I hope this blog does not turn into the epistle according to
kayaker75. I hope to offer my thoughts, but also my practical ideas on teaching
and learning in our ever changing world. But for my first post I think I have
to sort of outline a philosophy – so here I go!
I wear many hats at the school I work at. Each day I juggle
responsibilities as a team leader, digital leader, tutor teacher, associate
teacher oh, and I still teach in a classroom. I love my job to bits. I get up every day
excited to go to work and work alongside my colleagues. I stretch that term to
include my class, a group of 12 and 13 year olds. I include them because one of
our guiding principles is that we are absolutely
a community of learners, including me. The factors that make this all work are
complex but the longer I teach I am realising, with increasing clarity, that
there are a 5 things that make learning work.
1. All curriculum content can be interesting
At the heart of the whole teaching and learning game is the
simplest of things; a group of people sharing thoughts and ideas around a topic
that is new. I love hearing the buzz of intellectual excitement that comes from
presenting interesting and engaging ideas. This was thoroughly brought home to
me recently when I was working with one of my reading groups and we hit the
word inflation in a text we were analysing. They were not sure what it meant
and asked. I could have responded in a number of ways but chose to say to the
group of predominantly boys in front of me, “It’s one of the causes of World
War 2.” Ears perked up around the room and the flurry of conversation began in
earnest, not just between me and the students but between each other, “My dad
is a banker and he says that…” or “I heard from my brother at high school that people
in Germany had to buy bread with wheelbarrows of money.” A quick google image
search and I was able to bring a picture of this up on my class interactive
whiteboard to illustrate his point. Blame boring and bland lessons on whatever
you like but if you, as a teacher, are bored chances are your students are too. Find an 'in' and make it work.
2. A genuine willingness to find out things and then share what
you found out with others
If you have ever wondered something, gone as far as finding
out the answer, and then shared it with someone else, then you have stumbled on
the greatest educational secret ever! Everyone wonders, seldom go and find the
answer, even less tell others what they found out yet this simple loop is
teaching and learning. Acknowledge the importance of this loop in the classroom
and you’ve got it made! Any subject any level. I do every day. When I wonder
something, my class knows. When I find out the answer, my class knows. When my
students do the same thing the whole class knows. We collaborate and we share. This
is at the core of our classroom culture.
3. It must be our Darwinian imperative to aim for mastery but
accept and applaud students’ mistakes
Classrooms are the place to try out what it is like in the
real world without all the consequences of the real world. They are Darwinian
evolution at work. It makes perfect evolutionary sense to have the experienced
give the inexperienced advice before they put themselves in harm’s way. The
oldest of classrooms involved partnering someone with experience with someone
without. Socrates was the master at this style. Oxford University continues
this tradition with its system of dons. Our classrooms are the industrial equivalent.
One experienced member guiding a group of less experienced. Everything we do in the classroom has to
relate or even mimic to what happens outside a school and as adults we know
that there are very few second chances and we have to always hit the ground
running. The beauty of the classroom is that we can have the standard but we
can support the mistake. The unique and defining difference in a school.
4. The realisation that ‘education’ is another way to say, ‘make
changes’
We actually battle a hard dichotomy here. On one hand we are
the institution on the other hand we are teaching our charges to find the new
way and buck the institution. The best embodiment of this idea is the teacher
who wears two badges on his lapel. One reads, “Trust me I’m in charge.” the
other reads, “Question authority.” All teachers started teaching, I’m sure,
with a multitude of noble and altruistic reasons but the overwhelming reason
for most will somewhere involve the word ‘change’. The good news is, the system actually agrees
with you. They have other names for it and have very difficult measures for it - “students at this age must achieve these nebulous goals and ambitions measured
by these diagnostic tools on this day blah blah blah.” It’s hard to believe,
but comforting to know that somewhere beneath the bureaucratic heart telling you that you haven’t hit
the target for the year is a desire to affect change.
5. 10,000 hours means a lot of practice!
Malcolm Gladwell introduced the 10,000 hours rule in his book, 'The Outliers.' Basically it takes 10,000 hours to reach mastery in a skill/task.
Roughly ten years. In New Zealand that equals 75% of the total primary and
secondary schooling a child because undertakes. It doesn’t count anything done
at home, or early childhood and tertiary education. I’m sure I’ll be back to
discuss this point more in the future because there is so much more to discuss
but, here is what it means: For teachers it means we are a team, across year
levels and schools. For parents it means miracles won’t happen overnight. For
students it means get on with it because we are investing over 10,000 hours in
you to be the masters of your future.
So…How do I know these things work? I can’t say how my
students will turn out and I can’t say that if they are successful it was
because of me. That’s kind if the problem isn’t it? Teachers never know if
their influence worked. So I dedicate this post to John Proctor, my teacher in
form 2 (year 8 in modern parlance) at Dilworth School, Auckland New Zealand. My
10,000 hours started with him.
