Suggestions for Principals
Transforming Teachers, Transforming Schools:
Turning "Sages" into "Guides on the
Side"
By Steve McCrea, M.P.A.
Instructor, Broward College, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Abstract
Many teachers teach the way they were taught. If asked
to explain why they lecture to their students, the response is often,
"My teachers wrote on the board and I took notes. It worked for me."
Brain research indicates that other techniques increase blood flow to parts of
the brain associated with cognition. This presentation provides anecdotal
evidence about the impact of this research when applied to a single classroom
or in online classes. When a teacher becomes a "guide on the side,"
there is a change in the school's culture that can be measured. This
presentation is extracted from four books:
57 Free Posters to Transform Schools,
How To Be a Virtual Mentor and Let's Lecture Less, edited by
Steve McCrea (Visualandactive.com) and Mario Joel Llorente Leyva
(TransformTeaching.org). A book for parents called Ten Videos, Ten
Ebooks and Ten Websites sets the stage for teachers to distribute a DVD for
parents and students to use for random learning away from school.
Introduction
The idea for the website GuideontheSide.com
and books Guide On the Side and Let’s
Lecture Less came when I realized that students were clamoring to get into
my classes (I was teaching an intensive three-week English language program in
Fort Lauderdale). Three teachers (who were escorting their students from Italy)
asked to sit in my lessons. They took notes. Something was going on here.
Something I had done or read had changed me so that my classes were somehow
magnetic. This article shares with you what happened to me.
I was a lecturer for the first nine
years of my teaching career. From 1996 to 2005, I worked as a teacher of
English to adults and I spent every class giving lectures. Then I heard a
remarkable interview on National Public Radio with Dennis Littky, founder of
the Met Center in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. “Until we learn what the
student’s passions and interests, it’s just school. After we start
teaching to the student’s passions and interests, there is nothing to stop them
from wanting to learn more and to connect the schoolwork to their future lives”
(Littky, 2004, page 34).
Dennis Littky's Seven Points
Go to the website of Littky’s
school, MetCenter.org,
or search "NPR Littky April 2005." You will have the direct
experience that I did and you might be impelled to put into practice the seven
key points mentioned by Littky:
- students learn through projects;
- teachers get to know the students (eating
dinner at least once every two months in their homes);
- teachers teach every subject (yes,
math teachers teach literature, science teachers teach art, French teachers
teach math and science);
- quotes are placed on walls to
encourage random learning;
- tests are "stand-up" exhibitions; students
go on internships and report back to the school what they learned;
- every student writes a 75-page biography about
their family members (we all need to know where we came from, what our families
did and how they got here); and
- grading is with a narrative every
eight weeks. A student said, "I'm
more than a letter in the alphabet," and that inspired Littky to require
teachers to write and talk to kids about what they did, how they could improve
their work and what will be the next challenges in the next eight weeks.
Daniel
Pink (2011), the award-winning author of books about business trends, gives
similar educational advice. What motivates people to complete a
task? “As long as a task is routine, monetary rewards produce what we
would expect. Offer more money and you’ll
get more work done. However, those if-then
rewards often destroy creativity. The secret to high
performance isn't rewards and
punishments, but that unseen
intrinsic drive -- the drive to do
things for their own sake. The drive to do
things because they matter.” (TED talk transcript from Pink’s TED Talk).
Pink asks teachers to design school work that connects students
to what motivates people (autonomy, mastery and purpose), not a higher
grade-point-average or other extrinsic factors. Guides on the side should
choose instead to teach toward inner sources of motivation.
Isn’t
this what we mean when we recommend “differentiation of the lessons”? We want to adapt the lesson to the needs of
the individuals in the class. We want to
personalize the curriculum.
Great Teachers are Born, Not Made (oh?)
One way to become a great “guide on the
side” is to stop preaching and teaching and instead listen better (Postman,
1969). Become a facilitator, arrange the classroom to follow the principles
that Littky demonstrates, that Dennis Yuzenas (a teacher in Palm Beach Florida)
uses, that dozens of innovative schools have as part of their curriculum. It's
not WHAT is taught but rather how students are encouraged to find
ways to get the material presented to them. Ken Robinson (2009) points
out that a class of seven-year-olds will all put up their hands if you ask,
"Who likes to draw?" Ask the same question in a class of 16-year-olds
and only a minority will raise their hands. Hmmm. How has the school so
effectively weeded out the drive to create? How can we teachers encourage
creativity?
Here are techniques to encourage
creativity that Gerald Aungst (2011) recommends:
Plant the seed. Instead of a vague “be
creative,” tell someone, “give me an idea that only you could come up with.”.
Make it messy. Creativity is squashed
when people feel like they are looking for one right answer. For students, give
them problems that have multiple solutions
Never accept the first answer. It sets
an expectation that one answer, even if it works, isn’t the end of the process
but just the beginning.
Teach creativity techniques.
Techniques can give people a concrete handle on something that can seem
abstract and complicated.
