Squeezing in magic moments

"I touched it, Miss Petinak! I touched the squid!" screams an enthusiastic second-grader.

"Congratulations, you're still alive," says Cutler Elementary School teacher Debbie Petinak.

The student had vowed to bring rubber gloves for the experience, but bravely attempts the dissection barehanded.

Squeamishness and squeals of "eewww" gradually give way to a "let-me-at-it" spirit as students locate the siphon that squirts out water, allowing the squid to move like a jet plane, or dip pointed pieces of plastic into the ink sac and try their hands at writing with the ink.

Later, they would write reports on squid habitat, predators and prey.

Such projects used to be commonplace, recalls Petinak, who's been teaching in Cutler, near Visalia, for 28 years. But these days they must be "squeezed in." With scripted instruction taking up 90 minutes for language arts and 60 minutes for math, there's precious little time left for anything extra, which is where science and social studies rank these days.

A member of the Cutler-Orosi Unified Teachers Association (COUTA), Petinak sounds nostalgic when she speaks of the days when teachers could pick a theme and integrate it into all areas of the curriculum. "The students loved it and were very excited about coming to school. The teachers also loved it, although it took a lot of planning."

Even though she had 30 students, she could provide a lot more individualized attention then. "I was able to do small group instruction while other students were working on projects or in study centers."

She persists in working with themes, often of a science nature. This year it's oceanography and marine biology. Fundraisers support field trips to places like the Natural History Museum and the California Science Center, both in Los Angeles.

"But it's hard," admits Petinak. "Sometimes you have to give up other things. I'm slipping it in - really. But I feel it's important for students to study things they enjoy."

She's one of many teachers who feel they have to take extraordinary measures to squeeze in the kind of activities that make learning a pleasure.

Even with standards-driven curriculum, it is possible to "invite in thinking and unleash students' imagination," says Jan Coleman-Knight, who teaches world history to seventh-graders at Thornton Junior High in Fremont. "They can question and discuss and become actively engaged in the learning process, rather than just study standards-based curriculum that's dry and decimated."

When students study the fall of Rome, she gives them Roman coins and sends them to a makeshift marketplace, where they can learn what it feels like to contend with inflation. They also get a chance to see what happens when a tax collector takes a hefty share of what's left.

She also has her students research the fall of Rome in documents written in Latin during that era and translated into English. "I want them to be investigators of the past, not distant observers," she says.

Through their investigations, students learn that many factors - barbarian invasions, taxation, inflation, poor leadership and other problems - contributed to the fall of Rome.

"These are the same issues we are struggling to resolve today - high military costs, taxation, inflation, etc.," says Coleman-Knight, a member of the Fremont Unified Teachers Association. "Students see that the time and place are different, but certain issues don't go away."

"When the state standards came about, everyone panicked," recalls Sally Lord, a social studies teacher at C.K. Price Middle School in Orland, near Chico. "It was, you've got to do this and that, and you can't do certain other things anymore. My school dumped all the shop, home economics and crafts classes. Suddenly, teachers began to panic if someone came into their room. It was almost paranoia.

"I thought, 'Wait a minute here. There has to be a way to teach academics and still have fun.'"

For example, when the Orland Teachers Association member comes to teaching a standard on the Constitution or the branches of government, her students engage in role-playing activities. "I'll teach them how to write bills related to their school, perhaps about the cafeteria, lunch or sports."

When they study the executive branch of government, "we'll have a full-blown, three-party election."

And for the judicial branch, "we'll have a mock trial."

Now that social studies questions have been added to the CAT-6 test, she is feeling the same pressure that math and language arts teachers have been under. But she is still determined to squeeze in those magic moments.

"They've not broken my spirit," says Lord with an air of defiance. "If they want to fire me, they can fire me. My focus is on teaching kids what they need."