Watching and Wondering

My son is two (almost three) years old.  Part of my profession has me walking into elementary schools from time to time talk with teachers and students–not for accountability, but for the sake of improving the use of specific resources for certain subject areas.  A few days ago I walked into a school, not as a researcher or professional educator, but as a father: And my stomach was in turmoil for the first time.   Before long I would be trusting another adult with my child’s well being emotionally and socially.  I cringed, not because of the school, but because I know that my desires for my son will not cause him harm, but give him hope and security.  My recognition of those who empathize with me stops at my wife, Papaw, Mamaw, Grandpa/Papa, Grandma, uncles, aunts, and cousins (plus a few more).  In short, placing him in the hands of an institution and its professional stakeholders was not high on the to do list; and that only became more galvanized as I walked through the school doors for the umpteenth time in my life.

In recognition of my role as a teacher and the roles of those I serve and who serve other people’s children, a thought should not be far from our thoughts or manifestation in our actions.  These little ones in our elementary schools are precious and deserve nothing less than our best.  To give them something else is to lessen them and the valuable experiences they can have under our stewardship.  As we go through the daily rigors of the educational process, we must remember that the institution exists for the students, not the students for the institution

My wife says that I am laid back and patient.  This is not a bad thing.  I must admit if she told me what I am about to share I would listen.  I have heard that there are two extremes of “laid back” that aren’t all that good.    The first extreme to being laid back  is a perception of apathy.  This usually is seen as  disregard towards contexts and surroundings.  This extreme usually manifests itself in the form of a casual glance towards a temporary distraction before the distracted part goes back to doing whatever it was they were doing.  Distractions  are a momentary nuisance quickly forgotten because they are not worth the investment of time or action.    The other extreme to being laid back is flippancy.  This usually manifests with one party telling another not to get so worked up over a potentially serious matter because it’s not that big a deal.  I recommend neither for teaching, yet I do think meaningful pedagogy in one sense needs to have a laid back attitude with regards to results.  Before I am villified let me explain that I am not encouraging mediocrity or disdain for teaching.

Teachers plan, plan, and then plan some more.  The irony is that these best laid plans rarely pan out the way the teacher desires.  Two hours of planning ends up being a fifteen minute lesson that is quickly forgotten by the students.  The point is this.  Teachers strive for perfect lessons that occur only when they are not expected-we call them teachable moments.  We are disappointed when the lessons do not go as planned and feel a sense of failure because either the lesson didn’t stick or the students got so off track that they lost sight of the original objective.  We also get frustrated.  Yet we shouldn’t.  Isn’t that imperfect course that the perfect plan was designed to avoid the real teaching moment? We as teachers are so busy trying to get students to do what we want them to that we forget the vicarious learning that occurs when things don’t go as planned.   Yes there are moments when the planning is important for safety reasons, yet that does not mean that our perception of shortcoming with regards to our own stringent standards means that learning didn’t occur.  If anything we should embrace the fact that learning did occur, and in such a way that the student’s identity was not oppressed or trampled.  The next time you are doing a lesson, be it science, math or literature, recognize that the students are watching and wondering and that learning is going on.

One may think that process indicates a fixed, sterile environment where the movements of students are measured and calculated based on the outcomes, yet this is not the case.  Process is methods by which the goal is obtained and this goal, the lesson’s content, is the second component.  Some teachers will have a very fixed idea of what process is acceptable, while others will be more laid back.  Style is not the issue.  The issue is that a process is kept in mind for accomplishing meaningful educational goals that invoke meaningful content.

Don’t fixate, but do remember process.  Also, remember the content that you want to communicate and that you want the students to understand.  With these two thoughts in mind, successful learning can occur.

UP NEXT: DON’T BE A PERFECTIONIST

The reason for this is because of the many misrepresentations I see.  One cartoon I watched was observed in horror as two tiny people managed to throw a rope around a city trapped on a mountaintop that was covered in snow.   I watched as these two people pulled the city off the mountain and it managed to magically come down off the mountain and stay afloat in the ocean.  The scientist in me cringed, yet my son continued to watch without any of my concerns.  I only hoped he wouldn’t try to pull something down and expeect it to float gently onto his bare toes some time in the future.

Our children, and the ones we teach, will be constantly bombarded with bad representations of the world.  There is always the trump card, “It’s a cartoon,” yet that doesn’t prevent the misconception from forming and potentially rearing itself in the classroom or elsewhere.  As teachers, we must be willing to discover the false conceptions of our students and gently move them in the right direction.  The first step is realizing that these misconceptions are there and then creating the teachable moment that will move our students closer to understanding of the world that they live in.

There is no greater wonderer in the world then the child being exposed to what is there to be seen.  Boredom is not an option because there is too much that is new.  Elementary teachers that realize this about their children encourage the child’s innate desire to explore and discover new things.