“Can we see atoms through your microscopes?”: Teaching and Teacher Education in Santo Domingo de Onzole, Esmereldas Province, Ecuador. Part 1 in a series.

The context

A few weeks ago, I returned from a trip to rural Ecuador supported by Teachers2Teachers-Global (t2t-G) and the Onzole River Project.  We visited a small town called Santo Domingo de Onzole on the banks if the Onzole River in Esmereldas Province.  The people of Santo Domingo, and much of Esmereldas Province, descend from escaped African slaves who arrived there several hundred years ago.  Some of them traveled up the rivers as far as they could, to live in places accessible only by canoe.
The purposes of the trip were to learn about the people of Santo Domingo and their culture, to observe and teach in classrooms in the school, Gaston Figueroa, and to lead professional development workshops for the teachers.  We had no contact with the outside world, except in emergencies.  This was challenging for me, but it gave me lots of time to think and take notes, to read, to teach, and to talk to amazing people, both on the trip with me and in the town.  It has also meant that it has taken some time for me to process the experience.  I have posted pictures, but haven’t really figured out how to write about it until now.  It was a little overwhelming coming from Santo Domingo back home and it took a while to process everything.  The longer I wait, however, the more my memory fades.  I have some notes, but a lot I didn’t realize I should write down until later.  So these stories will by their nature be only narratives:  my recollections and interpretations of what happened.

I only realized how to approach writing about this when Gemma and I went to the Olive Lounge in Takoma Park for dinner and I told her the entire story of my experience with one teacher and his students.  I’m going to write this blog as a set of stories, starting with my teaching and professional development experiences and working outwards to other experiences and observations.

Santo Domingo is rural.  You need to take a motorized canoe to get there and it has no roads.  The men farm, mostly cacao (chocolate bean pods) as a cash crop, but also bananas, plantains, limes, papayas, and oranges.  Most of the women are busy during the day with children, with preparing meals, and washing clothes.  Both men and women are teachers.  The community, as Carlos says, is poor in opportunities, but not in other ways.  There’s little drug or alcohol use, nor malnutrition.  I didn’t see anyone homeless.  The people seemed happy and the children, exuberant.  My one regret is that we didn’t get to see them play and dance the Marimba, a central activity of the community

School started at 7:30, although time was loose with starting and ending times of all classes.  Class changes were marked by a VERY loud blaring siren, except the day we had no power, when they were marked by a much less loud drum.  Classes were forty minutes, but sometimes they were double periods.  The schedule seemed very unstable—I saw teachers constantly checking their schedule to see what they had next.  There was a long recess and school ended around 1:30. Some of the older kids then went to work on the farms.  Others played jump rope, bingo, or soccer.  Oh and others played soccer.  Lots of soccer.

The characters

This first story is about Aron, a high school science teacher, and his chemistry students.  The other characters in the story are me, Lucia, a talented interpreter and educator with t2t, Carlos, the director of the Onzole River Project, and Alex, a uniquely bright and motivated sixteen-year-old.  (I will write an entire story about Alex). I’ll ask Carlos and Lucia to correct me in the comments for anything that I’ve gotten wrong.

I’ve changed the Aron’s name but not Alex’s.  People on the trip with me will know who Aron is, of course, but because I didn’t ask his permission to use his name or image, I think it’s fair to exclude those.  Hey may be on the internet someday soon and he can decide what and how he wants to post.  Additionally, some of what I write about Aron may sound like I’m focusing on the deficits in his teaching.  I am not, but I don’t think it’s fair to use his name even if it sounds like I am. I have spent some time deciding what to call him.  His real name is an Old Testament name, so I chose a more culturally appropriate form of the biblical Aaron, which should be read as “Ah-Rone”.  I toyed with the idea of giving him my name.  But I decided this would be problematic if the students called both of us Profe Daniel (Don-yell).

One of the reasons I wanted to give Aron my name is to emphasize my empathy with him.  Aron is 24 or 25.  He has a high school diploma from Gaston Figueroa. In Santo Domingo, without my privileged education, I could be Aron.  I’m not concerned about using Alex’s name and image.  There will be a story of his curiosity, his drive, and his personality.  I think he would feel proud.  I may translate that story and send it to him.

