ABOUT THE CHALLENGES of TEACHING

ON EDUCATION - A DIFFERENT, BUT HONEST, VIEW

It’s three in the morning and my mind is buzzing. So, knowing I won’t fall asleep again, I’m going to get up, go to my study, open my laptop and type.

It’s now 3.10. Here I am, in my pyjamas, at my laptop, with Matilda, our pussy cat, on my knees.

So, why is my head buzzing with stuff?

First, some context.  Although retired from full time work, after 50 years as a teacher and teacher of teachers, I continue – just a bit -  to teach whenever and wherever I can. Each week, I visit and co-teach 2^nd graders and 7^th graders. I continue to run teacher workshops on science and on community building.

Over the past 15 years, I visited and interacted with students and teachers in over 50 classrooms, in 20 or more schools. I saw effective,[1] successful [2] teaching. I saw teachers, some new, some experienced, battle with students who were appallingly disrespectful. I have seen teachers ignite children’s thinking and seen students metaphorically take teachers apart.

I have seen the most carefully planned lesson fall in pieces to the floor. I have seen teachers excited about their children’s learning. I have seen teachers cry. I have seen teachers angry and undermined by their leaders.

 I continue to receive emails from such teachers.

Here’s last night’s from J.

Hey JP :) doing better with a week off from school under my belt. I still feel like I'm struggling, and battling students more than helping them... So strange how hard it is to put into action all the theories or strategies I can talk about, but struggle actually doing. Anyhow, I keep showing up, and reflecting, and trying, so I figure I'm learning and may find my stride some year soon. On the job hunt to return to Colorado... Expanding search to consider non-classroom positions/non traditional education/arts positions. Who knows :)

IT was last night’s reading of this particular email that set my mind on fire.

So, here’s what’s buzzing in my head:

During my time as university instructor and teacher preparation program director, I promoted a philosophical view of education known as CONSTRUCTIVISM. [3] CONSTRUCTIVISM seemed to me to be the closest academic way to describe the way that I teach children since first stepping foot in a classroom over fifty years ago.

Reading about it and trying to teach like a constructivist, hasn’t, it appears, helped many of those who have gone into public education, where, by and large, the teacher battles against  large classes, imposed curricula, externally created tests, poverty, lack of parental guidance and support, being told what and how to teach, being evaluated by someone watching from the back, clipboard in hand, and finally being pubicly judged as a failure by politicians.

So, Let me be blunt. It’s time to cut out the crap in education.

It’s time for a COMMON SENSE approach to teaching?

It’s time to honor teachers and trust them to teach their kids in the way they feel is best – best for them and, therefore, best for their students. It’s time to put in place everything that teachers need to create classrooms where one sees community, courtesy, respect and an obvious passion for learning.

It’s time to cut out inappropriate professional development programs that focus on those not in the classroom telling those who are what and how to teach.

Here’s my COMMON SENSE approach to creating optimum teaching conditions: 

·       First, recognize that teachers are overworked and underpaid. Then,

·       Let teachers OWN their classroom, its resources, and what goes on inside.

·       Create easily accessible funds for minor purchases that support individual children’s learning needs.

·       Consider altering class sizes (I think that an elementary class, for example, should have between 16 – 20, students, mixed ability, mixed gender).

·       Include more teachers qualified and adept at helping those students with significant social/learning issues.

·       Put in place appropriate furniture for student group seating, storage, display.

·       Create a deep well filled with proven ideas that enrich all subjects (including appropriate technology for kids and teachers, appropriate selection of teaching videos that bring science, mathematics, social studies, art and literacy alive)

·       Create a food program that is accessible to students throughout each and every day.

·       Create a timetable that gives teachers appropriate breaks at regular intervals.

·       Create a timetable that allows for morning and afternoon meetings with students.

·       Create weekly one-on-one opportunities for the teacher to interact with colleague/mentor to share ideas and experiences. And, finally, hire

·       A principal who will cover classroom teaching when teach eacher needs a break.

OK. It’s now 5 a.m. Time for a kip.

John P

PS  Had this email from J today……….

Happy New Year John Paul!

So far the New Year's energy has carried me through a pleasant morning of teaching. Just relaxing and being myself a little. Who would of thought that's all it takes :)

See? J

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[1] Effective classrooms - where I see what kids can do when their inner passions and interests are honored and respected.

[2] Successful classrooms – I mean those where I see and feel kids engaged in learning – reading, writing, thinking, talking and working with each other and with their teacher.

[3] Constructivist teaching is based on the belief that learning occurs as learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction as opposed to passively receiving information. Learners are the makers of meaning and knowledge. Constructivist teaching fosters critical thinking, and creates motivated and independent learners. This theoretical framework holds that learning always builds upon knowledge that a student already knows. Constructivists suggest that learning is more effective when a student is actively engaged in the learning process rather than attempting to receive knowledge passively. A wide variety of methods claim to be based on constructivist learning theory. Most of these methods rely on some form of guided discovery where the teacher avoids most direct instruction and attempts to lead the student through questions and activities to discover, discuss, appreciate, and verbalize the new knowledge.