About Me
Following my student teaching and taking to heart the lessons learned from talking and being with my students, it was easy to see for myself that our current teaching methods were not accomplishing the learning that parents expected. I took years exploring a wide variety of teaching methods and came away with the realization that we were still teaching with most of the same methods that were being used over 150 years ago.
I also came to believe that using a test as the primary measure of a student’s knowledge was inadequate. The methods of teaching that were being used to raise test scores was not equating to an increase in learning and understanding. I continued to study and was able to trace the history of educational testing, discovering for myself a multitude of reasons why that form of testing does not accurately measure real learning and understanding.
I felt that kids were not failing school as much as school was failing kids.
I took classes and read research to learn about the brain. What I learned about brain chemistry, anatomy, and the neuron theory provided valuable insight into our current educational models of teaching, but I could find no scientific insight that could adequately explain the mechanism of thinking and learning.
I could see the problems but couldn’t come up with an alternative approach that would even begin to correct the difficulties I was encountering with our current schooling system.
I continued taking graduate classes and it was in the early 2000s when I discovered the existence of glial cells. What scientists were discovering about those tiny brain cells, the most numerous in the brain, changed my perception of how thinking and learning occurs.
As a direct result of the expanding body of knowledge on glial cells, I formulated a different model for learning that changed the way I taught in my classroom, and the children thrived! The neuro-glial pool model of learning explained how children think and learn, helped me better understand the failures of our modern schooling methods, and suggested ways to make education more effective, especially for those students who were already struggling with school.
I then included parents in the teaching process both in my classroom and with activities that fit right into the routines of home.
After I received my Doctorate in Education, I wrote a number of children’s books for parents to read with their children at home. Entertaining and informative, they are fun for everyone. But the best part is that just by reading and talking together, parents are able to help their children learn to read!
I started making short videos of my students to demonstrate how to use the books and math games, and they are included on this web site.
I believe that learning is one of the greatest joys of being human. Schooling should be a vehicle to reflect and magnify that joy.
My quest begins
Back in the early 1990’s, I was finishing up my teaching degree and it was my time for student teaching. I had been substitute teaching to help pay for my college tuition for over a year, so it wasn’t my first classroom teaching experience, but it was so important that I do well. If I passed the scrutiny of the regular classroom teacher and my supervisor, I would get my teaching degree and be ready to find a real job with my own class.
I knew I was ready. I was completing the last part of a 5 year program with over 4 years of classes under my belt on how to teach, and I was in my late 40’s with prior job experiences ranging from having my own business, to over 15 years in medical science research. A third grade class was just what I had been waiting for.
Standardized testing was coming up, and the regular classroom teacher was reluctant to give me full rein because the stakes were high. If her classroom scores were low, it could jeopardize the school’s standing. The school was on the verge of being ‘red-celled’ which would mean government intervention.
These particular test scores were so important that she even told me what she thought some of the questions on the test would be so that I would be sure to adequately prepare the students to answer them correctly. One set of questions revolved about the concept of light reflection versus light emanating from solar objects like the moon, planets and stars. I knew just what to do. The lessons I had in mind would be both informative and lots of fun! The kids would be sure to know all the answers for the test.
The next weeks proved me right. The models I brought in of our solar system, coupled with a light source for the sun, showed the difference between a light emitting source and a light reflecting source. Follow up questions with the class informed me that most all the kids understood the difference and would be able to accurately answer a test question or two on the subject.
But there was one particular child who was a real problem. And he had always been a handful. He was cute and endearing, but rowdy in class. It was a challenge to keep his attention, but so rewarding to me when he was riveted by our solar system lessons. During the final informal assessment, however, I was completely baffled when, after asking him if the moon shined its own light or reflected the light from the sun, he answered without hesitation that the moon shined. It made its own light. And then he just smiled.
I took him over to the model and went through the lesson, briefly, once again, and with the light shining from the ‘sun’ onto the ‘moon’ and reflecting off of it onto the paper mache ‘Earth’, I again asked him to describe the light from the moon, and he again with a beatific smile said that the moon shined.
I decided to try again tomorrow.
The next day, I came ultra-prepared. I brought with me a piece of a meteor that I had purchased from a planetarium. I decided to fudge the facts a bit, and tell him that the rock came from the moon. He would be able to take it to a dark place and see if light actually shone from it. He would see that the rock did not shine, be easily convinced of his error, and would then be able to answer the test questions correctly. How hard would it be?
So I gave him the rock. I gave him the rock and gently explained that the rock came from the moon and asked him to look closely to see if it really did shine in the dark. If it didn’t make its own light, then the moon’s light would have to be a reflection. Did he understand? He nodded. He picked out a dark corner of the room, cupped the moon rock inside his hands, and peeked at the rock through his fingers. He looked long and hard, and then drew his face away from his hands, walked back over to me and looked me straight in the eye and smiled that beautiful peaceful smile once again. “It shined,” he whispered softly. “Just like my Mamma said when she left us. She said that if I looked at the moon shining down on me, that it would be shining down on her at the same time. I just knew it would shine.”
I learned more in that instant than in all the hours I had spent learning how to teach children at the University. Children learn what they need to learn, what they are ready to learn, and what they want to learn. I also learned that if teachers are not careful, they can do real damage by forcing knowledge when it is not the right time.
Children DO NOT all learn at the same speed, at the same age, or at the same level. Each child is a precious entity unto themselves and must be respected. Each child comes with their own skills, their own backdrop of prior knowledge, their own interests, and their own abilities to formulate. Somehow, this all had to be incorporated into education and teaching and learning.
Later that week, that wonderful child missed all the solar system questions on light that they gave on that standardized test.
My quest to find out what I didn’t understand about how children really learn had begun…
Darcie Smith-Smiley, Ed. D.
Education
Ed.D., Educational Specialties , UNR College of Education, 2012
Master of Arts, UNR College of Education, 1999
Bachelor of Science and teaching credential in Elementary Education, UNR College of Education, 1995
Experience
Teaching License, State of Nevada 1997 – present
Private tutoring 1998 – present
Reading Specialist, Washoe County School District 2001 – present
Master Teacher, Washoe County School District 2004 – present