“I HAVE A story for you. But you have to figure out the ending.” Seven years earlier, when Hernan first started teaching biology, he would have launched right into the directions for the class’s first experiment. These days, he started with a riddle.
“There’s this crow—one of those big, black birds you sometimes see on telephone wires.” He shouldn’t have had to explain what a crow was, but he’d seen even the simplest concepts derail students’ understanding.
“The crow hasn’t eaten in a long time. He’s about to die from hunger. All of a sudden, he sees a worm floating in a pitcher of water, and he knows his last chance to survive is to eat this worm.” Here, Hernan lifted a graduated cylinder from his demonstration table. A plastic worm floated on top of a few inches of water.
“The crow tries to put his beak into the top of the pitcher, but he can’t get his head in far enough without getting stuck.” Hernan pinched his fingers together to form an imaginary beak, pushing them halfway into the mouth of the pitcher. “There’s only a little water left in the pitcher, so the worm isn’t high enough for him to reach it, but he knows that if he gives up, he’s going to die of hunger. Then, finally, he figures out—”
A burst of static from the PA speaker stopped him.
“Thank you for an interruption.” Mrs. Rawlins’s voice crackled. “Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas Pledge.”
There was a notable difference between the speed at which students oozed upright for the pledges and the velocity with which they sprang from their seats at the end of class. Watching students stand up in this context reminded Hernan of The Road to Homo Sapiens, an illustration of the stages of evolution long ago banned from Texas textbooks. Mrs. Rawlins was already saying, “… one nation, under God,” when the last student erected himself into Oreopithecus posture.
“Come on, Lamont,” urged Hernan. “You’re not ninety years old.”
“Teachers, please be reminded to write today’s Curriculum Standard of the Day on the board in its entirety.”
Hernan walked around the room, placing upright plastic tubes on each lab table. These last-minute announcements always dragged on the momentum of the class.
A girl squinted into her plastic tube. “The hell? Is that a dead worm?”
Instead of answering, Hernan grabbed a Ziploc bag of tweezers from his demonstration table and handed it to her. “Pass these out for me, Nilda. One on each table.”
Then he quickly checked his e-mail, clicking the embedded link and scrolling to the biology standard: Students will use the scientific method during laboratory investigations and experiments.
Lamont, who seemed to slide a couple of inches in his chair every few minutes, had slouched to a forty-five-degree angle.
“Lamont, you see that stack of papers on the front table? Will you grab those and give one to each person? Great. Thanks.”
Hernan wrote Scientific Method on the board as Lamont passed out the instructions for the experiment.
MATERIALS
DIRECTIONS
“The first group that figures out how to remove the worm from the tube gets extra credit.” Another strange phenomenon Hernan had observed: even students who didn’t do their regular assignments would work for extra credit.
“And I’ll give y’all a hint.” Under Scientific Method, he wrote, Step one: Make observations. “This means look around carefully. Notice things. Pick things up and feel them. Use all five senses.”
As always, students spent the beginning of their observation time arguing among lab partners and jiggling the tubes to see if the worm was real. Eventually, however, they settled into trying to solve the puzzle. Hernan walked around the room, observing. Aside from his plants, the room had the attributes found in most high school science labs: rows of rectangular lab tables; shelves of tools for mixing, measuring, and filtering; two sinks, one of which worked. Scattered among these lay bolts, screws, and other small metal objects Hernan had placed around the room the day before.
He wrote the next step on the board. Step two: Propose a hypothesis.
“Okay, everyone, hopefully you’ve had some time to make observations. Now it’s time to form a hypothesis—that’s an educated guess about the answer to the experiment.”
He wrote the last four steps on the board:
He knew there would be much work to do before students fully understood the steps. The schools that fed into Brae Hill Valley considered it a matter of survival to focus on each year’s tested subjects, and while students took reading and math tests every year, only fourth and seventh graders took science tests.
“We’ll discuss all this later,” said Hernan, gesturing toward the board. “For now, just work on forming a hypothesis.”
Eventually, a student would notice the bits of metal hidden around the room and figure out that if they dropped these in the water, the worm would float to the top of the tube. In the meantime, Hernan circled the room, offering occasional pointers. His mind wandered to Lena: the year’s first happy hour was on Friday, and he hadn’t heard from her yet. Maybe she’d forgotten. Maybe Lena was just being polite when she asked for his number. Or maybe he should have taken her number instead. Then again, would he have even called? He wasn’t one to make things awkward with a coworker.
“Mr. Hernandez.” In the doorway stood Hernan’s least-favorite assistant principal, Mr. Scamphers. He was giving Hernan the look one might give a child who had indeed put someone’s eye out in a game he’d warned them would only be fun until someone got hurt. “You are out of compliance with the Curriculum Standard of the Day Achievement Initiative.”
“We’re working on the scientific method,” said Hernan, pointing to the board. “Isn’t that the standard?”
“The standard is to be written on the board in its entirety, Mr. Hernandez, as per this morning’s announcement.”
“Sorry.” But then, since Hernan wasn’t actually sorry, he added, “It’s just that we were already in the middle of the lesson when that announcement came on.”
“Well, I’ll certainly make a note of that.” Scamphers scribbled on his clipboard.
Before Hernan could wonder why this was worth noting, a burst of activity erupted from a lab table near the window. Someone had made a correct hypothesis. Now students were all hunting for bits of metal to pick up and drop into the water, just as crows did in the wild.
High school science experiments were like this. Everything that determined the outcome was already in the room, working as it always did, as predictable as the laws of gravity or volume displacement. They were only new if you hadn’t noticed them before.
It was Nilda who first called, “We got it!” She held her worm up like a trophy.
“Nice,” said Hernan. “Congratulations to the whole group on using the scientific method to find a solution!” He couldn’t resist looking at Mr. Scamphers as he emphasized the words.
But Mr. Scamphers offered no sign that he had understood. He marched out the door, his clipboard cradled stiffly in one arm.
Hernan turned to the student who had vindicated him. “Nilda, why don’t you tell us what your hypothesis was?”
Nilda shrugged. “I saw everyone putting these metal thingies in the water, so I tried to get more of them than everyone else.”
Hernan sighed. “You were supposed to form a hypothesis first.”
“Yeah, but, Mr. Hernandez, sometimes you just gotta go for it.”
Sometimes you just gotta go for it was not the takeaway of the lesson, but the bell rang before Hernan could answer, and the students filtered out of the room. It was early in the year, he reminded himself. There was still time. He watered the plants along his windowsill before the next wave of students arrived, feeling a vibration he at first assumed was coming from the air conditioner. Then he realized it was his phone, announcing a text message from inside his pocket.
This Friday. Papacito’s?
A smile crept onto Hernan’s face as he realized the area code was from Philadelphia.
See you there, he typed back.