by Matt Renwick
I have the upmost respect for catechism teachers. They volunteer their time to teach students after the kids have experienced a whole day of school already. I had the opportunity to be a fly on the wall of one class recently.
I was working on work in the church lobby while my son was with his class, when a group of 8th graders herded into the same area as me. My presence was not noticed. The posturing, the flirting, determining the pecking order…such an awkward and social age. The catechism teacher joined them a moment later. She stepped to the front and got started, showcasing her built-in filter to ignore the hormone-induced behaviors and focus on why she was there.
What happened next really caught my attention. Amid all the chatter, the teacher informed the students to get ready to say the Lord’s Prayer. She listed several intentions for the students to consider before they got started, such as for an ill relative or a friend in need. Once the prayer started (“Our father, which art in heaven…”), every teenager spoke in concert. No one was out of sync. This ritual, augmented by the stated and important reasons for their practice, seemed to make all the difference.
“Turn to page 70”
Unfortunately, once the prayer was done, the chatter recommenced. Getting every student to turn to the same page in the workbook was much more of a challenge.
Do we notice this in our daily classroom instruction? When we ask our students to read the chapter and answer the questions on page 70, what is the typical reaction? What would be your reaction if you were the student? Learning intentions do not mean just posting the target on the board. It is more important that the students are a part of the instruction and see meaning in their work.
What if, instead of going to page 70, the students were given a question that had more than one answer, that delved into the grey area of a moral issue that learners, especially teenagers, are developmentally equipped and highly motivated to handle? Maybe after some modeling, students could start future lessons with a provocative question of their own. Their own questions would probably elicit better answers and deeper understanding than anything we or a textbook could provide.
This line of thinking leads to a very important question that we should ask ourselves as we prepare learning for students: Why am I doing what I am doing? If the answer is difficult to find, we need to either find a different approach or consider whether the topic is worth our students’ time at all.
“If we just had more technology…”
Technology seems to be the answer that is given to some of these quandaries. “If I could hand each student a laptop, then they could type their answers on a Google Doc, and peers could provide feedback.” Maybe this will engage our students, at least for a while. But the intent of the learning is still unclear and devoid of meaning. If a student’s work could be done on paper and pencil because what they would produce lacks any benefit for a broader audience, then technology is just a replacement.
Our job as educators is to be thought-provoking instead of thought-providing. Students can find the answers to the questions on page 70 by doing some simple searches online. An often-shared concern by some educators is that technology may replace them. Teachers are only at risk of being replaced by technology if they continue to operate using outdated practices.
Technology has not solely created this condition; it has simply provided the access to a world of knowledge that was formally sacrosanct. We as educators have needed to change our roles from teachers to learners for some time. Technology has accelerated the process. Some of us weren’t ready.
We have to help students make meaning
Our students will make meaning if what we present is meaningful to them. This means taking advantage of strengths that may in the past have been seen as problems. “Talking” and “arguing” are fine examples. Students’ social skills have quickly become just as important as their academics, maybe even more so in some cases.
If all learning is social, let’s ritualize these practices. Make social protocols such as Socratic seminars and value line ups a regular part of how we learn. Teaching students how to find and make meaning, instead of waiting for understanding to be delivered, will benefit them in ways that answering the questions on page 70 will never attain.
Matt Renwick
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As Twain said, “What we want is a child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child.” Schools as we knew them will be extinct not to many years along. And if they can’t adjust to the changes taking place, there may be no “public” education.
However, schools should and can be the education center of all communities. Not just for learners K-12 for for all learners. It would mean releasing the old structure and attitudes about who should be in charge of the learning, thinking kids need grade level labels and expectations, teachers are to give knowledge to learners. Instead look at what technology allows us to do – facilitate individual learners as they develop and move through their own learning pathway. To explore, discover, discuss, learn with and from peers and educators from around the world. Giving answers is easy – it is how teachers have been trained for all these years. Now they need to learn good facilitation strategies to help the learners make the discoveries for themselves.
It takes collaboration and cooperation, amongst those vested in quality education for all children. But together we can build the educational tool for current and future learning.
Thank you for sharing your thoughtful response, Tracy. I enjoyed reading it.
As a current elementary librarian and some one who has been in public school for 20 years I definitely see us reaching a point where it is going to be change or become obsolete. Unfortunately the idea of public school has become so twisted and distorted into a standardized testing factory like setting that change is going to be difficult but necessary. The sad part is that the majority of teachers I know would and could lead the changes but they are so pushed down with mandates and testing requirements that they can not make any headway. We need a teacher revolution for our kids and our future. The ideas and information is out there we just have to get it into our schools!
Thank you for commenting Lisa. Best practices are available and ready to be used by all educators with their students. What do you think is holding our collective profession back?
Dear Matt..
Nice post and definitely thought provoking. As an administrator I am running with your idea in preparing a talk for other principals about our own style and approach to leadership. I will, of course, give you credit for the turn of the phrase. Is that okay with you?
Barbara, feel free to use the phrase at will. Better yet, share out this article with your administrative team, and then do some collaborative inquiry around the topic as you suggested. I did this type of activity with my leadership team last school year. It was around teacher evaluation, based on an ASCD article by Laura Varlas. Here is the link to my reflections on this learning activity: http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol8/819-renwick.aspx You can model close reading while also delving deeply into important discussions about best practice.
Good luck and let me know how it goes! I’m always interested in better ways to do what we do.
-Matt
I agree that kids need to learn to think for themselves, not just to recite facts that we tell them. However, it really depends on their age. When they are young (lower elementary), they have to first learn the basic facts. Otherwise they won’t have the foundation to build upon as they get older & start developing higher-level thinking skills. That having been said, throughout all ages I agree that it’s important to provide context – to get the students curious and engaged so that they want to learn.
Well said Linda! I couldn’t agree with you more. There is a time and place for building fluency in surface level knowledge. I believe we can get students to that level more quickly when we embed powerful instructional practices such as essential questions and peer discussion in our teaching.