Teachers are not supposed to hide what we're teaching our students from the students, but we seem to wrap it in hot fresh tortillas and dust it with sugar.
Teachers are taught how to begin a lesson, how to put students "in the mood" to learn, how to move from one concept to another, how to use graphic organizers, how to ask the right questions at the right time, how to link the lesson to real life situations, how to teach the students how to read the textbook, how to use "technology" in the lesson, how to lead a class through "guided practice" long enough to feel confident about having students to "independent practice." So on and so on. Myriad methods of teaching. (Continued in the Body)
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(Continued from above)
What is rarely done- indeed, I think this method is frowned upon- is for a teacher to say to students,
"Look, you don't know what this is and how it works. You're supposed to know but you don't. I'm going to show you what it looks like, describe what it is and explain how it works. You're going to pay attention and even ask questions until you think you know what this is all about. I'm going to ask you questions from time to time to make sure you are paying attention and actually thinking about what's going on in class today, rather than just sitting in your chair. We're going to go over it over and over again until you can tell me what this looks like, describe what it is and explain how it works. Until you can do those things, you haven't learned anything. You have to do this because you have to change. You can't stay the way you are. Nobody wants you to stay the way you are. We want you to be better than you are now. You're going to make mistakes, too, and that's o.k. because it is impossible to be perfect and learn something at the same time."
That kind of brutal honesty is difficult for some students to take. They're used to being cozied up to, spoon fed, all while sitting passively and soaking it in. If they behave right and do all the busy work and home work, they expect a decent grade even if they haven't learned anything. That's how it has worked in the past for many of them. To have a teacher say, "You're not any good at this and that has to change. You have to change. Until you change and learn this, you haven't done what you are supposed to do. I'm going to help you and let's get started right now," is almost a form of body blow for some students.
There are people in education (many are in administration and many others write books) who think that learning is a big, puffy glazed doughnut that's eaten at a party. If even that is too hard to swallow, the glaze can be changed to chocolate so that even more endorphins can be released. All students were beautiful, talented, intelligent and capable when they walked in the door and each day's lessons will only make them more so.
On the other hand, there are people who believe learning is all about process. Give the students the right assignments and lots of them, make them turn in an complete and organized notebook, make them meet deadlines or receive no credit and give tests every Friday and there's education. If the content is organized, if the student is organized and if all the work gets done, the student will have learned something. It's kind of an extreme example but there is something wrong about a Calculus student having to ask students who have a different Calculus teacher how to do her homework because the teacher does not explain how to do the problems. She has plenty of assignments and a nice looking notebook and there are lots of quizzes and tests. She and her classmates are always told to refer questions to the textbook's explanations and examples.
I've written all of the above because I'm about to write a couple of things that sound like I'm patting myself on the back. For Heaven's sake, that's not my purpose. I don't need any praise or admiration (condemnation? affirmation?) for it. I would like you to think about what these things mean in the context of teaching and learning:
Event 1: My Principal let me know that the one thing she knows about me, and she appreciates it, is that I will always give a student a second chance. She said my attitude is not common among my colleagues.
Event 2: I was ticked off at my first class because so many of them were rude while we watched the inauguration. I was still steaming when my next class came in and the screw-ups in that class started spinning out of control immediately. It's amazing what hand-fulls of candy and sucking down sugar packets snagged from the local fast food places will do to a class atmosphere. So I tossed my well-crafted lesson plan and went straight into what you read above, that quoted paragraph that starts with, "Look..." This class is made up of students who have never been good at math. I put two problems on the board that practically all of the students had missed on the most recent test and we beat them into the ground for about forty minutes. Then we did two more problems just like them. Then we did two more. Ninety minutes of class time (double period) and we completed six problems. Then the bell rang.
One boy turned to another and said, "Oh...Ah, man, and I was really learning something today."
The other body nodded in agreement.
Event 3: After the class had left for lunch, I went out to the lunch area to talk to a supervisor there. After a few minutes, one of the girls from my second class came rushing over to me with a paper filled with what we had been doing in class. In the breathless, mile-a-minute style so typical of thirteen-year-olds, she said, "I do this and then this and then this and this goes like this and is that how it works?" When I said "Yes" she held up her hands with clenched fists and said, "Yay!" Then she ran off.
Event 4: A sullen male Algebra student in my afternoon class started one of his favorite gambits: the best way to avoid classwork is to argue with the teacher. The details are unimportant but there was a moment where I had to haul him into the hallway and say, "I don't care if you get your work done. I care if you learn." His response? "Yeah, and that's why I'm going to tell my Mom to get me out of your class."
So...
How many second chances to you give yourself? How many do you give others? What makes you learn, lots and lots of practice (or lots and lots of work) or getting deeply involved in a few problems, a few concepts or ideas, a few "instances?"
Which kind of teacher do you appreciate most, the one that's fun or the one that gives you a kick in the ass or the one that gives you a bunch of work to do, which you do and you get a good grade? Is an easy teacher better, or is a hard teacher?
Heh. I'm still thinking about how my first cup of coffee the other day made me realize that I will never, ever say to another person, "You're a smart person. Why aren't you a teacher?"
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