Teaching With Learning in Mind

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere. 

                             ~Chinese Proverb~

I have been in love with learning for as long as I can remember. The teachers most influential in my life were those that nurtured and fed my hunger for learning through their questions, challenges, and opportunities to explore.  Their classrooms were places where learning, not teaching took precedent. By sharing their own passion and persistence for learning, they paved the road that lead me to my lifelong learning love affair.

Now, as a teacher, my passion for learning is the greatest gift that I can pass on to my students.  And like great teachers who have come before me, it is my responsibility and privilege to help my students develop the motivation and skills to learn for the rest of their lives. I am not always sure that students fully understand and appreciate this gift, but, nonetheless it is my charge. 

We live in a time where education reform has become not only a personal, but a state and national level issue. As millions of dollars and literally hundreds of reform initiatives are bestowed upon schools, we have students still leaving our classrooms with neither the skills or the drive to engage in our world as lifelong learners. The disconnect between teaching and learning grows, as we turn our efforts and energies towards curriculum and programs as the means of achieving our goals.

The teaching profession is overwhelmed by mandates and content, while the national obsession with outcomes and results intensify. The score, the percentile, and the grade take precedence over the learning process. Content coverage and delivery have become more important than the learner's journey. We have lost our way.  Without conversations about what learners need to know, do, and understand in the world of ever changing  content, our students will never find their way.

There is no politician, administrator, parent, teacher, employer or citizen that would refute the power of " lifelong learning". So, how can we find our way back so that learning is the work?  I believe our best learning lessons come from those we seek to teach. Children are the most passionate, ravenous, fearless learners I know. They are insatiably curious, innately fearless, and miraculously adaptable -- continually reinventing themselves. If our schools become places where children are allowed to pursue these passions, investigate their questions, and be surrounded by adults who do the same, there will be different outcomes, scores, and percentiles.

Educational reform is possible. But it will not occur through legislative efforts and implementation of standards. Without question, the key factor in student achievement is the teacher. The greatest contribution we can make to our student's lives is to let them know that learning is the work. Here's how we can start:

1. Lead by Example. Each day demonstrate the kind of learners we wish our students to be. Don't tell them,expect them, or demand they learn- show them how it is done. Be the learner you want your learners to be.
2. Be Contagious. Share your passion and interests with your students. In doing so, you then, invite them into your learning life and they in turn will allow you onto theirs.
3. Scaffold. Frame other learners as capable, talented, resourceful and creative and watch these self fulfilling prophesies come to fruition! When students know you believe, they will achieve.
4. Celebrate the journey not the destination. In your classroom reward the effort, the risk,their vulnerability to try new things,  rather than the perfect score they got by showing you what they remembered.  Allow your learners to bask in the glory of the process not the product.
5. Embrace who you are. Who you are is far more important than what you know.  Let them see all of you. Be authentic. Be transparent. Be human.
6. Be a Learner First. Approach your work with a learners mindset. Remember, you are expert at what you do and know. When you share HOW you do it and How you came to know it.
7. Live a learning life. Stand before your students, colleagues, and peers as an individual who is still learning. Showing how it's fun, show how it is frustrating, and sharing with them your personal adventures and discoveries.

In my experience, this list drives me in both my teaching and learning life. In your experience, how do you drive home the point that learning is the work?

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I believe that learning is a lifelong journey. I conduct workshops and training sessions helping learners of all ages develop their skills in critical thinking, reading, and communication.
~ Angela Maiers
www.angelamaiers.com
~Opening up the World - One Learner at a Time~

Comments

[Rosa Say]

Welcome to Joyful Jubilant Learning Angela, what a wonderful first posting you have done for us! Your list for meaningful educational reform is one we can illustrate and model well here - it reads as a terrific manifesto for JJL too, and we are thrilled you are here to help inspire and coach us. "Scaffold" is a new trigger word I'll be embracing.

[Steve Sherlock]

Angela, welcome! I think you will find yourself amongst good company here. The scaffold has been created, we are ready and eager to learn and share!

[Joanna Young]

Hello Angela and welcome to JJL. It's great to see you here.

I was also struck by your scaffolding point, but it was the framing in particular that jumped out at me.

"Frame other learners as capable, talented, resourceful and creative and watch these self fulfilling prophesies come to fruition!"

I think (hope) that's how I approach everyone that I work with. Our challenge is then to work out 'what's getting in the way of them expressing that capability, talent, resourcefulness, creativity' and then 'let's figure out how to get round it'

I'm looking forward to learning more from you here in 2008 and beyond

Joanna

[Sanford Aranoff]

I am an adjunct Associate Professor of Mathematics at Rider University, active as a substitute teacher and mentor in high schools, and a retired professor of physics from Rutgers University. I have taken extensive notes from my experiences and given them to my protégés. Recently I collected them into a book. I suggest that your library purchase the book for the benefit of students, parents, and teachers.

I just wrote a book, "Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better". This is available on amazon.com, ISBN 978-1-4196-7435-8. May I suggest that you order a copy for the library? The readers will be very pleased!

The reviews are superb. Students, teachers, and professors who have looked at the book give it the highest rating.

Typical comments that I hear are things like this: "Hi, Dr. Aranoff!" said a girl, "I got a 100 on the test! I am so happy! Thank you so much!"

Thank you very much.

[David Zinger]

Angela,
I appreciate your passion and perspective on learning. I have taught educational psychology for about 20 years and I am addicted to learning. I loved Marshall McLuhan's line from about 40 years ago: In the future we will not earn a living we will learn a living.
That future is now and you are a part of it.
All the best,
Carry on learning,
David

[dave]

Welcome Angela! I also did a double take on the Scaffold point. Your analogy is different. It causes us to dwell a moment longer. And in this moment a connection is made.

The ability to cause a pause is a beautiful gift. In a teacher it can change the world.

[Angela Maiers]

Rosa, Dave, JoAnna, David, Sanford, and Steve,
thank you all for the warm welcome. I am so honored and excited to be a part of JJL. You all bring such gifts and talent to the conversation. I have learned and will continue learning so much from you and your readers. What a way to start the new year!!