Myth Buster: "Teachers must work tirelessly to be effective."

In his blog post on The Qualities of an Effective Teacher: No. 4—An EffectiveTeacher is Tireless, Jake Hollingsworth argues that “good” teachers must understand that they will work long hours and must have no care for the fact that students neither realize or appreciate the number of those hours. 

I respectfully disagree. 

First, there is a distinction to be made between “good” and “effective.” Good implies a quality that is desirable by another whereas effective implies a quality of successful implementation. One of the worst adjectives that can be attributed to a teacher is good because it perpetuates this strange morality of martyrdom in teacher identity: that he/she can only be good if he/she works tirelessly, the unappreciated, selfless educator.

The image conveyed by Mr. Hollingsworth is that of a teacher sitting at a desk (at home and/or at work), with a computer and stacks of papers. It is a tiring image, and one becomes weary in just looking at it.  Why set this image up in front of new teachers? They will think that this is the way it should be, and that unless they are doing so, then they are not “good.” 

It’s simply not true. 

Effective teachers spend their planning time wisely and purposefully, and they DO care what their students think about the presentation of lessons and assessments. We can spin our wheels for days on a particular unit, and it will fall flat in presentation. It just won’t “jive.” On the other hand, an afterthought of a lesson, which took moments to plan, will garner an enthusiastic response. 

The difference really lies in how the teacher spends his or her planning time in reaction to what has occurred in the class.  Ascribing to the definition above, the “good” teacher will simply pick up and do the same thing again, using the same approach on the next unit, spending the same amount of ineffectual time.  However, effective teachers will not spend the next number of hours planning in the same way. He or she will reflect, first, so that the same problem/issue won’t happen again in another unit. 

The effective teacher also asks students what they think, and by doing so, will find the first of many time-savers. For example, as opposed to agonizing for hours over a rubric for a project, effective teachers will work alongside students in determining a rubric of expectations. Generally, what they’ll find is that a student-created rubric is far more rigorous than what they would have created. Further, students who have created it will strive more diligently to meet those expectations. 

Thus, a good deal of an effective teacher's time is in thought, not in doing something tirelessly.

I will concede that the motivation for preparation should NOT be to gain appreciation from students. (I write about teaching as a thankless job at length in a previous blog post.) However, effective teachers will “see” appreciation of students in the form of engaged interest, interactive discussion, and the dawning of understanding. If we do not see any of those, then we cannot say we are effective. 

Truly effective teachers might spend a large chunk of time planning a large unit, the first time. However, following their reflection on the reception of the lesson and garnering student feedback, the next time will be much more fluid and purposeful, lessening the time but increasing the impact. Additionally, effective teachers do not always start from scratch; they collaborate with others to save time  and share with others to improve practice.

Truly effective teachers are not hinged to any desk for a ridiculous number of hours every day. If you’re doing that, stop. If you find yourself grading papers endlessly, STOP. Talk to your mentor or talk to someone who just seems to “have it all together.” That person will have valuable information as to how to work not only effectively, but realistically.

Effective teachers do not seek to reach an idealized "tirelessness." Rather, they seek and find efficiency. Effectiveness does not lie in a number of hours spent, but in the quality of the time spent.

Mindy and some of her former students recently published Transparent Teaching of Adolescents, a discussion of effective teaching strategies for high school. Join the conversation!  

Guest Blogger! Emerson

 

It started with a pin on Pinterest. Just a nifty little image with a quotation attributed to Emerson.

A lovely message, and before I pinned it to my “Teacher Stuff” board, I wanted to make sure that, indeed, Mr. Emerson was the author. 

Based on numerous quotation pages, it looked like he was; however, the wording was a bit different. Nevertheless, knowing that surely, surely, Emerson would have something even more powerful to say on the topic of effective teaching, I decided to read his blog post…oops…essay on “Education” from Lectures and Biographical Sketches.

One of my English classes creatively theorized that his writing was not unlike the construction of a brick wall—layer by layer.  Thus, I’ve taken some artistic advantage with his visual presentation because our tired old 21^st century eyes—bless them—can’t take the depth of paragraph that Emerson so artistically lays out for us. Additionally, any emphases/underlining and [clarifications] are mine. 

I’m both pleased (and somewhat embarrassed) that some of the teaching methodologies in our upcoming book, Transparent Teaching, are present here. However, there’s no way that I could have said it like this. 

From "Education": 

I believe that our own experience instructs us that the secret of Education lies in respecting the pupil. 

It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. Respect the child. Wait and see the new product of Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude. 

But I hear the outcry which replies to this suggestion:

—Would you verily throw up the reins of discipline; would you leave the young child to the mad career of his own passions and whimsies, and call this anarchy a respect for the child's nature? 

I answer, Respect the child, respect him to the end, but also respect yourself. Be the companion of his thought, the friend of his friendship, the lover of his virtue, – but no kinsman of his sin. Let him find you so true to yourself that you are the irreconcilable hater of his vice and imperturbable slighter of his trifling.

Have the self-command you wish to inspire. Teach them to hold their tongues by holding your own. Say little; do not snarl; do not chide; but govern by the eye. See what they need, and that the right thing is done.

I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they [those difficulties and perplexities] solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.

I advise teachers to cherish mother-wit. I assume that you will keep the grammar, reading, writing and arithmetic in order; ‘t is easy and of course you will. 

But smuggle in a little contraband wit, fancy, imagination, thought. 

If you have a taste which you have suppressed because it is not shared by those about you, tell them that. Set this law up, whatever becomes of the rules of the school: they must not whisper, much less talk; but if one of the young people says a wise thing, greet it, and let all the children clap their hands. 

They shall have no book but school-books in the room; but if one has brought in a Plutarch or Shakespeare or Don Quixote or Goldsmith or any other good book, and understands what he reads, put him at once at the head of the class. 

Nobody shall be disorderly, or leave his desk without permission, but if a boy runs from his bench, or a girl, because the fire falls, or to check some injury that a little dastard is inflicting behind his desk on some helpless sufferer, take away the medal from the head of the class and give it on the instant to the brave rescuer. 

If a child happens to show that he knows any fact about astronomy, or plants, or birds, or rocks, or history, that interests him and you, hush all the classes and encourage him to tell it so that all may hear. 

Then you have made your school-room like the world. 

Of course you will insist on modesty in the children, and respect to their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug him!

To whatsoever upright mind, to whatsoever beating heart I speak, to you it is committed to educate men.

Emerson would have soooooo been a blogger.