October 20, 2009
I don’t have a think tank. I’d like one. Filled with multi-colored fish and waving seaweed. A micro-ecology, at which I can smile with pleasure while I push it gently on its sturdy rollers to entirely block my classroom door. While doing this, perhaps one of the rollers would accidentally sever the phone cord, which summoned me from my classroom duties– during class– five times in one period yesterday. And perhaps behind that barricade of blue, where the water burbles wordlessly we trust you, I could invite some other colleagues to come in and create that second, more common level of understanding that is a think tank.
A delusion, I know. Yet I’d like to share the idea of the think tank with the gentleman sitting across the table from me, also yesterday, at a sub-committee meeting on a new school we’re trying to start in the community. He seemed like a stellar educator– smart, committed– but had some critical things to say about how teachers do not want to get their hands dirty with actually writing creative curricula. “They just don’t want to go there,” he sighed, and expressed relief that our alternative school model would cull the wheat from the chaff in that regard.
His words haunt and nag at me. Because, you see, in a given day I’ve heard more brilliant, fun, fascinating ideas from my colleagues– and from my own head– than in the best brain-storming session at TED.
Yet there’s the handwritten attendance sheets, the academic goal spreadsheets, the minutes from team meeting, the hundreds of photocopies, the IEP goal documentation, the phone calls to every kind of parent and guardian, shopping trips out of our own pockets for the supplies schools cannot provide– never mind the ever-enlarging crush of students packed into a room. To pretend that the daily demands of the minutia of a school setting do not outstrip every other kind of organizational model, in both amount and lack of resources, is its own kind of delusion.
The bottom line? My colleagues and I are not automatons. We’re just tired. And no standard of excellence in teaching can be expected to be achieved in any widespread manner without first creating the working conditions under which that excellence may flourish.
Long live the think tank.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I think that you have hit the nail on the head when you say that teachers are too tired to plan really awesome curriculum. (I say this as a teacher.) It’s hard hard work just to do what we do in the classroom, never mind coming up with the time to plan and evaluate the new and innovative. You have to be an expert at what you teach, subject-matter-wise, in order to come up with a different way to do it. Not to mention that sometimes your new and innovative ways are then not appreciated by kids, parents, administration, or fellow faculty members, which then burns you out on the idea. Plus, some of us are good at delivery and not particularly good at the writing of new curricula (I count myself among those) — could I get better at writing curriculum? Sure, but I’m going to need some serious lessons, mentoring, and a lessening of my other day-to-day. And it’s going to be a long road. All of which is to say that I really think that your fellow committee member has missed the point.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Dina,
I feel like the guy you describe. My wife was asking me a question this evening about the DRA2 training session she went to today, and how its assessment methods don’t match with the other types of assessment they are asked to do. My answer was akin to what the gentleman said in that I spoke from the “perfect world” of education. My wife’s response was simple: “I have twenty-two kids and teach every subject all day. If you think I can make individualized assessments for all of them for every subject, in addition to all of the other responsibilities, you’ve truly been out of the classroom for too long.”
You are right. It’s a lot to ask teachers to do all they do and create curriculum in a manner that is both creative and fulfilling, but also matches with the demands that the state places on curriculum in order for it to be valid. I’d like to go in a direction that works for both groups here, and I think I try to do that.
Although, poorly thought out answers like the one I gave to my wife tonight certainly don’t indicate that.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:59 am
I think we worry too much about getting lessons perfect the first time out and we try to do everything on our own.
I just did gram staining with my HS science students, using a pretty “cookbook” lesson stolen from the web. My chem colleague loaned his room and expertise, my co-teacher helped explain procedures,my student teacher helped supervise. I was tired for sure, but I had fun seeing the kids actually manage the procedure.
Do I intend to up the inquiry level at some point? Is there a lot that could be be done better in the lesson? Absolutely! But it is still an improvement over the last three years- the kit sat in the box!
October 21st, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Well said. What I love about teaching is how intellectually challenging it is. Developing, adapting, crating new curriculum that challenges and excites students is something I love to do.
However, so much time is spent meeting the demands of the bureaucracy there isn’t much time or energy left for the challenging and exciting work.
How awesome would it be to have time to observe a colleague once a day? To sit down and discuss and debate educational theory with parents, teachers, and students? There just isn’t time in the day. It’s like the system is designed to keep us so busy that we don’t have enough time to think about how to change the system.
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Hi,
When learning is interactive , parallel and exploratory there is less pressure on the teacher and the lessons are more rewarding.
‘ An Oregon teacher in her 50’s once summarized her professional growth to me in one short sentence: “The longer I teach, the less I talk.” She’d come to realize that only by making sure she didn’t monopolize the classroom was there a real chance for her students to talk – and therefore to learn. Given how much silence (that is, student silence) is valued in the Old School, that last idea may be counterintuitive, but, as a British educator explained, “Talking is not merely a way of conveying existing ideas to others; it is also a way by which we explore ideas, clarify them and make them our own.” Every minute a teacher is doing the talking is a minute this isn’t happening. ‘ – Alfie Kohn
Here is a great article from Gen Yes Blog -Sylvia Martinez
http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2009/10/21/constructivism-in-practice-making-lectures-work/
Allan
November 20th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I think my point here is less that my lessons need to be perfect and/or less teacher-directed, although those things would make life easier– kind of
. (It’s important not to equate ease with good practice, I think. They often coincide, but more often they don’t. I’d rather think of good practice as *sustainable*, versus easy.)
Anyway, the point is more that it’s the infrastructure of schools that does not allow me to conduct what I know is best practice without killing myself (see my latest post). Your wife’s comment is a perfect example, Patrick. I wouldn’t doubt that she would be far more willing to conduct DRA2s if she had a) a few less kids, b) more paid time, and c) assessments that weren’t overbearing or redundant on top of the new demands.