The Schoolteachery of Modern Education

The characteristics of high quality education for today and beyond. Exploring the latest in teaching, learning, and innovation. Learn more at www.evanbeachy.com, follow The Schoolteachery Collaborative on Facebook, and listen to The Education Soapbox podcast series on Soundcloud.

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How To Be A Great Teacher, From 12 Great Teachers

Are you a great Teacher? Let’s look at the thoughts of 12 great Teachers. 

Source: NPR

Great teachers have two things in common: an exceptional level of devotion to their students, and the drive to inspire each one to learn and succeed.

At NPR Ed we’re just about halfway through our 50 Great Teachers project.

We’ve profiled teachers at all levels, in all subjects, from all over the country and overseas too. The series has taken us from rural Drumright, Okla., to a mountaintop in Israel. From a jazz class in New Orleans to a Boy Scout troop in South Central LA to the lost world of ancient Greece.

And so we’ve taken a moment here to pull from those stories some of the thoughts and lessons from those teachers that have stuck with us.

Together, they almost make a mini-guide for teachers.

1. Realize Teaching Is A Learned Skill

“I’m really trying hard to dispel this idea that teaching is this thing you’re born to do and it’s somehow natural to everyday life. I don’t think either of those things is true.”

Deborah Ball, dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

2. Get To The Truth

“I’ll tell you the truth, you tell me the truth. The rest is commentary.”

Molly Pollak, 40-year veteran middle and high school English teacher, New York City

For 20 years, Conrad Cooper has been teaching children in Los Angeles to swim by earning his young students’ unwavering trust.

Elissa Nadworny/NPR

3. Build Trust

“Swimming is the easy part. It’s the trust part that’s the most difficult for them.”

Conrad Cooper, swim teacher, Los Angeles

4. Assume a Secret Identity

“Giving myself a name, Mr. Spider, gave me an out. It gave me a way to express a side of me I musta had but never took out.”

Mathias Schergen, “Mr. Spider,” elementary school art teacher, Chicago

5. Be A Sparring Partner

“All these students around me, they can easily come, and they can challenge me. They can reject me. They can oppose me. They can laugh with me. Sometimes they can even laugh at me. They can!”

Aziz Royesh, teacher, Afghanistan

6. Be Someone To Watch Over Them

“I want them to say, ‘At least one person, Miss Begay, is there every day for me. Miss Begay is going to wonder where I am if I go missing. There will be one person looking out for me, and it’s Miss Begay.’ ”

Tia Tsosie Begay, a 4th grade teacher in Arizona.

7. Be A Teacher, Not A Friend

Coach Nick Haley talks with a student during crew practice in Portland, Or. He stresses teaching over friendship.

David P Gilkey/NPR

“It’s important to support them. It’s important to respect them. It’s important to nurture them. But, a friend? No.”

Nick Haley, rowing coach in Portland, Ore.

8. Believe In Their Success

“The same tools the schools use to show they cannot succeed, we use them in opposite way.”

Ali Shalalha, principal, Beit Jann Comprehensive School, Israel

9. Recognize It Takes Vulnerability To Learn

“It takes a lot for any student, especially for a student who is learning English as their new language, to feel confident enough to say, 'I don’t know, but I want to know.’ ”

Thomas Whaley, 2nd grade teacher, Patchogue, N.Y.

10. Look For The Success Stories

“I know that you cannot save everybody. But if one of them could just go along, complete his education, go to college, and I see him in the future doing something positive with his life, that makes me think that what I was doing is all worthwhile.”

Rodney Carey, high school equivalency teacher, New Orleans

11. Blow Off Steam, But Remember Why You’re Here

“Yeah, there’s days where I complain. And the people I complain to think I’m insane because I haven’t left this place. But these kids deserve better.”

Sarah Hagan, high school math teacher, Drumright, Okla.

12. Be Grateful To Your Own Teachers

“I am the product of great teachers. They can show you something that you have never seen before. And awaken that little something inside of you that you’ve never seen before.”

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(UNICEF Radio)

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Workshop at the Milken Playful Learning Summit 2015. Focus on the possibilities that can come from "dream big" brainstorms about the creation of schools. Focused on the elements of a 21st century school.

A fun workshop last weekend at Milken’s Playful Learning Summit!  Lots of great ideas exchanged, along with a great session by author and TED speaker, Dr. Jane McGonigal.