Reverse the roles. Instead
of giving an assignment to students, ask them to tell you what they would do if
they were the teacher.
Get out. Changing the location of the class
can change students’ thinking (from Aungst's blog).
EBooks
Teachers who are not familiar with
project-based learning or with constructivist approaches (that build the
curriculum around the individual student) might ask, "But how do students
get the information if I'm not lecturing to them? Who will present the
information?" I ask teachers to read
Abraham Fischler's description of the role of the computer in the classroom
(computer-assisted instruction or CAI):
Our schools will turn out to be better
schools if we design the schools and the curriculum to be more responsive to
the client. Right now most of our schools are responsive to the class. Unless
we change the organization and structure, there are limits to how we can do
better with one teacher and 25 or 22 students. The teacher is teaching the 22
or 25 students as a class. But with the introduction of technology that is
responsive to the student, then you can open up the class to make time the
variable.
It's not a major shift. We're just
utilizing modern technology instead of the teacher as the presenter of core
information. CAI also gives students even when they are not at the same level
the opportunity to form groups. We make sure that each group has a responsive,
bright kid, who can give leadership to the group of three. Everyone in the
group ought to be able to provide some input to the resolution of what they are
working on.
These are not profound changes.
Teachers can't continue to be the presenters to the class because not everyone
in the class is ready to receive what the teachers say. When talking about
English and Math (and certain aspects of social studies and science), the
students are generally at different levels of comprehension because they are
individuals and they have different talents and they learn at different rates.
It's simple. If you know that people have different talents and learn at
different rates, why wouldn't you make the student the class? (excerpted
from TheStudentIsTheClass.com by A. S. Fischler).
One way of highlighting the key difference between a traditional school (where teachers talk, learners listen) and a transformed school is to write "teaching is listening; learning is talking" on a poster.
Other
sources of information are videos, ebooks and audio CDs. Why not do what many
professors at Stanford University are doing and put your lectures on videos and
send them home with your students? Students are expected to review the
videos before the class and arrive reading to discuss the themes of the day
(Fellet, 2011). Class time turns into "Question and Answer"
sessions where students "perform their understanding" (Howard
Gardner's term) and the teacher checks for misconceptions. The concept of "flipping the
classroom" is easily conveyed to parents and students with Katie Gimbar's
YouTube performance (search "Katie Gimbar flip classroom"). A collection of videos directed at parents
could supplement what is sent home for students to watch.
Seventeen Quotations
Perhaps the most effective strategy
that emerged from my classroom is the use of quotations. Instead of
asking students to change their behaviors, I presented these quotations to the
students. After they had studied the quotations, several students asked
that I continue with the “new” method of letting them decide individually what
they would work on during the week. Less lecturing, more independent
projects; fewer tests, more exhibitions (“stand up and deliver some
information”). Here are some quotes that guide me in becoming a
facilitator.
“The teacher of
the future is a GUIDE on the SIDE, not a sage on the stage.” Aphorism
“Education is NOT
the filling of a pail, but rather the LIGHTING of a FIRE.” Yeats, also
attributed to Plutarch
“Most students
might forget what you taught them, but they will always remember how you
treated them.” -- often stated in teacher-training seminars.
“I never let
school get in the way of my education.” Mark Twain
“Drive out fear.”
W. Edwards Deming
“Keep Talking
Time" to a minimum.” - dictum in the CELTA teacher training course
 |
| Learn more about these posters |
“The greatest
sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, The children are now
working as if I did not exist.” Maria Montessori
“Let’s create
people who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other
generations have done.” Jean Piaget
“Innovative
schools offer small classes, individualized instruction, and flexible curricula
which can accommodate the child. The same teacher stays with the same group of
children for as many as eight grades. The teacher has to grow and learn with
the children.” Dennis Littky
“Many teachers
believe that they need to control how they teach and how they test. Other
teachers negotiate with their students what they will learn, when they will
learn it and how we will check that they have learned it.” Dennis
Yuzenas
“Unfortunately,
to most people, teaching is the giving of knowledge. What are you going to tell
the students? What is your expertise? But teaching is really about bringing out
what's already inside people.” Dennis Littky
 |
| Learn more about these posters |
“Trust. Truth. No
Put-downs. Active Listening. Personal Best.” NewCitySchool.org
Clark’s Two-Factor Rule for Posters: I place these quotations on walls, I assemble
them on a single page and lead a workshop with parents, I send the quotes home
and ask parents to talk about the quotes with their children, I call each home
and talk with the parents about what ideas they have after reading the
quotes. In other words, posters (when
properly formatted) help me confront questionable assumptions that students
have about education (see Clark, 2004) and flip the classroom. The posters conform to Richard Clark's
two-factor rule: a)
posters should have an easily remembered analogy and b) posters should go beyond merely drawing
attention to an issue and should give specific procedures to follow
(Clark, personal communication, February 8, 2013). Academics have become about 25 percent of my class
work, since nutrition, physical health, emotional health and the “spirits” of
my students are now together taking up three-quarters of my time as a
teacher. I'm spending more time looking
for and talking with mentors for my students than I am spending as a
traditional teacher (writing lesson plans, developing tests and assigning
grades). The list of "survival
skills" (Tony Wagner, who interpreted a list from p21.org) gives a lens
that helps students focus on what they should pull out of each lesson, each
ebook, each video, and each activity that I send home.
