Teaching Ecologically: Seeking New Ways

Tim Molnar

A Regina high school teacher conceived of a project that would help teachers develop a more responsive teaching approach by viewing and orchestrating the classroom as an ecology of complex connections and patterns. Molnar built on the idea that education is an important aspect of the transmission of culture. Teachers' practice reflects their patterns of involvement with the world, and these they transmit to students as they teach. Teachers' role in the transmission of culture gives them a responsibility for encouraging a mental ecology (beliefs, values and analogs of social practice) that will not exacerbate growing world-wide ecological and social crises. For Molnar, it is important that teachers reflect and act upon ideas that affect both their teaching practice and theory.

Implemented in the 1994-95 school year, Molnar's research project involved three high school teachers, called by the fictitious names of Stacey, Kim and Sandy, who were implementing an innovative grade nine program. The program aimed at creating an alternative high school environment in grade nine and was in itself an attempt to modify the ecology of interactive connections and patterns within the high school. Consequently, although the research project was not intended to be an evaluation of the program, it necessarily became less an investigation of the practice of individual teachers and more an exploration of their involvement in the grade nine program.

Molnar's research report includes an appendix giving his understanding of the evolving concept of teaching ecologically. However, he points out that no explicit step-by-step model on teaching ecologically was presented to the participating teachers in an in-service. The focus of his study was on giving the teachers opportunities to consider their beliefs and their practice in the context of the emerging grade nine program, letting them choose if and how they would act differently. Through meetings, discussion and writing, the teachers explored the ideas underlying the program and their practice, while the researcher facilitated and interpreted their explorations.

Rich and lively conversations among the teachers provided Molnar with the best source of understanding of what was transpiring in the program, but he also gathered and reviewed materials that the teachers prepared and disseminated among themselves and the school. These materials included the objectives of the program, evaluation practices and program guidelines. Molnar's original intention to gather and analyze reflective writings from the teachers was modified to accommodate their greater ease in personal expression, questioning and reflection through conversation.

Several themes relating to teaching as an ecology were implemented in the alternative grade nine program:

• teachers attempted to create learning situations that were low-threat but highly challenging,
• they used thematic instruction,
• they engaged students in more experiential, less abstracted learning situations,
• they elicited more community involvement in students' learning,
• they did not subordinate learners' initiatives to the initiatives of others, and
• they focussed on more cooperative, less competitive activities.

One major activity, Stranger in a Strange Land, centered on the immigrant experience. Teachers provided students with an opportunity to explore and link subject areas (e.g., English, math, social studies, health and art) in the exploration of what it would be like to be an immigrant in Canada. Students researched their own "roots" by creating a time line and a family tree. They also chose a country and conducted research into it that would help them plan for a family to come to their city from that country. Students interacted with guest speakers who originated from other countries, created maps and other informational materials, and accessed materials from the city's main library. One of the teachers commented:

Even though at times it was frustrating (mainly because the students would rather be told what to do than recognize what needs to be done), the students worked their way through a major project which involved community awareness, reasearch skills, sense of personal responsibility and integration of subjects. Many of the students produced a superior product, that was more a result of their efforts and ownership than of a teacher-driven assignment.

The structure and content of the program had other benefits as well. Teachers and students became very familiar with each other; the teachers acquired a good understanding of their students' needs and issues; and students who had difficulties were less likely to be overlooked in the daily rush of school activities.

One less positive reality emerged from the research into the teachers' attempts to teach in an ecological manner: the tension between the demands of the larger, more traditional high school setting and the alternative grade nine program. A "school within a school" situation developed in which the grade nine teachers experienced feelings of isolation and had to deal with conflicts regarding teacher time tabling and assignments. At times they felt they had been allowed to begin a program that required significant changes in objectives, time tabling and staffing, but they were not being supported by other staff. However, the grade nine teachers maintained a solidarity that enabled them to deal with this perceived lack of support, and they continued their attempts at innovation.

Perhaps the single most striking feature of the research, in Molnar's view, is its indication of the importance of a common preparation time and place for the teachers. Their ability to share power, responsibility and decision-making relied heavily upon this opportunity for frequent communication, planning and joint action. Through their meetings, the teachers learned to understand each other's tendencies, they developed trust and openness that allowed them to seek help from each other, and they became a team in a deep and meaningful way, in spite of their different concerns and understandings of the grade nine program. Even with a common preparation period, the teachers, the program and the research would have benefited from more time to consolidate and understand what was happening. Instead of reflecting on their personal and professional situations, the teachers often found themselves using research sessions to explore program-related issues.

The Importance of Sharing Each Other's Time, Energy and Caring: Quotations from the Teachers

Stacey: The unity and support that we three experienced was a life-saver. The common prep time was essential - it needs to happen next year! The common front we presented when dealing with those students (and their parents) who wouldn't (couldn't) fit in, was very effective.

Kim: Talk about learning though!! Those two have taught me so much. I'm back to first year teaching and seeing all sorts of weaknesses.

Sandy: A three hour block, three teachers talking, sharing, laughing, crying but caring about each other and the kids - commitment. This was the most satisfying!!

Molnar notes that to view teaching as ecological means understanding the teaching-learning process as a varied and complex phenomenon. Teaching is more than the technical dispensing of knowledge; teachers orchestrate learning opportunities for students and themselves. Part of this orchestration involves reflecting upon one's experience, both personal and professional, and at times the teachers in the study struggled with this aspect of teaching ecologically. They were sometimes unsure and unaware of the quality of their reflections in group conversations. Uncertain that a systematic examination of their teaching practice would yield real benefits, they hesitated to give too much time to such an undertaking.

Molnar identifies a number of factors that give a partial understanding of their reticence and confusion concerning reflection:

• the pressing practical concerns the teachers felt in response to the grade nine program,
• the pressure from themselves and those outside the program to demonstrate its success,
• the lack of time left in their work to record and ponder understandings,
• a view sometimes revealed in conversation of teaching as a technical pursuit rather than a complex, holistic process, and
• a belief occasionally implied that their own personal, practical knowledge was not just different from that of other teachers, but less valuable than the knowledge of those outside their immediate teaching situation.

He concludes that teachers must be encouraged to pursue research activities, not only with words, but with time and resources. Teachers must build confidence that the research they conduct will be to the benefit of their students as well as themselves. According to Molnar, if real change to more ecologically aligned ways of teaching and learning is to occur, it is important for teachers, administrators and others to proceed with research, no matter how tentatively.