In general, students were well-behaved and enthusiastic, especially the high school kids.  Many were outgoing and talkative and might have impressed me as much as Alex if I knew them better.  Some behaved how we imagine teenagers in the States, sleepy and disinterested. Some of the girls, even in the 10^th grade, were pregnant, some had babies with them, and some were nursing in class.

There will be a lot of high school-level science in this story.  If that doesn’t interest you, I suggest getting the gist from the section titles and the last couple of paragraphs of each section.

What is an atom?

On our first day in the classroom, Tuesday, Lucia and I visited Aron’s 11^th grade biology class, his “research methods” class (which was a mixture of motivational speeches and diverse research methods) and his 11^th grade chemistry class.  Kindergarten is first grade in Ecuador so these would have been sophomores in the States, and the students ranged in age from 16-22.  Aron teaches research methods to 9^th graders and biology, chemistry, and physics to both the 10^th and 11^th graders.  The students take all three subjects every year of high school, but each class doesn’t meet every day.  The 11^th graders also take Anatomy with the principal, Patricia, the protagonist in a future story. I taught these same 11^th graders in Aron’s physics class and I taught Aron’s 9^th graders (Alex’s class) chemistry.

In Aron’s chemistry class on the first day, he began by telling students he was in pages 25-26 of the book and he read to them about atomic weight.  He told them that a number of atoms create an element.  He reminded them that atoms were made up of smaller particles, and that atoms were almost invisible.  Then he read to them about how to calculate percent composition by using the relevant atomic weights.  Next he led the students through an example on the board.  He said they would calculate the percentage of each element that was in H₂O, which everyone knew was water.  He told them to look at the periodic table where they would find the relative masses of hydrogen and oxygen.  How many grams does a hydrogen atom weigh, he asked?  The students reported that it weighed 1.79 grams, which Aron confirmed.

This was a minor mistake, and Lucia pointed out that they just read it wrong, but it’s 1.079, which is basically 1.  Neither Aron nor the students noticed this, which suggests they probably didn’t understand what gave hydrogen its mass.  More troubling, however, was that Aron was communicating to students that an atom of hydrogen weighed 1.079 grams.  This would be a very heavy atom.  A paper clip weights a gram or two.  Atoms are measured in atomic mass units (amu).  On the periodic table, the atomic masses are given as grams per mole, a mole being a very large quantity of atoms that can actually be measured.  It is a conversion that keeps the masses of all elements relative to each other, but allows chemists to do calculations with real visible quantities of matter.

The class gave the mass of oxygen as 15.99 grams.  Using these numbers, they calculated the percent of hydrogen as 18.28%.  Aron told the students that they must have gotten it wrong, because water has two atoms of hydrogen and only one of oxygen.  I was unsure if he was testing them or not at first.  The students argued with him.  “Profe!” they said, “Oxygen is much heavier than hydrogen.”  Aron considered their argument and disagreed with them briefly.  Then he seemed to realize his error and he told them.  “You’re right.  I was wrong.  Sometimes you’ll be wrong and sometimes I’ll be wrong.”

I was concerned with the way the content was covered.  There were some mistakes, like the incorrect atomic weight of hydrogen, and larger problems, like the idea that atoms make up elements. (An atom is a unit of matter.  An element is a kind of atom.  You could have one, or two, or 6.02 X 10²³ atoms or more in a piece of an element).  But what concerned me the most was the lack of a clear sense of the magnitude of an atom.  At the time, I didn’t know if there were any way to deal with this, and I didn’t know if I would have any opportunities.  Aron had sheepishly told me and Lucia that he wouldn’t be able to make the professional development sessions because he had soccer practice for an upcoming tournament.  He did say, however, that he would come to discuss content in the evenings.  He was concerned about physics in particular, but in general, he didn’t feel like he knew the content in “practice” but only the theory.  He didn’t come to talk content that night, but he came the next two nights.

