing a row of perfect flowers.  The teacher walked around, watching, encouraging.  She stopped by the boy’s desk - “you haven’t begun yet.  Are you still thinking about your flowers?”  The boy shook his head.

“I have a question,” he said softly.  The teacher nodded.  “What color should my flower be?”  The teacher smiled.  “Whatever color you want,” she said.  “But,” asked the boy, “which color is right?”