Koch describes messiness in the classroom as a wonderful thing. Teachers want students to be engaged and eager to explore their questions to create some solutions; but as most teachers soon learn it is hard to get students excited about science. She describes a classroom she went into to do some experiments. The class was very quiet and very neat. Her experiments required the students to move around and get dirty and figured they would not get a meaningful exploration in that environment. Children can see that the answers in science aren’t always neat. Our lives aren’t always neat and a messy room is just part of doing science.
I think this quote is showing us that many teachers use order. They want to hand the students the information they need to know without allowing the students to explore. Teachers take away all the creativity because they have to stay on schedule and teach to state tests. We hand the information to students because they cannot spend too much time in a particular thing. I think when she talks about viewing as an outsider she means that the students are strangers to the information and by not allowing them to get creative and get into the topic they will continue to be strangers because all they are getting, is it drilled in their heads.
If I cannot answer a question my students ask me I can do a number of different things. I can look up the answer myself to tell them. I can have them research their question while I research it and we can combine what we find. I can have them ask their peers or another adult. There are many different ways to go about helping a student with their questions; the teacher just has to choose the right method.
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