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!  

Overcoming Teacher-technophobia

There it sits… showing off its silicon superiority and sleekness. Doesn’t matter if it’s an e-app or an i-thing; it’s there, reminding you that YOU, as a Digital Johnny or Janey-come-lately, don’t even know where to begin. (If you know what a Johnny-come-lately is, by the way, you’re in my age group.)

Everyone around you is tweeting and texting, swiping and blogging with devices that seem to get smaller with every passing year. More to the point, technology is now a category on your annual teacher evaluation. It probably reads something like: Integrates Technology. So, now, it’s part of your job. But what do you do when you just don’t know where to start? It is all so overwhelming!

I’m not going to throw a lot of tech-talk at you or even make suggestions as to what technology to use. I’m going to ask you to do something much more difficult. I’m going to ask you to:

1 . Have no fear

The mindset for working with technology requires that you understand that you can’t mess it (or them) up. Really. You can’t mess up an entire program by typing or clicking in the wrong place. It might make a loud noise or give you little warning, but you can’t break it. In fact, if you do manage to do some never-before-seen thing (which is incredibly unlikely), tech people are VERY interested in it because then, they can solve the glitch and be heroes. They like that kind of stuff. What’s really nifty keen is that whatever you DO do, can be fixed. Type in the wrong thing? Edit. Click on the wrong button? Go Back. No one is timing you. No one is counting how many times you mess up.

Those of us who remember rotary dials and typewriters, seem to have this sense of permanence about things. When we typed papers, we had to get it perfect or redo the whole thing. If we dialed one wrong number in a sequence, we had to hang up and start over. Technology is all about flexibility.

2. Embrace not knowing

This is a hard pill to swallow, I think. We like things spelled out, laid out for us. We are of the group who had manuals with instructions. However, with technology, you jump in and when you have a question, you seek the answer. There are HELP buttons and FAQs (frequently asked questions with answers). Sometimes, there’s even a handy reminder that pops up. Programs are designed to be used without knowing.

This is very different from the psychology of being told what to do and how to do it, which is how we were raised. You didn’t touch anything without fully understanding it. Your goal, now? Learn as you go.
Our children (and grandchildren), have learned how to not worry about not knowing. They put the game in the player, pick up the joystick and go, seeming to know exactly what they’re doing at every moment. They don’t. They just understand that it’s okay not to know because they’ll find out or figure it out.

3. Find a mentor who is in your age bracket

I don’t mean this facetiously. I mean it seriously. Young people, who are Digital Natives, are immersed in the technology culture; thus, they really don’t make the best explainers or motivators. They can (unintentionally) make you just feel inferior, just by their reactions: “You don’t know what a ‘cookie’ is? Really?”

That’s why finding a friend, who will talk in a way you understand, is key. Whoever this friend is, he or she should be comfortable with computers, those phones that can access the internet, iPads, and the internet, in general. Let this person know what you’re trying to do, and he/she will most likely have an experience that is similar. You are not alone!

4. Reinvent yourself as a Digital Pioneer

The pioneers who ventured out West had no idea what they were getting into. They planned as best they could, but for the most part, they figured things out as they went. This is where you are. You are neither Digital Immigrant nor Digital Native, but Digital Pioneer. It doesn’t matter that others have gone before you; this is undiscovered country for you. Discover this country for yourself and your students. You’ll do things you never thought you could do, and most importantly, you’ll meet students where they are…in their world.

You got this.

Mindy and some of her former students discuss their experiences in the classroom in Transparent Teaching of Adolescents: Creating the Ideal Class for Students and Teachers. Get your copy, today! : )

 

What happens when you give creative people something uncreative to do...

My classmate, Sean, and I grew up within one block of each other. We went to high school and college together, and because we both loved theatre, we performed together many times. Eventually, we both wound up as high school English teachers at the same high school.

Test preparation was in high gear at this point, and administration decided that all teachers, no matter their individual discipline, were going to teach math and English for the state assessment test. Further, we were "paired" up with a fellow colleague for twenty minutes at the start of the day to complete a daily test prep exercise.

Quite fortuitously, Sean and I got thrown together. 

But "math"? Seriously?

