Please... Verify Me!!!

I stumbled upon this on a teacher blog I recently have started reading...

TED

"There is a story of the new recruit at an engineering company, fresh out of college, who was given a circuit to analyze on his first day on the job. He worked on it for most of the day and then brought his solution to the manager who had assigned the task that morning. The recruit placed his solution on the desk and waited eagerly for a response. The manager looked at the paper and then filed it. The recruit lingered for awhile and then said, 'Well was I right?'

The manager was shocked. He asked, 'Why would I pay you to find answers that I already know?'”

The question is... Why?

I so often pose questions to my students that either I don't know the answer to or choose not to share. An example of this is "The Mystery Cube", a well-known Nature of Science activity that I've put my own spin on to help teach Atomic Theory. It involves a cube with language and symbols on each side. Their role is to then figure out, based on logic and data collection, what the bottom of the cube says. I never actually tell them if they are correct. Funny thing is... I have kids that will approach me THREE years later and ask me to tell them what was on the bottom of the cube. After a lesson that is based in thinking critically, sharing data, and scientific community, why is that students can not let go of the verfication they so desperately need from their teachers. Frustration is a beautiful tool, especially in a science classroom, primarily because it is so real. But THREE years later??? You'd think they would get over it. They say they believe in their answers, that they even have "faith" in them, an interesting word choice in science (and one I often agree with), yet they still just want to know if they are right, long after my class ends.

Interesting... I guess it is obvious that there are still few of us out there teaching kids in this manner... sad but true. I just hope that kids one day can begin to have the same faith in thier work and themselves that I have in them. And they don't need others to approve of thier work or verify them as people to give their work and life meaning. I realize that this is a much bigger issue than what I it began as but I see it as a much larger problem.

We'll see... I've posted a shorter version of this question to my TOK class on our blog. We'll see what they say...