Respect

A positive, productive, respectful and effective working relationship is emerging between Ms. Hofsess, Mrs. Blevins, Karen and me. Ms. Hofsess has been teaching about plant structure and function for the past couple of weeks. One day she had some plant leaves and stems out for kids to examine with magnifying lenses. They had read about and observed pictures of cell structures and had done a good job of memorizing plant parts and what they do. I volunteered that if we had a microscope I could help students prepare some slides that would allow them to see the structures they had been learning about. The school had some microscopes, as it turned out. Miss Hofsess has a few students who have learning disabilities that make reading and writing very challenging for them. She noticed that two of them in particular had done a very good job in the hands on “lab” work of examining plants. She suggested to me that maybe these two could be first to work with the microscopes and share their findings with the class. I met with the two students, a boy and a girl, and asked them some questions about what they had been learning. They were able to verbally explain most of the concepts in fairly significant detail. I asked them if they thought all parts of the leaf would look the same under the microscope. We talked about the top side being kind of shiny and the bottom side being kind of dull and more textured. We decided to make two slides, one of the top layer of the leaf and one of the bottom. The result was like seeing two beautiful butterflies emerging from a cocoon. With great dexterity the girl prepared her slide gently scraping away the lower layers of the leaf so that the cells of the upper surface were exposed and clearly visible under the microscope. The boy did the same thing exposing the lower layer instead. Each slide was dramatically different and the two students were very excited about what they saw and proud of their efforts. We talked about the differences and they began to verbally relate what they had seen to what they had been learning in class. Suddenly, the boy, who rarely writes anything, produced a piece of paper and started asking me questions in order to verify what he saw under the microscope. He began to write, asking me how to correctly spell words like chloroplasts and stomata. He prepared, essentially, an outline that he could use as a reference. Miss Hofsess sent the rest of the students in small groups to see what the boy and girl had prepared. For each small group the boy and girl explained what they had done, what was being viewed, why the slides were different, and cited evidence that verified that the structures being viewed functioned as taught in the class. The pride on these two students’ faces was heartwarming. The respect that the other students afforded them provided a validation that they may never have experienced in school before. There is no doubt in my mind that those two students absolutely know about plant structures and functions and can explain the process of photosynthesis in fairly technical terms. Much more importantly, they gained the respect of their classmates, not to mention a considerable amount of self-esteem. Had Miss Hofsess not had someone to help her with class that day, I am sure that the two “star” students would not have been able to achieve what they did in our team environment. There were lots of high fives between the two students, Miss Hofsess and myself.