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Progressive Parent Education

Parent education parent education.  It is a big but touchy subject, especially today.  OOOOOO we don’t want to piss them off!  We need our curriculum to be responsive to what they expect from the education we (ahem, the professionals) provide in the school that they chose to attend (more often than not in the private school world or among charters).  Cater to the parents.  Keep them happy.  We don’t want them asking questions that put us on the spot when we want to change something.  Change in education is not coming, it is here.  Without recognizing and adapting, schools as we know them will begin to fall by the wayside (or so I believe).

So many schools react to parent education rather than being proactive with it; or so says the literature.  A structured plan (i.e. a lesson plan, as one would have for the teaching of any other class) that assesses prior knowledge, scaffolds a framework for understanding things, and then gives them the opportunity to interact with the curriculum itself is, again, a really good idea.  What the subject of the parent education piece is seems to matter little; it is more about the ability of those teaching to wrangle the students/parents as a learning group that has different needs than say, a elementary school classroom.  The adults don’t have time for songs and dances, and professional and research based presentations of lesson content in parent education groups goes a long way.   In short, you need to prepare, you need to know what you are talking about, and you need to be prepared for all the difficult and awkward questions that you could hear.  

Now, the interesting thing is that there is no research out there on parent education specifically for private schools that are either classified loosely as “progressive.” Nor is there literature about educating parents about are moving from a “traditional” approach to a more “progressive” approach.

All I have is my experience in working in a private independent school as a Director for seven years.   Thus my opinions on the subject are based on my own anecdotal analysis of my own successes and bombs when it comes to “convincing” parents that a “progressive” approach is the right approach, and one they should trust with their children.  In my case, I was working for a school that was already very much out of the box, and promoted that notion as part of its curriculum.  So my mission was not to sell the type of approach to current parents so much as it was to sell it to prospective applicants...most of whom visit four or more schools during the application season.  

But there were times that we changed what we did....in fact we changed a lot, and we changed every year.  Change was part of our deal.  So there was education needed for parents.  This was easy in our case because parents were open to it and parents had already come to trust us: “You all are the pros, and what you say I’m with.”  It was simply a matter of an evening presentation with Q and A, a couple emails and such, and voila, we were through the obstacle.  

I recognize, now working in a more-traditional-moving-toward-progressive school that the approach with parents cannot at all be the same.  The goal is the same, and in fact, the spiel I would give during admissions events and interviews with parents is the same as well.  But the audience is quite different.  They likely chose the school because of its name, or because of the fact that it was a clear pipeline to college.  Having come from traditional schooling environments, parents in my generation need to overcome the assumptions of their own traditional education to open themselves to current approaches.  If they are sending their kids to a known college-prep, they will could get worried.  If they are at a school fighting to be in that top rung, they could depart to another school in a worst case scenario.

So what to do with these populations and the implementation of change (that is, the populations in both the admissions and conversion at a school category)? Some suggestions: 

Pick a course and stick with it.  If it is admissions, you could chase some away...but those you will get will be loyal work with you, and build the positive culture of the school.  If it is converting parents at a school’s way of thinking it means holding your ground, anticipating tough questions, and be unwavering in your course of action even if it causes an uproar (sorry, but drama may be the best way to solving the problem).  Remember that the parents who are at the school now will soon move on as their children do, and the new families coming in will do so under and because of the new philosophy.  This could mean a tough road for admissions at the school and a real challenge for marketing, but with the school shooting for a clear place in the market the dip will only be a temporary one.  

Decide how much education the parents need, if any at all.  Not every scholastic decision needs to be run by the parents...while it may be nice for transparency, community, and “inclusion,” it makes for educator’s nightmares and parents who essentially run the school and govern what teachers do.  Ridiculousness.  Now, some changes (big ones) parents may need to know about.  Those can be handled by email, a meeting, blah blah blah.  Email is great when the changes are unlikely to cause a furor.  

Have a series of events to set the stage.  Having a few events in a series (a film like “Race To Nowhere,” or “The Finland Phenomenon”) gets discussion going that segues into later sessions.  

Run sessions with tight lesson plans that are attuned to modern practice.  For progressive education, focus these on topics such as brain research, adolescence and child development, and critical pedagogy.  Bring in speakers who are GOOD and can really cater to the needs of both the school and the specific parents in the audience.  Create venues for parent questions, but not parent directives...create learning environments that clearly put the teachers in the role of teachers and parents in the role of students (without trying to power trip on the parents, which is tempting for some teachers).  Engaging, group work based, project learning helps parents like it does our students.  Giving them an opportunity to experience the style of teaching and learning by way of learning about these very topics only enhances the metacognitive experience.

