6 Things My Students Have Taught Me

Twenty-one years later, I still remember my first day of teaching and how misguided my perceptions were about the career upon which I was about to embark. Like so many others, I thought that the primary role of the teacher was to deliver information to students. I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Now, years later, I have come to understand that being a good teacher is as much about building relationships with students while modeling determination, curiosity, compassion, and helping others through the process of learning. I am constantly learning new things from my students. Here are six things they have taught me.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. I don’t think you can be an effective teacher if you aren’t willing to make mistakes in front of your students and laugh at yourself. When I first started teaching I wanted to make sure my students knew I was in control of the classroom. I had great classroom management, but very little classroom empowerment. Now I am much more comfortable allowing my students to see me as a fellow flawed human. There is a culture of respect in my classroom. I respect my students, they respect me, and they respect each other. Within that culture, we understand each of us makes mistakes on occasion, and that they are learning opportunities.

Passion is powerful. Years ago, when I was teaching 5th grade, I started shifting my classroom to be more focused on letting students learn through their passions. Instead of everyone reading the same non-fiction text to learn our reading standards, students were able to choose books on topics that interested them. Instead of each student having to write a persuasive essay on a prompt that I gave them, they were able to blog about an issue they cared about and publish it to a global audience. As they were able to discover and pursue their passions, they became more engaged in learning. They also helped me see how important it was to pursue my passions and to use my voice to share them with others.

Autonomy is necessary for empowerment. When we find ways to give autonomy to students in the learning process they flourish. I’ve seen this many times in my own classroom, but the example that sticks with me happened during a visit to the HIP Academy in rural western Kenya less than 2 weeks after the school opened. I brought with me some donated tablets and an internet connection. The teachers told me that few of the students had ever seen a screen before I arrived. During my visit I facilitated a Skype call between those children and 2nd grade students in Australia. I told the Kenyan children that they were in charge of teaching the Australians the names of different animals in Swahili. After a few moments of nervousness, the HIP students began to shine with confidence as they picked up stuffed animals and taught their new friends. Being given the chance to be in charge of the call allowed those students to take ownership of the lesson.

You can’t change the world if you don’t know much about it. I teach in the small, rural town where I have lived almost my entire life since I was 11 years old. Like all teachers, I want my students to believe that the learning that happens in school matters, and that they can use it to change their world for the better. I have learned to give them opportunities to see beyond our school walls and make a difference in their local and global communities by connecting with community members and using videoconferencing tools like Skype. As a result, my students have taught me how those experiences allow all of us to see ourselves as interconnected like never before. 

Everybody has the capacity to impact their community for the better. Each time we collaborate with a scientist, astronaut, park ranger, international teacher, or group of students from around the globe, it is a great learning experience for students. So many times those connections have inspired my students to develop ways to make the world a better place. They have designed and fund-raised to build a bridge in Africa so that students could go to school. They have started gardening projects to grow produce for the local food pantry. They have worked to provide clean drinking water for children in the Kibera Slum of Nairobi. They have stopped using plastic straws in the cafeteria in an attempt to save penguins from plastic pollution. Through these student-driven projects and so many others, I have learned that children of any age or background can make their world a better place if given the opportunity.

Teaching is the greatest job in the world. Again and again, my students have taught me that there is no better job on the planet than being a teacher. Teaching is an emotional roller-coaster. Because we care about our students so much, we experience the joys of success with them and the pangs of failure. We deal with the anguish when there are situations out of our control that cause our students pain, and we rejoice when we watch them overcome obstacles to reach their potential. But, we get back so much more than we put into it. Each day we are with our students, we have the opportunity to make the world just a little better for each of them. More importantly, we get to teach them how to affect positive change and feel the joy of doing good for others. Over the years, my students have taught me how lucky I am to get the opportunity to love them and to watch them grow.

The Slippery Slope to Irrelevance

About a week ago someone in my PLN on Plurk asked for opinions on the standardization of assessments among teachers in a school district.  I responded by referring to the post I wrote a few months back entitled "Standardization is the Death of Excellence."

You can't have both standardization and excellence.  The former prevents the latter.  And while excellence is something that all teachers should strive for, it's naive to think that we'll all reach that level.  Even if you do, there's always someone who does it better than you - someone from whom you can learn, someone you can collaborate with to get better, someone who can show you new ways to see problems that arise.  When we standardize teaching, a nasty side effect is that we discourage teachers from even striving for excellence.

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Standardization, whether it be of assessments, teaching practices, curriculum goals, or anything else prevents those someones from being available to those trying to learn.  When everyone is the same, nobody is setting the bar higher.  Nobody is innovating.  Nobody is growing.  Nobody is learning to do it better.

Let's come right out and say it - the only purpose for standardization is to prevent inferiority.  And while it's great to try eliminate inferior assessment practices, our students deserve more than the mediocrity that is left in the wake of standardization.

