This is going to be kind of a cool experiment in creating online community... While all Reach Participants will be blogging about their expanding thinking about their own teaching and learning, this blog will be for the Reach Coaches (Peggy, Victoria, and I) to have our own running conversation about teaching and learning...
I'll start:
As coaches, we have been reflecting on our first year of Reach and what we have learned... And it has been an incredible year full of so much learning... One of the things we have been talking about is that even though the teaching is unbelievably challenging, personally and professionally, in many ways it boils down to some simple ideas, to wit:
Teaching comes back to the same essential questions:
• "How do I want my students thinking and being? How do they want to be thinking and being?"
• "What do I want them to know and be able to do? What do they want to know or be able to do?"
•"How will I/they know?"
• "What can I do to help EACH of them get there? What do they need to do individually and together?"
Teaching Habits:
• The Habit of Mind of teaching is to return, again and again, to these questions. Always from different perspectives and with different students in mind.
• The Habit of the Heart of teaching is to deeply, genuinely care about your students and how your effort to address these questions will affect them...
• The Habit of the Hand of teaching is all of the strategies and techniques that supports this (which we can teach you).
9 attitudes and skills that typify teachers who help all learners (Tomilinson & McTighe, 2006):
1. Establish clarity about curricular essentials
2. Accept responsibility for learner success
3. Develop communities of respect
4. Build awareness of what works for each student
5. Develop classroom management routines that contribute to success
6. Help students become effective partners in their own success
7. Develop flexible classroom teaching routines
8. Expand a repertoire of instructional strategies
9. Reflect on individual progress with an eye toward curricular goals and personal growth
So simple... yet, teaching and learning is one of the most complex tasks I can imagine. It requires skill and technique as well as creativity and intuition. Teachers have to be able to plan carefully AND be willing to throw out their plans at any moment. YIKES!
But then again, you could describe painting a masterpiece the same way...
For me, thinking about teaching in this way came by the scenic route... I started as an Outward Bound instructor more than 15 years ago. Working overseas with an amazing group of instructors from all over the world, we thought a lot about the big ideas we wanted students to grapple with, and we thought incessantly about the skills and knowledge we wanted them to have. But we were most definitely teaching habits of the hand as opposed to habits of the mind. Years later, after many stops in between, I became the founding director and a humanities teacher for the Bay Area School of Enterprise, a high school that was designed to make learning more experiential. For the first time I began to think deeply about what I wanted students to know and be able to do. Real and dramatic experience started to become, in my mind, necessary but no longer sufficient for the kind of learning I wanted students to be doing. I started to recognize that my attraction towards the big ideas and enduring understandings I wanted for students was coming at the expense of the skills and knowledge students needed to be able to fully accesses those ideas. Together with 20 amazing educators, both staff and volunteers (including Victoria and Peggy) we started Reach with the idea that we might be able to help teachers become the educators and leaders they want be. In the process, all of these questions came back to me in new ways.
Now, after 15 years of watching so many inspiring teachers of all descriptions and experience levels in action, I bring these questions to my teaching... What do I want the teachers I work with (including you) to know and be able to do? What do you want to know and be able to do? How do I want you thinking about your practice? How do you think about it? How can I help EACH of you to be the teacher you want to be? How can you help each other? These are the questions I bring to my work with you... and the questions I put to you...
6 comments:
Hmm, this blog made me think of what kind of teacher I want to be? I always wanted to be a teacher that inspired her students to do great in school and not fear math. I wanted to be a teacher full of energy and would keep her class interested at all times. But I don't know if this is the case.
When I was hired to teach math I thought I was going to have it easy. I had appoximately 20 students in each class with a T.A. to help. I thought there would be no way any student would leave my class without learning a great amount of math. The reality was a handfull of my students did not do anything and sometimes would fall asleep. I tried speaking to them, calling their parents and nothing seemed to change.
So now I ask myself if I did enough? What kind of teacher was I? Should I have dedicated my life to them...and if I did, would I have a balanced life?
Chris... Yep, you have a particularly tough (and worthy) challenge... How do you convince a group of students who have been repeatedly unsuccessful that, despite all evidence to the contrary they can do things they never imagined they could do? AND that they SHOULD do those things...
