Parent, have you ever wondered how it happens when you tell your three children to “straighten up their room” that they respond in completely different ways. One may get right to the task and not only pick up and put away everything that lays about and put it all in the right places. Another may walk around the room, pick up several things and put them away, kind of, but then find something, undoubtedly something laying under the bed for weeks, and sit down in the middle of the room to play with it. And, a third may look at you as if to say “Totally not going to happen, Mom.” Most of the time, you, the parent, straightens up your children’s rooms.
Now, consider what happens when a teacher begins an instructional lesson for a class of children. Why would we think that the response of children is any different at school than it is at home? However, unlike the parent who asks children to straighten their rooms and then does it herself, a teacher cannot do the work of learning for her students. She needs to provoke them to learn in some mystical manner.
“Context is worth 80 IQ points.” So said Alan Kay, computer scientist and visionary. Let’s consider this statement and its relevance to teaching and the improvement of learning.
I enjoy watching televised golf and eavesdropping on a caddy talking to his professional golfer. The lesson begins as they approach the golf ball laying wherever it landed, hopefully in the fairway. Using his course book with all of its handwritten notes and measurements, looking at the treetops to discern wind direction and strength, and examining the ball of the ground and the lay of the land around it, the caddy tells the player everything that should be known about the context of the impending golf shot. And, certainly the caddy points to the glob of mud half-hidden on the underside of the ball. To every human endeavor there are impediments.
This conversation takes place approximately 70 times, give or take a few misplayed shots, during every round of golf. No golf shot ever is made in the same exact context as another. The variables are slightly different every time. But every professional golf shot is played in the context of the moment.
Also, I enjoy listening to a teacher replay what she was considering as she began a new lesson to her fourth grade children. Let’s say there are 25 children in the class, so let’s say that there are 25 sets of variables, some with small or large learning impediments, awaiting the new lesson. Each child is a complete set of variables unto her or himself and seldom no child presents the same exact readiness and preparation for learning today that she did yesterday or will tomorrow.
Multiplied by 25, the readiness and preparation of all children in the classroom presents our teacher with a very complex teaching challenge. She is responsible for causing each child to learn this lesson, so must find the motivational words, the initial instructional demonstration, and the reinforcing examples that will cause most of the 25 children to begin to understand what is to be learned. She also must quickly extend and expand her instruction and exampling for children who will quickly grasp the new learning while taking the time to listen to and watch carefully for instructional feedback from children who will be challenged by this new learning.
For a perceptive and ped0gogically strong teacher understanding the contextual readiness and the preparation of each child certainly is worthy of an additional 80 IQ points. Atop normal intelligence, these 80 points make her a genius, or just smart enough to teach her lesson that day. But, tomorrow will be another day!
So, what does a smart teacher need in order to consistently have access to the additional 80 IQ points that comes with context? She needs a caddy beside her in the classroom just like Phil Mickelson has Jim “Bones” McKay beside him wherever and whenever he plays. Bones McKay is constantly providing Phil Mickelson with context. A teacher needs someone beside her often enough to assure that her teaching always is adjusted to the best contextual information available.
In many schools and school districts, this caddy-person is an “instructional coach.” Why there are not more instructional coaches assuring that teachers have the same contextual awareness as any professional golfer receives is not an answer I can make. If the general world accepts that professional golfers need caddies to give them the context for hitting a small ball back and forth in a perfectly landscaped park, then we should be more than willing to provide caddies to the teachers in whom we entrust the intellectual futures of our children.
It’s all about the context, stupid! Thank you, President Clinton.