Now, Sean was okay with it. I was a mess. Math really isn't my thing. So, he took over the Math stuff on Math days, and I did the English stuff on English days, and so it went.  For a while. But creative people just can't leave things so...orderly.

Having worked together onstage, we knew how to "pick up" on each other's cues. And one day, Sean spontaneously began to portray a student. He was all like, "Dude, why does the poet say that?" It was hysterically funny. He asked crazy questions about the exercise, and the students loved it.

And they were learning. He was coming across as "dumb", but they were learning the strategies because he was asking those questions.

We switched it up on Math days. I became the student, and the dumb questions (in my case) weren't so far off the mark. I really had a tough time with math! I really didn't understand. However, forcing him to explain why and how he was doing things obviously helped the other students, who would often chime in and share why and how the teacher was doing what he was doing.

It was so cool. Further, it made--what most of our peers considered to be-- the most boring part of the day enjoyable for everyone.

I remembered our creative approach while watching this training video on Teaching Critical Thinking, wherein college instructors and college students are sitting together in a class. Side by side, these two groups struggled through the same concepts and ideas. No doubt, the college students felt a bit awkward at first, but later, the groups became a learning community. Isn't this what we want to do?

Why don't we do this more often? Why don't we ask teachers to "sit in" on a colleague's class to learn something new? For example, have a PE teacher sit in on an Art Class, English teachers in Algebra, History teachers in Music. Maybe just for one week out of the school year.  Maybe just for one day?

What students would see would be a powerful model for learning, if not an incentive to do better than the teacher. More to the point, they would see how to learn. They could watch what the teachers do as far as note-taking, participation, and asking questions. All the stuff that we want them to do well but never have time to teach explicitly.

Just a thought.

We wouldn't want to do anything too crazy...

What is the sound of a student learning?

                                                              Class

What is the sound of a student learning?


Is it the teacher talking?

Is it the No.2 scratch of compliant pencil on paper?

Is it the silent regard of sagacious lectures?

Or is it a soft, murmured discussion with another learner, even in disregard to the "don't talk when teacher is talking" rule?

Or is it the face of surprise, concentration, and reflection?

Maybe it's a loud, impulsive burst of information that seems disconnected to everyone and everything else.

Or maybe, it's a question.





For strategies that work with secondary students, take a look at Transparent Teaching of Adolescents: Creating the Ideal Class for Students and Teachers.

You say Me, when you say my name.

There's a lot of nots in me.

I know I'm not the smartest kid in class.

I'm not your favorite student, especially when I say, "I don't know" and "Miss, what eez thees?" really loud with that funny accent so my friends laugh.

I'm not good-looking, not skinny, and not careful when I walk.

There's a lot of a lots in me.

I break the rules a lot.

I speak too loud a lot.

I forget to raise my hand a lot.

I don't bring my books a lot.

So when you say my name, you know, that way you say it...mad. My mom and dad do it, too, so, I'm kind of used to it.

Some bigger words I looked up are angrily, with exasperation, annoyance, sarcasm, disgust, hatred, repulsion, venom, vitriol, and self-righteousness.

Maybe those big teacher words help you understand better.


You say my name a lot.

Today, you said it 18 times in class. 

But I have 6 periods to go to. I have 6 teachers.

Today, all of my teachers said my name about a hundred times.

but no one said it nice.


There's a lot of maybes in me.

Maybe if you only said my name when I did something good, even something small, I don't know.

Maybe I'd pay more attention to when you said it.

Maybe if you only said my name when you smiled hello at me, I'd feel better.

Maybe if every teacher only ever said my name in a nice way, I'd do better.

I mean, you can still tell me to stop doing my stupid stuff that I do for attention, just maybe don't say my name? 

You can kind of look at me and then say whatever, like "Raise your hand." I'll know you mean me.

I guess that's dumb, never mind.

I'm just a kid, what do I know? I'm still trying to figure stuff out.


but, my name is me.

You say me when you say my name.

Mindy Keller-Kyriakides and former students wrote Transparent Teaching of Adolescents, a step-by-step guide to managing a high-school classroom.