I was pleased to see the students readily assert themselves and the way Aron dealt with it.  In many ways I saw Aron, and another teacher I observed, say very profound things to students about learning, about being wrong, and about becoming better educated people.  Despite some of the problems I saw with both content and pedagogy in the science classes, I saw the attention to these ideas relatively more frequently than I see in the States.

“Can we see atoms through your microscopes?”

The next morning, Wednesday, Aron surprised me by asking me if I wanted to teach his physics class about four minutes before class began.  That’s another story.  This one is about the size of the atom.

I had brought a set of field microscopes/magnifiers with me to donate to the school and hoped I would have a chance to use them with the students.  I actually have a set of Foldscopes coming to me in August, but I couldn’t get them in time.  Foldscopes are small paper microscopes, referred to as “origami microscopes” because they can be folded up origami style and carried around in a pocket.  They only cost about 50 cents.  They lens is made with a liquid polymer, and they have the power of a compound light microscope.

The microscopes I brought had a 5X magnifying glass, a 10X, and a 55X dissecting scope.  These magnifications play an important role in the story.  The smallest things I was able to see were nematodes (microscopic worms), but with the Foldscopes, which I will hopefully be able to deliver Santo Domingo soon, students will be able to see bacteria.

After lunch Aron again approached me and asked me to teach his 10^th grade chemistry class (Alex’s class).  Word had spread about my microscopes, and Aron wanted to know if we could use them in his class.  The class was studying the atom.  Lucia translated: “Can we see atoms through your microscopes?”

I was excited to teach. I have not taught K-12 students in over a decade and I’ve made many claims about teaching in the interim that I wanted to try in practice in Santo Domingo.  I was anxious though.  I wanted to let the students use the microscopes, but I had to find a way to explain to both Aron and his students why we couldn’t see them.  I consider myself a “scientific realist” and I believe atoms are real entities, but they are very abstract to most people, and they are much smaller than anyone can really compare concretely to anything they are familiar with.  I also knew from the day before that neither Aron nor his students really understood their magnitude.

You teachers know that once you have enough experience you can gather yourself on a few minutes’ notice; sometimes things flop and sometimes they go great.  Of course, that also happens with lessons you’ve planned carefully or done for years.  A lot depends on the students, the time of day, your own attention to what’s going on, etc.

I had an idea in the moment.  I told Aron I would teach a lesson about atoms and the microscopes.  I explained it a little and told him we should do it together.  As it turned out, he was more comfortable watching me until the end, which we pulled out the scopes.

I told the students we were going to talk about atoms for a while and then use the microscopes.  I began by asking the students what they knew about atoms.  One girl, nursing her baby, said that they made up all matter.  I didn’t catch her name, but she turned out to be one of the brightest and most outgoing students through the class.

In the morning’s physics lesson it took a while for students to understand that air resistance was due to matter in the air, so I wanted to see if students understood the classic question “Is air matter?”.  I asked, “Are there atoms in this desk?”  Students confirmed that the desk was matter and yes, there are atoms in it.  “Are there atoms in this bottle of water?”  Yes, students confirmed this as well.  “What about here?” (I waved my hands through the air).  There was some uncertainty in the room, but one student said that there was oxygen, so yes, there was matter.  Others agreed, so I asked if there was anything that didn’t contain atoms?  Someone said “light” and we came to agreement that light, and energy in general, did not contain atoms.

I should point out that this discourse was mediated by Lucia’s interpretation.  She’s very good, but I had little way of know how many or which of the students really understood.  This isn’t uncommon, even teaching in our native language.  I find it useful to have some kind of individual assessment, like a short “exit ticket” at the end of class to gauge individual understanding and plan for the next class.  I did it in this class, but in the moment, I was simply trying to get a general sense of the students’ prior knowledge and introduce our lesson on the magnitude of the atom.

