Page 80 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

6 Local Matters, EcoJustice, and Community 57

school kids get to go out to study nature for one afternoon per week? I had begun to
love teaching in this rural community and, from then on, appreciated the opportunities
village life offered to teaching science specifically and to teaching more generally.
It turned out that many years later, I watched a documentary on French village
schools extolling the opportunities of rural schooling and not only began featuring it
in my arguments for an education involving the entire village community (e.g., Roth
1998; Roth and Lee 2006) but also came to interact with the teacher himself (who
wrote to me that more than anyone else in France, I was understanding what he
attempted to tell others about the benefits of teaching in small rural schools).
It was not only in the science classes that I made do with what was at hand and
thereby created a learning environment that students enjoyed and which allowed
them to be successful. In the arts classes, I had students systematically explore color,
beginning with one color producing a strip from white to the deepest form they could
achieve. Then they did the same with two colors, mixing them along a strip. Then
they did the same with three primary colors. In each case, after producing one or
more simple (sample) strips, they then painted a picture with the means just explored.
Thus, the first picture was made from only one color with differences in intensity.
The next one included everything they could and wanted to do with two colors.
In another project, I used black construction paper that I found in the stockroom
at the school. I also found four rolls of differently colored transparency film. I asked
students to bring scissors, leftover razor blades, and any sharp construction knives
that their parents might have. I then asked the students in the three grades I taught
simultaneously to make “church windows” graded by age level: abstract designs in
seventh grade, rosettes in eighth grade, and Christmas scenes in ninth grade. They
began by producing a pencil design, from which they then cut the desired shapes
using one of the available tools. To provide them with a greater range of options,
I showed how new colors could be created by producing layers from the same or
different colors of transparency film. We hung the final pieces onto the school win-
dows, leaving the lights so that – because it was winter and it was dark at 4 pm – the
entire village could see their colorful designs even during the late afternoons and
early evenings. Again, the simplest of means, and help by students and parents, had
provided many opportunities to explore a domain formally and in detail, allowing
students to learn tremendously despite, and perhaps because of, the limited amounts
of resources we had available. The students had added “value” to their village, their
place, by contributing to the way it appeared to them on a daily basis. That is, it was
not only a sense that developed from living in and appreciating a particular place,
but also they were producing a sense for the same place.
For another project, I went with the students to the estuary and we gathered
driftwood for the subsequent construction of “feelies,” objects that felt good in the
hand. Again I asked students to bring tools from their homes, including (carving)
knives, rasps, planers, and sandpaper. I asked them to pay attention to the grain of
the wood and they learned, through experience and feedback from me, about work-
ing with wood in ways that draw on its strength and possibilities. In this case, the
village was a resource and we capitalized on it for providing a better educational
experience. The wood had come from the river that they knew so well and provided