The argument I often hear for the standardization of assessment practices is based on the need for grades in each classroom to mean the same thing.  As if grades meant anything meaningful now anyway.

Assessments should be done to provide students vital feedback so that they can learn.  When we assume that grades are that feedback we send the message to students that their learning means nothing more than a number in a gradebook.

Our students deserve more than that.

Not only should assessments not be standardized between classrooms, they shouldn't even be standardized inside classrooms.  Students should be free to express their learning in the best way they see fit.  If one student wants to demonstrate understanding of division by creating a video explaining how farmers use division to determine medication doses for animals, another by creating a slideshow showing how car companies use division in determining the effectiveness of their factories, and a third wants to write an letter to their congressman explaining how the states resources are not being divided equally among its citizens, shouldn't they be able to?  Shouldn't they be encouraged to?

None would be allowed if teachers were forced to use a district mandated multiple choice test.

It's time for teachers to stop this slippery slope to irrelevance.  After all, that's where we are headed if we keep letting others tell us how to teach and how to assess our students.  We are professionals.  We have certifications given to us claiming that we are experts in these decisions.

If we start giving up this control, we will be left following canned lesson plans and giving canned assessments that some corporate textbook company came up with.  When we give up that control we will turn teaching into a job that any schlep with a pulse can do.

And our kids will be left with an education that's the same quality as if any shlep with a pulse was teaching them.

Give Teachers the Autonomy to Be Great

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It's funny how things work sometimes.  I was sitting in a math curriculum meeting yesterday where we were trying to develop an action plan for transitioning from Pennsylvania's current standards to the Common Core Curriculum which will become law in 2013.  A group of elementary teachers and administrators from our district were debating the problem of having to balance great pedagogical practices like concept development, project based learning, and talking about math in the classroom versus the need to practice skills and teach standardized test taking strategies.  Not one person in the room was arguing that skill practice and test prep were what's best for our students, but several expressed that not focusing in these areas would lead to a drop in test scores.  I found myself thinking, "What if we didn't need to have this absurd argument?  What if we as teachers were trusted enough as professionals to actually focus on best teaching practices to just teach effectively?"

It was almost at that exact moment that I got an e-mail pointing out that a quote of mine was used in a Washington Post article by Vicki Davis entitled The Greatest Teacher Incentive:  The Freedom to Teach.  (If you are unfamiliar with Vicki, her Cool Cat Teacher Blog is amazingly informative and insightful, and one you should consider checking out.)

The discussion at the meeting and Vicki's article got me thinking about how different, and how great our schools would be if we gave teachers the professional autonomy they deserved.  What if, instead of blocking all social networking sites and sending the message that teachers cannot be trusted, we opened those sites up and encouraged teachers to network with other professionals to improve their craft?  What if, instead of handing teachers a scripted textbook teachers' manual and demanding that they follow every lesson, we challenged teachers to collaborate to create lessons that were better than the textbook?  And what if we then encouraged them to share those lessons with others?  What if, instead of devising policies to punish "bad" teachers and ensure that all are mediocre, we identified ways to help all teachers continually improve their teaching and devised policies that allowed teachers to be great?

You cannot make a logical argument that our education system wouldn't be greatly improved if those, and other changes to give teachers more professional discretion were made.  Autonomy is a great motivator.

Lately, many states and politicians have tried to use money as a motivational tool in the form of merit based pay.  I've seen studies that show how this type of reward system doesn't work, but I think the following example is a better way to show how much more motivational a move towards trusting teachers would be.

Imagine you had two friends who needed your help with something in which you both had the expertise to help and truly enjoyed doing.

When you go to help the first friend, they refuse to listen to your advice, even though you are more knowledgeable about the subject than they are.  Throughout the task, they bark orders at you, treat you like you are incapable of completing the task, and refuse to let you have access to some of the tools in the toolbox that you know would make the job easier.  They demand that you do it their way, and promise to give you a few bucks when the job is completed, but only if it is done completely correctly.

At the second friend's house, you are greeted warmly and feel thoroughly appreciated.  You are given the freedom to complete the task any way that you wish, and your friend offers assist you in any way that they can.  Despite the fact that you sometimes run into difficulties, your friend encourages you by telling you that they trust your ability in this area, and they have confidence that you will overcome any challenges.  Your friend never offers you money for helping.

In which scenario would you be more motivated?  In which do you think you would do a better job?

Unfortunately, many public educators feel like they are stuck reliving the first scenario again and again.  There is a serious lack of morale among teachers, and it's having an effect on the next generation.  We want students to learn creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration to excel in the 21st Century workplace, but we punish teachers for being creative, enforce policies that discourage critical thinking, and block the tools that would allow teachers to collaborate.  How can we realistically expect teachers to teach their students these skills in that environment?  Is it really a shock that we are falling behind other countries?

It's time to start encouraging teachers to be more than "proficient."  It's time to start giving them the professional autonomy that they deserve.  If we do that, our students and communities will benefit.  If we do that, we could be great.