Encourage parents to email or set up a meeting with you (the leader) personally.  Just a personal touch, they love it, they think you are making time, and only the really passionate ones who are opposed will come.  Then you know who they are, can gauge their influence, and see what needs to be done to improve the educational approach...or what needs to be done to educate that family.

Speak with confidence and authority.  Use those presentation, public speaking, and social skills.  As with anything else, coming from a place of confident expertise is important in setting a workable dynamic with parents who may have a hard time “getting it.”  After all, if you needed a lawyer, you would probably hire one (a pro) to represent you rather than doing it yourself (way to give up the farm).  The same is true here.  

Be kind, reassuring, patient, and responsive to individual parents.  Like their children they want to be confident, they don’t want to be nervous or stressed, and they feel best with a deep sigh of relief when their “fears” are allayed.  Being timely in responding to questions from parents about program throughout the transitional years is also crucial.  This means sometimes painstaking and numerous personal emails.  But in the long hall it is worth it.  It builds respect, trust, and transparency.  Plus, a LOT of parents have REALLY GOOD feedback that is worth listening to.  That’s why working with the parent association on setting up these events is a good idea.

Don’t be defensive.  Or you are screwed; fighting from your heels, losing ground in terms of the expertise and confidence you demonstrate, and show you are reacting instead of countering and firm.  And, like any other business, the right to refuse service anyone sometimes needs to be exercised in order to establish the gold standard you want your business to be known as.

Many of my thoughts above are really divided into the lessons you can teach and the way you can conduct your business as a leader to address this sometimes difficult issue.  It is always going to be an uphill battle for a school until it has the established success (through graduates) that confirms the program is in fact “better than it used to be.” 

Truth: though I hate the term, “progressive” education is here to stay, and has been clearly shown to be of far greater value than the “empty vessel” approach that most of us experienced in our schooling.  To get on board and families on board it takes a unified school, personal attention, and a curriculum with a scope and sequence like any other.  It also means that the educational leaders of these institutions need to know their stuff, have thick skin, and the determination to work with every parent if necessary.

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Working with LEGO isn't the same as working with Minecraft.  The collaborative tasks aren't as readily created when students are not in proximate spaces as they are when a group shares a LEGO build.  But there are distinct similarities between Minecraft builds and LEGOs.  The problem solving, the limitations of the materials in the "game" (people don't realize that while Minecraft players can create modifications to build their own pieces, the process is possible in LEGO too...and even more readily now with 3D printers), and the opportunity for self-expression and collaborative work are all there.  But there is something about the physical nature of LEGO, the product itself, and the building itself, that is unique.  There is nothing like a large physical object to really impress and deliver a sense of accomplishment.

But I think one of the aspects of true gold that comes out of LEGO work is in the dexterity involved.  For young children, they begin with Duplo; larger blocks that are easy to manipulate.  But I wondered about my daughter (3 years, 10 months) and her ability to (with some help...albeit as little as I could) to follow the LEGO instructions to locate and place pieces...but also to physically snap them in.  With a 97 piece set, she was successful with far more tiny pieces than expected, and stuck with the building process a good three fourths of the way through.  Her focus was intense, and she was able to figure out many placements on her own.  Though her little fingers had trouble with the tiniest pieces, the other work she accomplished with some but not great difficulty

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More and more, professionals and students alike are being asked to demonstrate what they can do and what their journeys have been in formats other than the traditional on-paper resume.  This student's public "resume" is a good example of how portfolios, resumes, and personal narratives are changing with the use of computers, technology, and social media.

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Very inspiring stuff.  Worth the watch!

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Pretty awesome stuff for adults who are out of touch....and pretty cool new tools to for kids to play with.  But what it means for inventing and working outside of the material consumer space is interesting.

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US colleges are paying their presidents like CEOs and treating students like customers, using their tuition to foot the bill.

It’s a broken system.

gifs via Jeremy Johnstone/Ivory Tower

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Reggio and playmaking movements put a great deal of emphasis not only on student inquiry but also of guided (when appropriate) play.  The play little ones (and big ones) engage in is a natural means (and has been since the dawn of man) of learning, growing, and fitting in.  Stuart Brown discusses the effects of play on the brain.  If play is so beneficial throughout our lives I think it is time for schools to embrace pedagogical play at all "grade levels."  These notions can, should, and likely will change the way schools look in the future.

