This struck a chord with me:
What is the theory of how people learn that guides school and classroom practices in your district?In how many schools can you walk up to each teacher separately, ask this question, and expect a similar response? I doubt there are 100 schools in the country where this would happen.
Let’s see, there are Central Park East, Ithaca Alternative School, and School Without Walls in New York State. When last I visited the Ronald Reagan Elementary School in Lake Elsinore, California I could (and did) speak with many teachers, secretaries, cafeteria staff, custodians, and students and almost all of them could offer an accurate articulation of the learning theory that was driving school practices. I’m sure there must be schools in other parts of the country that can boast alignment between theory and practice. But how many?
My point: successful department stores, grocery chains and other businesses lay out their wares and instruct their sales people according to defensible theories about how shoppers shop. I read in USA Today many years ago that department store managers understand that most people go toward the right when entering a store and, therefore, this dictates that products management wants customers to see first are positioned accordingly.
Periodically, state education departments encourage schools to create mission statements, vision statements, action plans, and a whole host of plans that more often than not become shelf art if they even reach a point of completion that enables them to make it to the shelf. Rarely is there any follow-through. Rarely can you walk through the halls of a school a year after teachers have been put through time consuming activities to design these statements and find a single person who can quote the school’s mission, vision or other kind of statements – much less demonstrate that their work is being guided by it.
I am suggesting that the starting point should be a school-wide consensus on:
• How do students learn
• What does our consensus on how students learn suggest in terms of how teachers should teach
I AM NOT implying that teachers should be limited in how they teach. There are already too many schools that are using scripted lesson plans which limit the flexibility of their teachers to apply the expertise they have gained through training and experience.
There are a wide range of practices that teachers can use in classrooms that can be consistent with researched based theories of how children learn. Schools need to reach consensus on the learning theory that will guide teaching practices; then, as long as teachers can justify their practices as being aligned with sound theory, they should be allowed and encouraged to use their judgment with regard to how they teach.
If you work in a school district, can you answer this question, off the top of your head, within the next 30 seconds:
What is the theory of how people learn that guides school and classroom practices in your district?
If you are a parent and asked this question of the first ten teachers and administrators you see in the school your child attends, how many similar responses will you receive?
I have long believed int he importance of everyone having a common understanding of learning theory in a school. How can things be consistant accross a school if we have different understandings of how children actually learn. Trevor Bond and I had quite a debate over this after a conference in Queenstown some years ago and he produced this (which built on and expanded on the original in his keynote – and calls me Greg Hill) which I have used with a number of groups since.
I have also used the model to produce a personal educational philosophy. This was quite an interesting process too. How often are we made to actually think through and articulate, at a theoretical level, what we actually do. Teachers know how they will react and what they will do, but not always WHY.
A fabulous discussion to have in the staffroom/staff meeting!
Entries (RSS)