I brought out the microscopes and gave a brief introduction to the lenses pointing to the 5X, 10X, and 55X as I explained their power.  I asked the students, “If I were looking at an object through the 5X lens, how much smaller would it be than it appeared?”  I asked the same about the 10X lens.  Students had no difficulty understanding the magnification factors.  Now I asked, “If I wanted to see atoms, how much do you think I would have to magnify them?”  Students said I’d have to magnify them 100 times.  “More,” I said.  “One thousand times.”  “More.”

I went to the white board and wrote the number “1”.  I told the students that I was going to begin writing zeros and I wanted them to stop me when they thought I had written enough.  Atoms are generally described to have an “atomic radius” around one angstrom (1/10¹⁰ of a meter).  I started writing.  Students tried to stop me after about 6 zeros, and then again after 9, until I finally stopped with 10 zeros.  The students didn’t appear particularly flabbergasted, but this number is pretty hard to fathom.  Or maybe they just really wanted me to pull out the scopes.

So I did.  I showed them how to use the magnifying glasses and then showed them how to hold the microscope up against a piece of lined paper and use the focusing dial to bring the lines into focus.  I went to the front of the room and began catching ants.  Aron came over to help me and we started delivering live ants to the students.  We only had seven scopes so the students gathered around and shared.  The ants look pretty cool, and the students had never seen the smaller ones with this much detail.  (There are huge bullet ants in the jungle, but it’s not wise to get too cozy with them).  It was exciting.  There was a buzz in the room.  We were off of the atom, but students learned to use the scopes and got to see the ants’ eyes, their body segments, antennae, and the hairs on their legs.

To end class, I asked students to take out a piece of paper and write down one interesting thing they had learned in the class.  Lucia and I were able to flip through them quickly.  Most students wrote about atoms making up all matter, or not being in energy, or being incredibly small.  A few students wrote some things about ants.  Unfortunately, I gave the exit tickets to Aron, so I don’t have any to post here.  But Aron was not attending the professional development sessions, so I wanted to model this simple assessment technique for him.

Later that evening…  

The guesthouse was buzzing with kids.  Alex was there:  charming, bright, andenthusiastic, bantering with Carlos and anyone else.  I don’t remember how it started, but I had been thinking that I hadn’t been able to use scientific notation that day.  I started to show Alex how to do some simple problems, which he caught onto very quickly, remembering exponents.  I explained about the size of the atom, and how this was a way to express it without writing out so many zeroes.

…The next night

Aron didn’t teach chemistry on Thursday night, but he came by and wanted to talk about chemistry and his class the next day. He wanted help to teach molecular formula calculations.  A molecular formula is basically a multiple of an empirical formula.  For example, formaldehyde (CH₂O) a carcinogenic component of smog has the same empirical formula (CH₂O) as glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆).  They have different molecular formulas.  You don’t want to mix them up…

I started to review the calculations with Aron, but I realized that the book problems used the concept of the mole to do the conversions.  Had he taught the mole? I asked Aron.  He said that they had discussed it but not really.  I asked him if they had done conversions between moles and atoms and grams.  He said that they had not.

I was now fully aware of the ongoing problems with the magnitude of the atom.  The mole is hard to understand, harder still if you are doing problems with it without knowing what it is.  I asked Aron if he or the students understood scientific notation.  He said he didn’t really, so he hadn’t been over it with the students.  I knew that in order to understand the magnitude of the atom, and the language that the book and Aron wanted to use, we needed to back up to scientific notation.  I went over it with Aron in the same way I had with Alex and he understood.  We agreed that the class tomorrow should be about scientific notation.  I told Aron that it would be best if we taught it together.

Scientific notation

I can’t remember if Aron said I’d be starting the class or if I just started it on Friday morning.  Lucia wrote an objective on the board.  It was something like, “Students will be able to convert between scientific notation and decimals”.  I introduced the concept the same way that I had with Alex and Aron.  I began by showing examples of how to convert regular numbers to scientific notation. For example, 100 is written as 1 X 10² in scientific notation, because it is 1 X 100.  6200 is 6.2 X 10³ because it is 6.2 X 1000.  You basically take the first digit and figure out how many decimal spaces would come after it to write the notation. The students were receptive and managed problems pretty well as I put them on the board and we worked through them together.  I then made a list of problems, and told the students they could work on them in groups.  Aron and I went around the room helping students.  Some students grasped the conversion quickly, and I had them start helping other students.  Some students moved decimal points the wrong way in making their conversion—a common mistake, and others had problems figuring out what to do with examples like 6.2 X 10³; they would write 62000 by just tacking three zeros on the end.  All seemed engaged in trying to figure it out.  Once we had seen that most students had done the problems, we went over them together as a class.

