Tag Archives: perceptions

Would I want me to be my teacher?

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Mirrors sometime present both the best and the worst of ourselves. Standing before the glass we see ourselves as we are. Mirrors do not lie. At the same time, we see ourselves as we want others to see us. It is that dual impression that we must address. Are we who we think we are and is that who we present to others?

Let children be your mirror.

Years ago, I knelt beside a second-grade child to check how she was doing with math fact flash cards. Her face scrunched up in thinking as she quietly talked herself through the cards. I counted eight successful automatic responses to eight flash cards. She was nailing her math facts and then she nailed me. When I gave her a thumbs up for her math, she smiled then frowned and said, “Your breath smells like bad coffee.” Immediately I went from happy educator to crestfallen odor-monger. Her impression and my impression of me did not jive and I knew that hers was the only one that counts. That day I quit drinking coffee at school. I also began making a closer inspection of how the children I taught perceived their teacher.

I began by questioning the values I thought I brought to the classroom every day. I listed 15 statements of what I believe about good instruction that causes learning. These are six I held up to my mirror asking, “would I want to be my teacher?”

  • The purpose of instruction is learning. Is my instruction explicitly connected to the learning outcomes children need? The mirror says sometimes I enjoy the teaching act too much thinking the spotlight is on me. I need to assure that the spotlight is on learning children. If children are not learning, I am not teaching. Children need to see themselves as the most important people in my classroom.
  • Instruction causes every child to learn. How do I know that every child successfully learns the targeted objectives of each lesson? Truth – The mirror says this is a problem. The calendar and clock are not my friends. There is so much curriculum and so little time. I need to assure that all children learn the lessons taught even if I do not teach every unit or lesson this school year. I need to see evidence of learning before I move to the next lesson. Children need to see themselves as successful learners so often they believe it even though some lessons require more work to be learned successfully. Their frustration is my cue to teach better.
  • The learning environment supports student learning. Am I appropriately adjusting the environment to support different instructional strategies and outcomes? The mirror says I need to change the environment when I move from direct to inquiry- or problem-based instruction. Sometimes children need to face me and sometimes they need to face each other. It takes effort to arrange a classroom purposefully or move the class elsewhere in the school or outdoors. Effort that causes learning is effort well spent. Children need to learn to learn in multiple environments and that is my responsibility.
  • Because children learn at different rates and degree, learning is on their clock not mine. Does the curricular calendar drive me or guide me? The mirror says I call on the first hands to go up and end a lesson when most children are done with the assignment. I need to optimize wait time after asking a question, ask a clarifying question if a response is not clear to me, and individualize tier two instruction when first tier did not cause a child to learn. Learning takes the time it takes, and I will commit the time necessary.
  • Engagement is not optional although all children may not be equally engaged at the same time or in the same ways. How do I flex instruction to connect with all children? How well do I accept non-engagement when non-engagement for that child at that time is okay? How thorough am I in checking for involvement as the lesson unfolds? The mirror I do insist that children be on task and devote time to individualizing time with children who are not. Intellectually I know some children seem to learn innately, and others need to grind through the lesson to learn. I probably quick-time the grinders. I need to confirm that each is engaged in ways that leads to their individualized learning, let the grinders grind, and give the quick completers enrichment and extended learning opportunities
  • If best practice is best, why accept or do anything else. Duh! I don’t need the mirror for this one.

Once I started checking my assumptions, I confirmed some practices but needed to adjust others so that I was constantly moving toward best practices. However, my teaching soul can take only so much introspection before it wants to say “Ouch” and loses its critical focus. On another day I questioned other practices. Doing a professional introspection several times each school year keeps me from becoming stale and just teaching the same lessons repeatedly. At the end of ten years, I want my students to have a teacher who strengthened his teaching over ten years not a first-year teacher who repeated being a first-year teacher ten times.

After several rounds of introspection, I changed the question from “would I want me to be my teacher” to “would I want me to be my daughter’s teacher.” That really ramped up the critical review.

Back to the beginning. I never again knelt next to a certain young lady without a fresh wintergreen lifesaver in my mouth.

Relationships Created in September Cause Learning

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September in school is all about relationships.  Beginning with the moment that a child is told the names of her teachers-to-be and a teacher reads the roster of names assigned to her for instruction, the most essential educational agenda is “getting to know each other.”  If they don’t get their relationships right in September, the work of teaching and learning over the next eight months will suffer.

Why is this September work important?  Because teaching and learning is a human interaction that, at its core, rests on a child’s belief that “my teacher likes me and wants me to be a successful student” and “my students understand me and want to learn from what I teach them.”  When these two perceptions are firmly in place, daily assignments, curricular projects, constant questioning and answering, and the array of tests and assessments become the natural flow of a school year.  When perceived relationships are negative, schooling is an adversarial conflict.

The perception of being “liked” by a teacher is amorphous; its nature depends entirely on the individual personalities of the student and teacher.  However, there are key features that pervade the many faces of these relationships.  A student must know that her teacher is genuine in knowing her name and in the smiles she sees on her teacher’s face.  The delivery of positive words and actions matter, because they are the consistent measure a child uses to confirm her relationships.  Quickly in the school year, a child who visually sees and emotionally feels a positive connection with her teacher begins to understand that teacher praise of successful learning and constructive criticism for things not learned well enough are given with good and sincere intention.  Frowns and corrections within a positive relationship are more likely to lead to improved learning when the same frowns and corrections in an adversarial relationship likely lead to a shut down of learning efforts.  When a child knows that her teacher really knows her, she will commit to her learning.

Equally amorphous is the concept of care.  When a child perceives that a teacher really cares about her well-being, her safety, and her success in school, the warmth of this “care factor” fuels the child’s ability to persist with learning that is challenging and problems that appear to be insurmountable.  “I care” is expressed with words and body language that teachers use to engage with a child.  Personalized eye contact, physical and appropriate proximity, encouraging language, and, most important, persistence in “teacher-to-me” engagement that instructs, coaches, and acknowledges a child’s efforts and success are staples of a caring relationship.  When these are amply demonstrated, a child will do whatever it takes to succeed.  When these are absent, a child simply shuts down her willingness to participate in school.

Teachers who commit themselves to building the perception of their genuine liking and caring for each child as an individual and unique student can cause all the children assigned to their instruction to learn and grow in their knowledge, skills, and understandings of grade level curriculum.  Beyond the immediacy of the school year, teachers who do these will be remembered well for a lifetime.  Teachers who don’t build “I like you” and “I care about your learning” perceptions need to re-evaluate their professional career pathway, because their students already have written them off.