How educators shoot themselves in the foot...or Things that Erase the Joy from Learning

[Mark Crotty]

This morning I was watching my kids--girl, 10, and boy,8--play with the two guinea pigs they got for Christmas. They had received these after convincing their rodent-phobe mom these were great pets. How did they? They did a couple hours of on-line research, then prepared a PowerPoint slideshow making their case. Obviously, it worked. Anyway, today they had constructed out of multiple simple objects a vast amusement park for the critters all over our sunroom. Naturally, this got me thinking.
One of the things I love about the possibilities raised by hot topics in education right now is how it can restore the fun and joy to learning. There's so much emphasis on creativity, design, and collaboration.
Things that have to change in schools in general are rather obvious. But lately I've been thinking quite a bit about small things that educators do that work against the desired vision. I'll give you my latest pet peeve: teachers telling students they have to learn something "because it will be on the test." This time-honored carrot sends the wrong message.
I believe it's important to take an honest look at ourselves and ask what we do that we would like to change. So I'm wondering what things--small and big--you would add to a rant list.

[Curt Lieneck]

Bill,

I agree completely. The dialogue that results from such exchanges - when conditions are mutually conducive to having them , which too often is not the case - is immeasurably valuable to the relationship between teacher and student, and to the big picture scope of the academic discipline and its proper study.

Did your son have this conversation with his teacher? Mine thought I was a lunatic when I suggested the same thing to him.

[Bill Ivey]

Dialogue - since Socrates, one of the most important teaching techniques ;-)

To my knowledge, my son actually did not have this conversation with his teacher. He certainly could have - this particular teacher is one of the most amazing educators I know, loves kids to pieces, would be totally open to hearing what any student has to say. My son loved and respected this teacher, and it was never an issue of would the teacher be open to talking to him. As I remember it, my son wanted to wait and see how things went in the future before doing anything.

I think maybe the realization that there could be a genuine reason to show your work in math class helped my son, plus I noticed that the length and frequency of math assignments slowed down from this experience on, and it may have been that that was the real issue in the first place. Either way, it worked out, which is the main thing.

[Mark Crotty]

For some reason I can't reply after Bill's, so I hope he looks here also.

For a teacher to help a kid, the teacher has to delve as deeply and carefully into that student's thinking as possible. Only then can you see each synapse firing in the sequence that leads to what comes out. We must do that if we are really going to foster certain habits of mind. It's also important that students learn how to express not just their thoughts (which come across as products) but their thinking (which reveals itself as process). This then can help them come up with better products.

I teach older students, and I've often had them write what I call metacognitive papers. In them the student has to present their thinking about a topic, but also reflect on how they came to form that opinion. It revealed a great deal to all of us, particularly once the kids became more comfortable with that sort of reflection.

[Demetri Orlando]

One of the best validators for me that tablets are a useful technology was when I saw how they are useful in allowing teachers to see students' work-process & thinking process. Through synchronous connectivity and through the electronic submission of work (or looking at a student's digital notebook), teachers get to observe their students' problem-solving process. It's not as if this doesn't happen already on paper, it's just that the tablets and screen-sharing software can facilitate greater access and more random access.

It seems like this is one of the essential activities of a teacher's practice-- looking into their students' thinking and diagnosing when there are problems with it.
jm2c

[Mark Crotty]

Curt, your story really touched me and reminded me of something that happened in my house a few weeks ago. At the dinner table, we were talking with our daughter (10, nearly 11) about her grades and our ultimate hope being that she continue to love learning, be passionate about something meaningful, and work hard. That, we said, matters most. My 8-year-old son picked up his head and said, "Yeah, you know, Kate--all that hippie stuff."

The indoctrination starts early.

[Curt Lieneck]

I almost spit out my soup while reading this. Hilarious. Could've easily been a "Zits" comic strip for the day. As an ex-hippie, it's even funnier.

