I like change in the way that I like exercising. At times it can be a chore, difficult, exhausting, but in the end, I am proud of myself and I actually feel pretty good. Change is tough, it can be a chore, and it can be exhausting. Change is necessary and there is no other job field where change is more necessary than the field of education. I see innovation a lot, but I also see schools and institutions stuck. The following is a plea to educators to start looking at what they are doing to realize a purpose, and hopefully in the end change.
I’ll start off with the Albert Einstein quote, “Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Makes sense right? Then why do we teach our students this way? Every time we stick a standardized test in front of our students' noses, we are judging every single one of them based on the same criteria. We hope to build a better sense of how our students are doing in relation to one another and throughout the country/world, but we fail to see the big picture. These tests don’t measure intelligence, they are simply a comparison based on what? A list of criteria that we feel makes each individual a productive citizen? The worst part is, we start to model our classroom assessments after these standardized tests. Think about the last time you gave a test. Was is multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank, matching, etc.? If it was you have fallen into the trap that Einstein is critiquing. What you have just done when you give a test like that is measuring the very basic skill of memorization and at the higher levels of high school, and college that is wrong. We need to be searching for more.
How do you make the switch though? What needs to be done? The first thing you need to do is quit trying to take the easy route. Those horrible tests we give kids that measure basic memorization are easy to grade, but if you truly care about the learning that is occurring you shouldn’t be worried about how easy it is for you to grade. Next, work backwards. Figure out what you want students to know by the time they leave your classroom, or end of a unit. I teach high school English, and I am a strong believer that it does not make me a more productive citizen because I can rattle off the names of all the characters in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Instead, I want my students to build connections, synthesize, analyze, and understand. If my students can google the answer to their questions, quite simply, I am asking the wrong questions. This goes for every subject area. Always ask your students why, always make them think. We want them to think, but we never give them the opportunity if we are so focused on minute details that really don’t matter in the big picture. If you can’t tell your students when they will use the information you're giving them, or make it relevant, then there is no point in teaching it. You want your students engaged and that’s the bottom line.
Engagement is not easy though. My argument is easy; if your students are bored, they are not engaged, and because they are not engaged, they are not learning, and worse yet they don’t care to learn. We often see “discipline” issues arise and we constantly blame the student when we should be blaming ourselves. The best way to foster good behavior in the classroom is engagement. So how do we engage our students. First off, make your lessons relevant. Second, give your students options, let them collaborate, give them freedom, and trust them. That’s my simple equation. Now let’s move on and break this down.
When we give a student a test we often focus a lot on how to prevent students from cheating on it. Quit focusing on that and change your definition of cheating to allow it. Our students spend all of their schooling being told they can’t work together, can’t use their resources, can’t do this, can’t do that, then we send them off to the real world and they're told the complete opposite. I gave a test not too long ago, and let kids work together in groups, I let them use the internet, their cell phones, and the book. It was one of the most rewarding things I have ever experienced in my classroom. You want to talk engagement, that’s exactly what happened when I gave that test. Oh, and I let them create the questions to the test. Oh, and they did it all online. Oh, and they were essay questions that needed evidence to back up their arguments. Oh, and they were citing their sources. All with me standing back and observing the whole process. My students got more out of that test, and were able to show their learning more on that test than, arguably, any other test they have ever taken and potentially will ever take. Now, I’ll get off my high horse. The main point here is, just because a student is using a resource doesn't mean they are cheating. Let me ask you this, how often are you somewhere where you don’t have any sort of resource to search for answers? Probably never with Smartphones and google. Yet, we take all of these away from our students and we expect them to learn? No, wait, we expect them to memorize.
On to the topic of resources and how students use them. I love twitter, snapchat, Facebook, pinterest, etc. They're all great, and many of my students use them. But wait those sites/apps are inappropriate and distracting, right? What if you switched your way of thinking though. Why is it a bad thing if a student is working on an assignment and they have twitter pulled up on a separate tab? Why is it a bad thing if a student checks a text message really quick while they are reading? It’s not. Learn how to access the technology and realize the potential for learning. What if you had your students tweeting vocab words or terminology? What if you had your students snapchatting pictures relating to the subject at hand? What if you had students use pinterest to compile sources for a project? Your students have the world at their fingertips, but all too often it’s stripped from them. We want our students to be creative and curious, but we take away everything that allows them to be creative and curious.
Trust your students, please. That’s my next plea. When you take things away, create tons of rules, monitor and watch over your students' shoulders, you send a very straightforward message; YOU DON’T TRUST YOUR STUDENTS. If you back off a bit, let your students roam free, you will be amazed at the outcome. Now, not every student is the same, some need more guidance than others. Give them the trust they deserve. I call it the “red button phenomenon” when you tell a kid not to do something, the only thing they want to do is that thing you told them not to do. Open your mind a bit to possibilities. Let your students explore. The only way to do this is give them a little freedom.
Along with all of this, is realizing a deeper purpose in what you are doing in the field of education. I think it’s fair to say our main goal in education is to prepare our students for the future. Now ask yourself, are you really preparing your students for the future? Do you know how many worksheets I was given in high school? A lot. Do you know how many I was given in college? Maybe three. Do you know how many I have been given in my current job field? Zero. Oh, but wait we have to hold our students accountable, because we have to foster responsibility. That’s a bunch of crap. So basically those assignments in the form of worksheets serve no purpose other than to measure and test responsibility? Make the learning in your classroom meaningful, and make the learning outside your classroom meaningful. Most worksheets are not meaningful, in fact, they do the exact same thing as most tests do.
The job of the teacher is changing, and it should be. You wouldn’t be ok with your doctor if he/she told you they still practiced medicine in the same way doctors did in the 1950’s, so why do many teachers still teach like that. Times change. I hate the old fashioned excuse (usually from the older generation), “well, I didn’t learn like that, and I turned out just fine.” More crap. We educate our students based on the needs of society. The skills we want people to have now don’t match up with the skill sets needed to be successful 20 years ago.
This whole article/rant is not directed at anything or anyone specific. Many schools and educators are great innovators and are truly challenging themselves to prepare their students for the future, but many schools are not taking the leap. This is not directed solely at high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. It is directed at colleges, as well, and I think maybe even more so. When I was in college, I learned a lot, and one the best things I learned was how not to teach. I did have many great professors and instructors and those individuals know who they are, but I had some very bad experiences in many classes. I wouldn’t trade my college education for anything, but man colleges a lot of times are the biggest culprits of the above issues. I’ve had college professors tell me they don’t allow google docs (or anything of the like), with no real explanation other than it is different. Why in the world are we stuck on MLA formatting so much? I am writing this article in Arial font, and that is perceived as wrong, because some handbook says so. I had college professors, heck, even high school teachers that would dock an insane amount points for using the wrong font, wrong spacing, oh and heaven forbid I write 3 ¾ pages vs. 4, because that would mean I obviously didn’t get the point. Really, people, what are you searching for and what message do we send when we tell our students those things? I’m not saying there can’t be consistency, there very well should be, but when you focus on the minor details, you miss the big picture. Do you want your students going through their educational experience believing they are incompetent because they accidentally forgot to change the font, or because they couldn’t quite reach the mandatory amount of pages?
All I am asking for is reception to this change. Educators play an important role, but that role becomes meaningless if we can’t find meaning in the job we do. Open your minds to change and you will in turn provide your students with an experience that far exceeds their imagination. Get out of the rut and ask yourself questions about what you are doing in your classes. Bottom line, make your profession purposeful because if we are telling our students, we are preparing them for the future, then we better be doing just that.
