Teach Well: Still Learning After 32 Years

This is my 32nd year of classroom teaching, and I'm still learning.

Recently as I introduced students to the base-ten place value system, I used the analogy of a cardiac surgeon. I mentioned that the surgeon needs to understand the circulatory (heart) system well to be able to fix hearts. I also mentioned that to understand the system, the surgeon has to know all the parts specifically and how those parts work together. The same is true for mathematicians with the base-ten place value system, we have to understand the parts and how those parts work together.

Like that cardiac surgeon, a teacher has to understand well the many parts that make up an optimal education for a child, and he/she also has to stay up to date on the latest research related to those parts and their interactions. Education, like medicine, is constantly evolving as research allows us to understand more and better about how children learn.

Recent research and technology has increased our opportunities to teach well. For example, computers make learning so much more accessible to so many more learners. Rather than a narrow paper/pencil landscape, learning today is blended utilizing multiple hands-on, paper/pencil, and digital tools. Learning how to access and use those tools in meaningful ways to support learners is an essential learning curve for educators today, one I embrace with enthusiasm.

Cognitive research and brain science opens the door to education opportunity. We know today that teaching in brain-friendly ways leads to better learning. We know that pictures translate information 60,000 times faster than text which prompts us to turn complex concepts into pictures or sight-bites that translate the complex concept into diagrams that help students understand the concept with greater ease. We also know that people learn better when happy and comfortable. Some stress is good with regard to learning, but not too much stress, and collaborative conversation and active hands-on experiences are great teachers, so much better than hours of passive listening. Further, all that doodling many of us did while learning is in fact a good learning strategy now known as sketch notes which maximizes the eye-hand-mind connection and its relation to optimal learning.

Social Media has created opportunities to learn all the time via multiple experts online. Of course you have to be social media savvy to use these tools well, but just think I can reach out to experts in almost any field via Twitter to ask a question or receive an important link. It's amazing.

Greater research related to effective leadership and collaboration is also making education better and more accessible. Old time one-teacher-one-classroom models are being replaced by greater collaboration and collective models of teaching and learning. These models are taking away the isolation and competition factors we often faced in school and maximizing our potential through numerous collaborative efforts. Research about effective collaboration such as the hosting conversation research as well as research about optimal performance and distributed leadership are also lifting the potential of learning and teaching.

I'm fortunate to work in a system that is well funded and working to openly look at, and embrace, new processes for betterment. The educators in my system have voice and all members of the broad family-student-educator-administrator-community member team are readily reading and looking for ways to support optimal schools. Of course many of us see more ways to improve and change our system, and that tension always exists since we are an always evolving system.

Other systems are less dynamic and still subscribe to old factory models of work and development. Hopefully the state educational system will begin to move those systems ahead with greater distributed leadership model expectations and efforts to heighten the voice and choice of all stakeholders, not just a few leaders.

So after 32 years, I'm more engaged than ever in the profession. That's not to say I don't have my challenging and discouraging days, but overall I see so much promise for the profession if we stick together and advocate for what we know is right and good which includes substantial support for education of all students, research/application of good ideas, infusion of deep/meaningful/uplifting technologies, and respect for all of our students, families, educators, and administrators. Onward.