Forget teaching...

In her blog entitiled, Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It, Jen Orr muses about educational innovations.  She wonders if innovations in education have become the end as opposed to the means to an end. Jen writes,

I wonder if we’re so busy trying to be innovative that we’ve lost sight of the

educational goals. Innovation has become the thing rather than literacy or

numeracy or making connections in learning or whatever we might have

 been hoping to make happen. I wonder if we’d be better served to think

more deeply about what we want for our students, teachers, and schools and

what is already in place or available to make it happen. Maybe innovation is

actually slowing us down and holding us back…

 Go to this link for the full blog entry and the rest of Jen’s wisdom http://jenorr.com/?p=2187

Reading my friend’s blog entry got me thinking about the idea that all that’s new is old again or is it all that’s old is new again? Either way there is this sense in education that what goes around comes around. You have no doubt heard of the pendulum swinging… back and forth, back and forth. One literacy example (albeit oversimplified) would be phonics-based reading instruction -- whole language -- phonics-based reading instruction.

Jen’s blog entry also got me thinking about the “end.” For many years I have persisted in my belief that our focus in education is on the wrong thing. As teachers, we often worry about the wrong thing. That thing is -  teaching.

Wait! What? I realize this might be the first time someone has told you to stop thinking about your teaching. Let me say it again as a teacher educator, louder this time,  “Stop thinking about your teaching.”

When we focus on teaching we get caught up in covering material. Teachers don’t cover material. Cats cover material.

                           

When we focus on teaching we talk about teaching reading or teaching writing or teaching math.  The problem is we lose the learners. WE TEACH CHILDREN! We help children learn how to be readers and writers and mathematicians and scientists and historians.

Forget teaching. It’s about learning. What are your children learning?

Still learning… to teach, Dr. G.

THANKS for TEACHERS

It was the best of times…it was the worst of times.  This line from Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities could be used to describe the current state of education.  Education is a subject of our national conversation. This is the BEST TIME to be a teacher.  Unfortunately much of the public discourse on education focuses on the negative – lagging test scores, widening achievement gaps, ineffective teacher training. When is the last time you read something about the good things happening in education? So this is also the WORST TIME to be a teacher.

How can we, the teachers, change the dialogue? Maybe educators need to start with ourselves. I recently viewed a powerful TED Talk by Shawn Achor, The Happy Secret To Better Work. 

One of the techniques Achor shares for changing one’s focus to be more positive is to list three new things you are thankful for each day. The premise is after 21 days of listing three different “gratitudes” you will naturally focus more on the positive aspects of your life.

I am in the midst of my 21 days. At first it seemed pretty easy – the people in my family, my work, my health, my friends. Then it got a bit more challenging to avoid repeating things -  until I realized I was thinking too big. I realized I could be thankful for small things – hitting one green light on my commute, the smile from the cashier at the grocery store, having the IRS pick up the phone after one minute instead of 45 minutes! Even on a day where not many things go well, I realize something does. A dear friend admitted that one day she listed breathing as one of her gratitudes. What a difference it makes to focus on the one positive thing as opposed to the ten (hundred? Thousand?) things that were negative. 

Just imagine if we were to apply this to our teaching lives. What if some time during the day we could take a moment to think about the positive happening in our educational world. What learning happened? What connections were made? What joy did we witness? Let’s jot down three things that worked. If we can’t think of three we will write one but we will write it in big letters so it fills up more of the page. Let’s make sure we frame those gratitudes in positive language. There is a world of difference between the following:

My friend didn’t hit anyone when s/he came into the classroom this morning.

(subtext – usually hits, will hit again, will probably hit someone at morning meeting)

vs.

My friend kept her/his hands to her/himself when s/he came into the classroom this morning. (subtext – S/He did it! Self control, learning, meeting expectations)

As long as we are focusing on the positive, we may as well try to frame it using positive language.

Let’s challenge ourselves – 21 days of THANKS FOR TEACHERS!

BTW you can interpret that phrase in multiple ways and one of them might give you your first gratitude for the day;)

Still learning...to teach,   Dr. G.