I suppose this doesn't have to be an either-or proposition; excellent teaching and learning are hopefully two sides of the same coin. But while "teaching" my Student-Directed classes these past weeks, I'm having a wee identity crisis. Mainly, I'm realizing that in my years' quest to be a rock-star teacher, have I let slide opportunities for students to shine as the best LEARNERS possible.
You see, I've built a fat ego around my teaching ability. I can not only lead that sloggin' horse to water, I can make him want to drink the stagnent slime awaiting him at the brink. (Wait, I can transform stagnent slime into sparkling ginger ale!) Dangling modifiers? Booyah! Lie/lay? Done! Want to document a research paper? Analyze a poem? Interview a reluctant witness? Pow! Bam! Whack! You need it taught, I'm your gal: persuasive speaking, interpretive reading, essay writing, beanbag juggling! Nothing I like more than to break down a task and TEACH it!
And the more interactive the better: my students use play-dough to learn phases of revision; they use colored blocks to better understand how clauses fit together; we use markers and kites and gobs of paper--plus GoogleDocs and GoogleForms and Twitter and Jing. And puppets. And hop-scotch. We write for real readers and we annotate texts collaboratively. I know how to get a room of sullen, awkward adolescents to engage in SUSTAINED HIGHER-ORDER CONVERSATION about the a writer's rhetorical methods! I deserve that hamster cake!
But "teaching" in my Student Directed classroom forces me to put my role in quotation marks--and to re-think how to best help students learn. I may be good at driving my students from ignorance to knowledge, but if my room is Student Directed, I'm no longer at the wheel. They are. And my goal must be to keep the power in their hands.
This means I have tamped down my razzle-dazzle "Let's do this great thing MY WAY!" teaching show and found--surprise?--my students stepping bravely onto the stage. Meghan is writing a blog that is utterly delightful. Josh is producing tech-help videos for the journalism department. Lisa organized the yearbook sales over conference times. Sierra and Lillie taught a three-day lesson to fifth-graders.
Because they are polite young people who have been trained by 11 years of teacher-directed teaching, they are inclined to use my ideas if I offer them. And this is a danger, because each time they tilt toward my (very good!) idea, they sacrifice a bit of ownership. And students' ownership of the learning is the key to Student-Directed Learning success. Nothing fizzles enthusiasm faster than a teacher puffing her way in. This means I have to submerge my teacher ego. I have to re-frame my goal. I've got to stop fighting for the hamster cake.
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