Let's use another word... please.
To Teach
Since my educational awakening, about three months into my first year, I've avoided using the verb "teach" to describe what I do. Every time I underwent an observation in that period, I felt obligated to do something: to talk; to write on the board; to point; to move; to assign work; to force students to do something. You know, to teach.
But recent trends remove the teacher from the focus of attention, opting for a more student-centered approach to the classroom. Instead of analyzing "teaching," it's about how and what a student learns. The emphasis on student engagement should keep the teacher from monopolizing large swaths of time with passive lectures and note-taking strategies, motivating our educators to facilitate optimal learning scenarios.
Still, "Learning Facilitator" does not quite have the same ring as "teacher."
Teaching ≠ Learning
I love using the metaphor of learning to walk and talk as a way for students to understand learning versus teaching. My students challenge me when I refuse to answer all of their questions. I constantly repeat: "I am not the only source of knowledge in this room. Use your peers, your digital devices, and, yes, even your own capacity for reason."
They argue that it's "your job to teach us."
I argue that "it's my duty to get you people to learn how to learn."
That's typically when I ask students, "Who taught you to walk? Who taught you to talk?" I'm sure you get the obvious point, but it's a crucial example. As a species we are born with the capacity to learn, without direct instruction! We learn by observing and by experimenting and failing over and over. It's inherent to our brain and spirit.
So, why do we force young people to sit down for most of the 7 hours at school practicing a bunch of low-level skills that Artificial Intelligence will be capable of in 2026 ? Why do we use some arbitrary system of grading that discourages risk and experimentation; that counters the way that humans learn from failure and mistakes? That's not how we learn the essential skills to navigate our social and physical world.
"Why do we force young people
to sit down for most of the 7 hours at school
practicing a limited set of useless skills?"
Riding a Bike
Like riding a bike, learning is something your mind and body never really forget. I showed last year seniors this video of my then 4 year old daughter riding in a skate/bike park. The points:
I never sat her down to make her watch me ride a bike.
I never gave her a lecture on the history of bikes.
She couldn't tell you the physics of a spinning wheel or geometric strength of the frame.
But she knows that one day she couldn't ride a bike; then, on another day, she rode down her first big ramp.
She's excited and wants to do more of it.
That's learning. Or it should be...
Something a lot of my students, be they poor or wealthy, illiterate or literate, disenfranchised or privileged, have seemingly forgotten.
It's the sitting.
It's the tidy, quiet classroom.
the low-skilled factory labor assignments
the discouragement of peer interaction
the fear of making a mistake and getting a "bad grade"
It's the way we teach...
so STOP TEACHING.
Let our young people learn.
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