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Are you a teacher? Why? What motivated you to choose a career working with students in schools? If you answered yes to the first question then your second answer likely includes something like “I enjoy young people,” or maybe ‘”my parents were teachers,” or “I had an important teacher that changed my life.” Some of you might also say something like “I was always a big science geek.”
So what does this mean for the “apple on the desk” teacher who entered this profession because they always imagined they’d be standing in front of a class leading a group of students through a textbook?
Of course enjoying students and school communities are an important part of having a successful teaching career, but what does it mean for your identity as a teacher if your content knowledge is less valuable. Does that change your perception of the role of a teacher? In the past teachers were the keepers of knowledge, tasked with the job of transferring their knowledge to others, so they could learn to repeat that information on tests, hopefully do a little critical thinking, and participate in a learning system that usually is less real then the real world.*
Although this model of education is still replicated all over the world, there are some teachers and schools that are taking steps towards an inquiry-centered style of education, which instead of focusing on right answers focuses on questions and real life experiments (we’re taking very clear steps in this way in the Junior School at Punahou). In this style of teaching identifying yourself as a science or humanities teacher becomes less relevant, although being able to see the relationship between the two subjects is critical.
So what does this mean for the “apple on the desk” teacher who entered this profession because they always imagined they’d be standing in front of a class leading a group of students through a textbook?
This is an important question us school leaders must ask if we want to move our teachers and communities in the direction of inquiry? There are many teachers who will always be earlier curricular adopters and others who bend their curriculum and teaching style based on the latest research and teaching ideas. Others resist, but it’s too easy to jump to the conclusion that they just don’t get it or maybe are too set in their ways. Instead and inquiry or entrepreneurial style of teaching can require a completely different understanding of a school, classroom, and teacher (at least at one end of the inquiry-learning spectrum).
So I write all of this to ask the following questions; how do you convince a teacher to adopt a new style of teaching when it’s an affront to their identity as a teacher? And what are teaching colleges doing to prepare teachers for this new style of teaching (the classes I took to get my teaching credential ten years ago were mostly irrelevant at helping me understand how to facilitate a student design team)?
*When I started my undergrad in social studies education my advisor advised me to double major in another subject because it would demonstrate to future employers (schools) my expertise in a specific content area. I chose history, and although I think history is really interesting, I’ve concluded that this was mostly a $10,000 mistake since the extra course work forced me to push my student teaching off for an extra semester. It can also be argued that charging 10K for student teaching is a waste of money as well.
January 19, 2014
YOu raise a very valid point. Teachers need to realize that teaching, like any profession, changes with the times. Pilots that started flying planes in the 70’s cannot complain when they have to learn how to fly a modern plan. Similarly, teachers need to realize that part of their job description (though not spelled out in writing) is to adapt current educational models to be as effective an educator as possible.
January 20, 2014
Thanks for taking the time to comment. From what I’ve found most teachers (at least in theory) are willing participants in professional development, and everyone enjoys stealing some strategy they see someone else use successfully for their own classroom. Of course there are holdouts who stick to outdated and ineffective practices, despite proof there’s a better way. What I’m wondering as we transform to inquiry and design based education models is what happens to teachers when you ask them to focus less on leading the lessons or curriculum, but stepping to the side and allow student questions and less-cirricularly rigid frameworks drive learning. What happens to a math teacher, when the students need a teacher to help them write a grant proposal for a multi-disciplinary project? Last year I visited a school in China that was thinking about helping a rural village build a factory so families didn’t have to leave for distant jobs, this is a great idea and has amazing real world applications, but what happens when you get a teacher unwilling to help because they’d rather teach AP Calc? I like your plane analogy, but I’d add it’s like asking a pilot to learn how to drive a cruise ship. Both share the goal of transporting people to a different location, but in different ways. Can we expect pilots to also be sailor? Does that make sense?