Become an ex-teacher. Become a
facilitator. Read these quotations daily with your students (in online
classes, distribute one or two of the quotations and ask students to reflect on
how we can apply procedures in the class to meet the aims of the quotations).
Paste the words on walls (or in email messages) and ask students to rewrite the
ideas in their own words. "Let's
gradually transfer the responsibility for their learning to the students"
(a quotation by John Gardner). The mantram is “NO MORE BORING LESSONS” (A mantram is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words
that is considered capable of "creating transformation" -- Wikipedia). Using
Clark’s rule, we should add a specific procedure: “personalize the curriculum by setting up
personal learning plans for each student.” Let's see how transforming one teacher can
transform a school. Download ebooks and
videos on a DVD or USB flash drive and send your lessons home. If your students
have a robust connection to the Internet at home, then compile lists of
websites and videos that they can watch with their parents (starting with Ten
Videos, Ten Ebooks and Ten Websites). Observe what happens, write your
anecdotal evidence and send your observations to TheGuideOnTheSide@gmail.com. You are invited to spread this
virus of guiding on the side.
References
Aungst, G. (3 October 2011).
"Don't be creative." Retrieved at http://www.connectedprincipals.com/archives/4676
on 24 October 2011.
Clark, R. and Feldon, D.
(2004). "Five
Common but Questionable Principles of Multimedia Learning." Retrieved at http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/clark_five_common.pdf
Fellet, M. (2011). “Faculty
collaborate to improve online education.” Stanford Report (newspaper,
June 28). Retrieved at http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/june/improved-online-courseware-062811.html
on 24 October
2011.
Fischler, A. (July 2006). "My
vision." http://Abe.TheStudentIsTheClass.com
(blog). Also at www.Transform-Education.com
Gardner, H. (1994). Intelligence
reframed. New York: Basic Books.
Gimbar, K. (2009). Why I flipped my classroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aGuLuipTwg
King, A. (1993). “From sage
on the stage to guide on the side.” College Teaching 41(1), 30-35.
Littky, D. (2004). The Big
Picture: Education is everybody's business. Alexandria, Va.:
ASCD.org.
McCrea, S. and Llorente, M. (2011).
Let's Lecture Less. Lulu.com.
Pink, D. (2010). Drive:
The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York: Penguin
Group.
Pink, D. (2009). TED Talk. The Puzzle of Motivation, retrieved
from http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html.
Postman, N. and Weingartner, C.
(1971) Teaching as a subversive activity. New York:
Dell Books.
Robinson, K. (2009). The
element. New York: Penguin Group.
Stanford University (2009).
“Faculty collaborate to improve online education.” Retrieved from the
Internet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld5yexNl5I0
on 24 October 2011.
Wagner, T. (2009) The Seven Survival Skills. http://www.tonywagner.com/7-survival-skills
Yuzenas, D. (2011).
"Motivation," an article in Guide On The Side. Fort
Lauderdale, FL: Sundial Press.
Author
Steve McCrea is founder of
BuildingInternationalBridges.org (BIB), a charity inspired by the
lifework of Brooks Emeny (a pioneer in international relations). BIB promotes wider use of social networks and
computer-based discussions in classrooms and homes through BIBPenpals.com. He
is a part-time instructor at a charter school and at Broward College in Fort
Lauderdale. He is currently coordinating the translation of his book Let's
Lecture Less (which prints pieces of his website www.GuideontheSide.com)
into eight languages and the translation of Dennis Littky's book The Big
Picture into Spanish and Arabic. He wrote a curriculum for a project-based
learning high school ( QBEAcademy.net). Eight people have taken his online
workshop to become qualified as Visual and Active Teachers (VATT) and his
Certificate of Applied Instructional Technologies is offered through the
University of Havana. He is a doctoral student at Nova Southeastern
University. He can be reached at TheEBookMan@gmail.com, www.Facebook.com/TheGuideontheSide
and by mobile at +1 (954) 646.8246. The posters and ebooks mentioned in this
article are available for download at TransformTeaching.org and he will send a
free copy of the "DVD for Parents" (with videos, ebooks and audio
files) on request ($2 to cover the cost of duplication and shipping is
appreciated). The 4 gigabytes of files
can also be transferred via a strong Skype connection (Steve’s Skype account is
SteveEnglishTeacher).
Free Ebooks available at www.TransformTeaching.org and on the “DVD for Parents.”
Ten Videos, Ten Ebooks, Ten
Websites
Let’s Lecture Less
Guide on the Side
Dominos for Schools
Building Better Schools by Abraham
S. Fischler (edited by S. McCrea)
Free Posters
Videos at www.Youtube.com/visualandactive
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