Next I taught them how to do conversions in the other direction.  For example 1 X 10² means a 1 with 2 zeroes after it:  100.  6.2 X 10³ equals 6200.  This one is a little more difficult because you can’t just add zeroes, but have to realize that you are moving the decimal point three spaces to the right.  I showed students how you could count the movement of the decimal places to correspond to the exponent.  Again, we gave them some problems and had them do them in groups.  I added a bonus problem.  1 X 10⁰ and promised that there would be a prize to anyone who got that right.

Again the students got right to work, and the activity was similar to the first.  Aron and I went around helping, and the students who got it quickly helped others.  Some students tried to show me the bonus answer.  I would have loved to hear how they were reasoning to get that answer, but the room was too loud and chaotic with the students working on the problems and Lucia interpreting everything for me.  One of the girls who had understood the problems easily showed me that she had gotten the bonus.  Again, I would have loved to hear her reasoning, but in my excitement that she had gotten it right, I leaped to the front of the room where I had stashed some University of Maryland banners to give away.  Suddenly, many other students appeared to be getting the bonus correct!  Excited I started handing out banners until I realized that the first girl had understood it and her affirmed answer spread around the classroom like a flash flood.

I didn’t have enough banners.  I gave them to the people who came to me with the bonus first and encouraged everyone to share.  Some students and I went outside to take pictures and then back into the classroom to take pictures with Aron and other students who hadn’t come out. The loud horn blared and the class came to an end.  I felt pretty good about how things had gone.  As the students gathered up their stuff and we all started to leave, I looked up to see all the Marlyand banners stuck to the walls of the classroom.  No one kept the for themselves alone, but left them to share.

Successes, concerns, and hopes

I’ve been working on this post for over a week now, and it’s just my first. I hope that I can continue to make these posts—posts that make meaningful connections for me and for people who think like me.  I personally felt gratified that I was able to jump in and teach again, but to be fair, the students are what make a classroom work.  If we create opportunities for them to engage in meaningful, challenging, and exploratory learning, most students will help us enact the kinds of teaching we want to do.

I was pleased that Aron came to get help from me while I was there, but apparently he had done the same with the last science guy who came.  While I was working with him, I felt like Aron wasn’t particularly friendly.  I began to realize that he was in an overwhelming situation.  With little formal background in science, he was expected to follow the Ecuadoran curriculum.  Patricia told me that teachers in Santo Domingo had options to teach the parts of the curriculum that they wanted, but I didn’t know how Aron could make those kinds of choices with such little background.  I began to feel sorry for Aron, and wished I could help him in a more sustainable way.

This theme of sustainability popped up for me time and again.  I wondered how much impact I could have just coming down for a week.  Patricia is a well-educated person, a strong leader, and a thoughtful teacher.  Her mother-in-law teaches in a nearby town and has an advanced degree in teaching.  In a rural place, like Santo Domingo, I think that the most meaningful thing I could do would be to organize and educate local teacher educators.  These would be people who could lead professional development in the towns, bringing pedagogical ideas and content to teachers throughout the year.  To borrow from an analogy that Lucia has used for other purposes, I think of teachers in their classrooms as being alone on a canoe in the middle of the Onzole, without power. When others come along, they can help with the canoe in ways that the lone canoeist may not have thought of.  Local leaders like Patricia need support to learn how to gather the teachers around each other’s canoes.  Teachers need to be part of communities in which they can plan, look at evidence of student learning, and make curricular and instructional choices.  These communities cannot form with visitors a couple of weeks a year.  I hope for a sustainable plan to support the educational opportunities for teachers and students along the Onzole.