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"Marcy Axness provides a list of various ways you can tell if your child is ready to read, and gives advice for fostering reading readiness."

Some interesting things in this article highlight some of my favorite pessimistic statements about antiquated education.  In this case it has to do with reading "readiness."

The countries with the best ed systems in the world, like Finland, don't start children in school until 7.  Partly because of the need for the development of concrete operational thinking (for reading and other "school related" decoding tasks).  Waldorf (which has some good stuff about it, but not all good, like anything else there are tradeoffs) approaches emphasize that children are specifically NOT taught to read.  They develop the skill on their own when ready or they are supported as they near that developmental stage, again around 7 or so years of age.

The article also reminded me of some other neurological findings, some of which by experience we know to be true....but with unintended consequences:

1. Children CAN be taught to read prior to the natural onset of concrete operational thinking.

2. When this happens, OTHER neural pathways that would NORMALLY develop at that time are slowed as the "pre-developmental" skills of con-op thinking are slowly being connected (mind you at a much slower rate of connection than would occur at the appropriate developmental age).  This means that some stuff that should be developing naturally does so at a reduced rate, with consequences for other related developmental timelines (like social emotional intelligence) later on.

It is so hard to find an elementary school (preschools there are plenty) that really adopts these philosophies rather than acquiescing to the "race to nowhere" that ultimately will strip our children of parts of their playful childhood.  That is going to make it tough for me...for in the absence of those environments I am almost inclined to home school her until 7 or 8...with the only trouble of course being the fact that she would be at home, and that she needs that social interaction.

I just wish that more people in our business of education were educated themselves, took it upon themselves to constantly learn and change, and were willing to challenge the conventions of how things were taught to them.  Furthermore, I think a lot of us in education think just about the pressures of the here and now (their parents expect them to read now, the ninth grade teachers expect them to have mastered algebra) without thinking about the much larger, more complex picture out there.  

Education was never simple...but somehow in this country we have made it so complicated that we might just have thought ourselves into a proverbial corner.  

AND HERE is the coolest part about this whole article: reading readiness has more to do with physical and biological development than intellect.  By working coordination, gross and small motor skills, etc. children's abilities to focus, decode symbols into meaning, etc. we are getting our kids ready to read.  That information alone is revolutionary and stands a lot of what all these "developing young readers" programs and new "kindergarten requirements," are sorely missing.

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Now this is what I'm talking about!  With a community library (such as was created in the old New Roads Learning Tool) students would crave that recognition from a teacher who valued the quality of the student's submission enough to make it worthy of entry into "the stacks." Students were afforded access to all library work, and allowed to rank the entries (like Yelp) use them as resources for current work, and rank specific assignments they found to be particularly beneficial or well crafted.  With resources like these for students available the same type of concept of Crowd Accelerated Innovation is true.  While the more informal, naturally originated type of learning Anderson refers to is on a much grander scale, schools can learn from this phenomenon to try and harness its capabilities in classroom settings that take this informal learning progression and put it on steroids.

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Articles from Forbes and Inc.com on the future of jobs.  

Random Thoughts:

The GOOD thing about the job market rearrangement that is already upon us is that there are some schools (the good ones, obviously) are already thinking about that ambiguity and preparing students to inherit that uncertain future.  The skills innovators, inventors, and creative types have used to give us the trappings of modern technology are, contrary to previous conception, teachable.  And if we focus on teaching these things as a foundation of all education, then graduating a bunch of Einsteins is fully possible.

Schools that do not accommodate for these realities are NOT preparing their children for life after school, the real world, or the future in a deliberate or consistent way.  We want to change that...and the top colleges and universities are now moving in this direction too, and looking for applicants who have these skills (and a portfolio to reflect their development over time).  

This means that "traditional" schools and schooling are going to become increasingly obsolete over time, and will be slowed only by the mindset shift required of those who have been educated in a traditional system and believe it to be just fine the way it has always been (and oh yeah...don't experiment on my kid).  I think by trying to make a break from what some consider "traditional" at this moment these schools have a great opportunity to make themselves more attractive to a wider number of people and establish a big presence nationally and internationally.

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"A is for Ampere" - Circuit Playground Episode 1

These are great videos for kids.  One of the youngsters at my daughter's preschool enjoys these and shared the love with the rest of the parents.  Getting into these even when they seem a bit too much for kids in preschool doesn't give those little brains enough credit.