[David Downing]

I teach fifth grade math. I have been thinking often about Bill and Curt's interchange about students showing their work. I do require it. I have so many bright kids who think they can do it all in their heads, but they cannot with reasonable amount of accuracy. (But I fully acknowledge that there are students who CAN work well in their heads. I know the "show the work" rule frustrates them. I don't know a way around it.) I agree with Mark that there is a value in students seeing their own thinking styles and the thinking styles of their peers. That's why I have kids show on the board how they solve problems. We have gotten into some great discussions while doing this. I get to see how the kids are thinking. I hope it is helping the kids to be metacognitive, and maybe slow down while they are working on their own to think about thinking and to end up better math students.

[Curt Lieneck]

David,

Being open to those discussions is terrific and your kids are fortunate that you are. They'll come away with a better sense of numeracy and a deeper understanding of mathematics, of which arithmetic is only a small part. As a contributing author to the Everyday Math series and having worked on the UC School Math Project, I feel strongly that alternative algorithms are vital to the kind of conceptual fluency we're looking for with kids.

One way around the showing the work piece is to not insist on it for every exercise - or have half the class do it one day, the other half the other - or just on some problems - lots of options. An occasional check in is usually enough to learn what you want to know.

[David Downing]

Curt,

Your suggestion is a good one. Thank you. You are correct that an occasional check-in serves the purpose.

My science curriculum covers different learning styles. Students get used to respecting alternative, but equally valid, ways of doing things. Discussions about different ways of solving math problems fits right in.

The humorous downside to advocating alternative algorithms happens around homework. When parents try to help kids with math at home with a solution method different from what they are used to, the students refuse to accept it. They say, "That's not the way we do it at school" or "My teacher won't allow me to do it that way" (not true). It's a power thing, something to keep their parents at bay.

[Shelly Durling]

Wow, imagine a school where the kind of learning that takes place in nature and in free play were supported in a real way. Books/stories of the kids' adventures could be written in their language and they could read each others' stories. How interesting and fun that would be, for both student and teacher. However, I don't see this fitting with the standards-based education. The time crunch and pressure to perform is too great for this indulgence. Is this more like the Montesorri school of thought? Learn what you will at your own pace?

(This in response to David's dismay at knowing his student's affinities, yet feeling forced to teach what he knows is expected.)

Just daydreaming,
Shelly

[Hugh Hughes]

Mark,

I was discussing this with a fellow teacher after a committee meeting on developing classrooms for the 21st Century. I shared how I have observed my own three boys learning to master the PlayStation games they received for Christmas. They jump right in and start playing, not know which button does what, but they figure it out. In contrast, I always ask for the booklet that comes with the games, so I know which of the sixteen buttons I need to hit.

Sincerely,

Hugh Hughes

[Andrea Jenkins]

This discussion brings back a vivid memory from my first year of teaching. I was teaching 2nd grade and botching a lesson on 3D shapes. It was one of those lessons that started out bad and just continued to sink deeper and deeper. Even my "I get everything" kids looked confused. In a desperate moment, I stopped, looked at them, and said, "None of you seem to understand this, including myself. I want a do-over!" A couple of students giggled as I moved to a new spot in the room, beginning the lesson all over again while taking a different approach.

What could have been a big first-year blunder actually turned into a defining moment for me and the students. A few days after this lesson, a rigid boy was answering a question about a book in one of our lit discussions and he become tongue-tied and not making sense. He stopped, took a breath, said "do-over" and then began explaining his thinking once more. My "mistake" was actually a big lesson learned, which the students were using in their own lives as learners.

Ultimately, they learned to take a risk, knowing they can fix their thinking as they go. That do-over from the botched lesson established the freedom to do so. Hugh's comment confirmed this. Kids jump right into the PlayStation, free of failure, willing to take the risk. We, however, are not as willing.

Mark - your clever children know to take that risk. Mom could have still said No, but they tried anyway, putting together a well-formed case. It is my belief that this is the area where most teachers shoot themselves in the foot -- by not establishing a community which encourages risk-taking, and then allowing time for the do-overs. As I've grown as a teacher, I am also guilty of this. Not that I no longer have those botched lesson, but I am better at shifting them without the students ever seeing my do-over. Perhaps I have actually lost something in the process. Perhaps exposing a risk, along with a some do-overs, would once again bring risk back into my classroom.

But what I found most interesting about your post, Mark, is that your children are 10 and 8! Where does the time go?