An Open Letter to Education Majors: Guest Blog Post

Guest Blogger Elizabeth Anderson is an education major at the University of Toledo, specializing in English-Language Arts and Sciences. She writes the newsletter for the UT Writer’s Guild; she also runs their blog. Her own blog, Inkwell, can be found here, or you can follow her on Twitter here.





Dear fellow education majors,

I just thought you should know that you should change majors if you chose education because:

1. You hate kids but want to teach college someday.

You don’t need teacher certification to teach college; you need a Ph.D. in your area (at least to be full time). If you hate kids, you should not be a teacher.

2. You want summers and weekends off and the other benefits that teachers get.

It’s not bad to want these things—I’m looking forward to them myself. But if benefits are the only reason you want to be a teacher, you should not be a teacher.

3. You want to be paid to sit at a desk and do nothing.

YOU, you more than any of the aforementioned people who should not be teachers, are exactly the reason why the public has such a poor opinion of teachers. Teachers are not supposed to sit at a desk and do nothing. Teachers are supposed to teach. If you don’t want to teach, you should not be a teacher.

Look. It’s not that I begrudge you benefits or any easy job. But I do begrudge you a job that I actually want, for what I flatter myself are the right reasons, when you don’t actually want said job. Every time I tell people that I’m going into education, they say, “WHY? You won’t make any MONEY.” As if money is the only important thing.

I’ll tell you why.

I’m majoring in education because I like kids. While I admit that kids are much worldlier now than they were when I was a kid (much worldlier than I am now, frankly), they’re still not as jaded as adults—not as disbelieving. I’ve had kids at camp who say, “Fairies don’t exist,” but they’re not quite sure, and when I point out the glitter on the ground, their disbelief vanishes, and they run ahead to find fairies.

I love kids. You can still do fun stuff with kids.

And I chose education because I love English and biology, and I wanted to share my passion with people. I can’t think of a better way to do it. What better way to get people excited about biology than taking them out in nature and scooping up pond water to examine under a microscope? Who better to build people’s confidence as writers than someone who loves reading, writing, and editing?

But most of all, I want to become a teacher because I want to teach. At the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to.

And if you’re becoming a teacher for a different reason—if you don’t want to teach, or you don’t like kids, or you aren’t passionate about your subject—then you should not be a teacher.

Because YOU are the reason the public turns teachers into the enemy—part of the reason—and I and people like me are going to have to fight against that opinion, and you, every step of the way.

Sincerely,

a proud future teacher



 
 
 
 

A Shameless Holiday Unplug

One of the most powerful units we ever worked on in our 11th grade English coursework was the Transcendentalists' Unit. Through Emerson and Thoreau, we gained some powerful insights into our sense of self , our "hobgoblins", and what living deliberately is all about.

After reading Thoreau's Walden, we took on personal projects in which we chose a way to "Simplify." The choice was up to the individual. Some gave up their cell phones for 24 hours, some for a week. One student opted not to speak for a month, instead choosing only to listen. Another student abandoned video games and television for a weekend. Still another only sat on the floor or stood.

Then, they wrote about their experiences.

Many of them noted an increased awareness of not only themselves but of others. All noticed an increase in productivity in coursework because, as one student put it, "I didn't have anything else to distract me, so I just did my homework."

As adults, we may smile indulgently and probably with a hint of superiority at this. "Of course you get more done when you don't sit there on that computer all night! Tsk."

Tsk, indeed.

What are we doing? Are we not also iTethered? Are we not also pinning, tweeting, posting, liking and commenting as though our lives depended on it?

I'll be unplugging for the holidays.

No Facebook, no Twitter, no Pinterest, no blogging, no emails. No educational videos on YouTube, no TED Talks, no Google Hangouts, and no checking stats or replying to comments on this blog (at least not for a week or so, please still comment!).

I'm a little freaked, and I haven't even started. : /  Come January, I'll let you know what happened.

In the meantime, I wish you all peace and ease of stress. I wish you joy. I wish you happiness and health. But most of all, I wish you contentment--a commodity so much harder to come by.


Oh, (here's the "shameless" part) and if you get a chance, please Like our Facebook page: Transparent Teaching of Adolescents. Even better, if you've read the book, please consider rating/reviewing it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Get the word out that there is a way to work happily with teenagers!