I wish I had a perfect answer for you, but there aren't any... All I can say is that even if you commit to the long, never ending road of being a Master Teacher, you will never fully achieve your goal of 100% of students being engaged and committed 100% of the time. But... with work and coaching, you will move the percentages in your favor.
Hi Page! Your comments on your experience at BASoE definitely struck a chord with me. I've long believed that the greatest weakness in our education system is that we don't teach people to think critically. Without those fundamental cognitive tools, we're not doing much more than loading up "information sponges." The tricky part, of course, is that we still have to deal with imparting the information at the same time we're trying to teach people how to process and evaluate information; we have to deal in the specific even as we're training them in the fundamental. It's a bit like trying to build a house while you're still pouring the foundation!
I look forward to working with you and gaining whatever insights you can provide on how to handle this balancing act. The only thing I'm sure of at this point is that it's going to be a lifelong learning process -- which is just fine with me. :)
In my response I am going to focus on the last paragraph of the blog which asks"What do you want to be able to know and be able to do?" This is a very deep question for me. I see myself with some experience under my belt, but I have a lifetime of learning to do in terms of teaching. Teaching is a very difficult profession. It can exhaust and frustrate you;yet, it can be the most rewarding, fulfilling feeling in the world. I want be able to learn to look at myself objectively and recongnize when something is not working for me or for my students. I want to be able to go through my resources and be determined to do whatever it takes. I want to stay on the path of the commitment which I make each day that I am in the classroom. I want to be the type of teacher who will not give up even though I may be exhausted and frustrated. I want to be a teacher who gives 110%, and who does everything she can to make sure that I do not leave someone behind. I want to be a sensitive teacher.. a caring one who gets to know each student and his or her family. I want to be a teacher who will not be guilty of the sin of pride and be flexible when something needs to be changed. I could go on and on. I know there will be good days and bad ones. Nothing is perfect in this profession. I want to be able to gain the knowledge necessary to stay in the profession always aware of what my purpose is. I never want to lose sight of the reason why I am there. A lot of teachers I have worked with somehow lose sight of being in the classroom, and it becomes a job that they beoome comfortable in and they lose interest in the real cause. I want to gain a true deep respect for this profession and not become one of those burned out teachers who stay in teaching way past the time that they should. Are these realistic expectations?
It's been a long journey for me in education and every year, I put off getting my teaching credential. Although I am so excited to be a student again, I realize how hard it is to get back into the disciplined mindset, especially when "there is so much going on in my life." While I'll be getting a classroom of my own students, I realize the challenges they must face as well.
Someone once told me that the key to reaching out to young people is not motivation but inspiration. You can motivate someone to do a task by offering incentives or other such, but to inspire a person is to influence and bring forth a deeper sense of purpose; one that connects to the individual.
I often ask myself how do you inspire a student to become life long learners? At the high school level, because many of the students are young adults, I believe that it becomes more of providing an opportunity than anything else. We need to allow each student the opportunity to learn, yet find those precious moments of learning that will resonate with them.
We can all say that life is about learning and teaching. We learn and teach each other everyday. However, being INTENTIONAL is the KEY. Page, you bring up all the KEY questions to being intentional when teaching others. It's about what you want that person to walk away with and "be able to do" and knowing that you accomplished that. Teaching is not easy. I think it is brain surgery. Except our emergency room is the classroom. It does require "skill and technique", training, tools and support. I look forward to the challenge that lies ahead and wonder what kind of teacher I will be. I often wonder not what will they know and what will they be able to do, but also what do THEY want to know and what do THEY want to learn.
Page, I appreciate your thoughts on the essential questions of teaching. I am particularly struck by two things you wrote – the idea of how we should think about our practice and your analogy between teaching and creating art. These resonate with me as I approach teaching from an arts background. Establishing a framework in which to think of myself and my work became essential for navigating the vast and murky “art world.” How did I want to fit into this community? What messages was I sending through my craft? How did these reflect my commitment and understanding of the experience of an artist? Building on the parallel you established, Page, I find I can (and should?!) ask these same questions of the experience of a teacher. It seems mastery both eludes and defines each pursuit, and while this makes them daunting I also have to believe it makes them worthwhile.
Post a Comment