"It's the brain of the cell!" my freshman/sophomore Biology class replied with utmost confidence.
"The brain of the cell? What do you mean by that?"
"The nucleus controls the cell!" I heard almost in unison.
"What does it do when it's controlling the cell?"
I was met with silence. One student cautiously queried, "Tells the parts of the cell what to do?"
"Well," I replied, "How does it do that, exactly?"
More silence. Another cautious sentence/question: "Using the DNA inside the nucleus......?"
"What does DNA do in the nucleus?"
"It gives you your traits."
"How does it give your traits?"
"By storing genetic information."
"What is genetic information?"
I am met with total silence, and more than a few pensive and puzzled looks. I didn't have to dig very far with my questions to find out what they really knew. They knew what words to say, but they didn't really know.
What saddens me is that they honestly thought they knew. They had memorized vague generalities, knew the "Thing A does Function B" that someone had told them in the past, but had never made the connections between the parts to make a well-understood whole. They were like water striders, skimming along the surface of understanding without ever diving below the surface.
But my job now is not to pass blame or judgement about who or what "caused" this. My job now is to help them learn how to make connections, how to use logic--how to think. The science itself is actually third on my teacher priority list.
The first two on my list? Teach students how to learn, and how to fail towards learning. I use the content as a vehicle to do this. Does it take time? Absolutely; real learning doesn't occur whipping through a textbook chapter by chapter. It occurs slowly, allowing students to work with, through, and among the concepts. It occurs by teaching students to think by having them practice thinking. To do this, you can't be bound by your pacing guides or the amount of standards you "have to teach."
You have to be bound to the fact that you want your students to dive beneath the surface of learning, not skim across the top having fooled themselves into thinking that they know.