Restoring Meaning to Teaching (video)
Authors: Karen Alderete, Glenda Copeland, Chris Ferguson, Sandra Finley, Stephen Marble, Victor Rodriguez
| Product ID: T&L-08 | Price: Available free online |
- Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Student Learning
- Developing Collegial Dialogue
- Reflecting on The Practice of Teaching
Watch the Video
SEDL has published several publications about Promoting Instructional Coherence:
- A Flashlight and a Compass: A Collection of Tools to Promote Instructional Coherence
- Annotated Bibliography of Resources for Educational Reform, Coherent Teaching Practice, and Improved Student Learning
- Instructional Coherence: The Changing Role of the Teacher
- Promoting Teacher Inquiry: A Study Group Approach
- Restoring Meaning to Teaching (companion video)
- Using Reflection to Promote Instructional Coherence
Text Transcript of the Video
Parker Palmer: Most teachers go into teaching because it's a movement of the heart. You don't get into teaching to get rich and famous. You go into teaching because you have a passion about a subject, about students, and about showing students this new window to the world.
Narrator: The first day in the classroom as a brand new teacher is unforgettable. After years of study, at last you have the opportunity to educate and nurture young minds. But all too often, and all too soon, the passion to teach is lost in the bog of paperwork, problems, and politics. Parker Palmer is a writer and teacher who addresses the issues that affect the teacher and the classroom.
Parker Palmer: Public school teachers are certainly a good example of folks who have a lot of projections laid on them. In our society, we ask public school teachers to solve all of the problems that no other institution knows how to solve, and then we blame them for not being able to do that. If a teacher absorbs all of those projections and goes around feeling—either on the one hand guilty and inadequate—or on the other hand bitter and angry, both of those things drain the person of the heart to teach.
Narrator: How can teachers get past their loss of heart and find purpose in what they do? The Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL), through its work with teachers across the southwest has found three key strategies that help teachers find gratification and restore the meaning to teaching. One strategy is to shift the focus from your teaching to the learning needs of your students. Teacher and researcher Karen Gallas has spent many years listening to children and writing about how they learn. She has found that shifting focus helps teachers understand what their students are telling them.
Karen Gallas: Once we really start looking at children and inquiring into what they're telling us and what we're understanding, we also need to pay attention to the things that motivate them and drive their learning.
Narrator: When teachers know what motivates their students, they can see them as learners. But teachers get distracted by day-to-day frustrations — too little time, too many students, and mountains of paperwork. Vickie Brown, a preK to 5th grade science teacher, was frustrated by the many demands that complicated her students' learning experiences.
Vickie Brown: It's easy to become frustrated as teachers, because we have so many demands placed on us, not only from the curriculum we are to teach, but we have children who may have physical or emotional needs, or social needs that are not being met in another area.
Narrator: Like Vickie, most teachers face similar challenges to classroom learning. Vickie got past her frustrations when she shifted her focus to her students and looked more closely at their needs. She was delighted by what happened.
Vickie Brown: As I shifted into that area of focusing more on their needs, I started having those successes with the children. When that one child says, "Hey, I have something I didn't have" the light bulb goes on and it all clicks and it's like "Oh, this is easy!" After you've been struggling, that's what you are here for. To see these children finally realize for themselves, it becomes their own, "I can do this. I worked hard. It wasn't easy for me, but you know what, I had someone who believed in me, and I was able to learn." And, for this, now I'm excited.
Narrator: In the case of Judy Courreges, a fourth grade teacher, she encountered a student whose emotional needs created a barrier between her teaching and his learning.
Judy Courreges: With this particular child, the frustration level was so high, because I felt that I was not reaching him, and I didn't know how to reach him. I didn't feel like I had the proper tools. The proper— not just physical tools—but mental tools. I felt like my heart was in the right place, but I needed to get my heart and my mind together, so that I knew what to do and how to do it for this little boy. We would have instances of tremendous confrontation, to the point that the child had to be physically removed on several occasions. My first reaction was, "Maybe I should just sit down and cry," and then I knew I couldn't do that because I was not serving a purpose for him.
Narrator: As long as Judy focused on this student's actions, and how she handled his tantrums, she couldn't reach him. When she shifted her focus to him, she discovered what he needed from her to allow him to learn.
Judy Courreges: Early on, I was not very compassionate when it came to this particular child, because I felt like "he was just a spoiled little brat." Do you understand? And then, as we went farther and farther, and we got more history and more appropriate data, I was able to refocus myself and say, "You know what? This child needs help. He needs kindness. He needs tenderness." He also needs that strictness and that sense that he's not going to run over me. But, by the same token, he needs that extra pat on the back that says, "You've done good today!"
Narrator: Karen's classroom confrontation involved a group of boys trying to control the dynamics of the group.
Karen Gallas: I think I really first started to notice it when I was working on sharing time, trying to put into place a new way of looking at sharing time in my class in which the child who was sharing world sit in my chair, and I would sit in the audience and participate as an audience member. And I remember the first time that I noticed, when an African-American girl was in the chair and she was sharing, and she got ready to tell a story and the little boys basically said, "Oh this is boring." There were about three of them, and they literally turned their backs on her and would lay down on the floor and that was to me just the height of insult, because we has spent so much time trying to have everybody respectfully participate in the sharing.
Narrator: Rather than focus on her control over the situation as a teacher, Karen shifted her focus to the boys themselves. Once she understood what they were doing, she could help them learn.
Karen Gallas: I began to think about trying to look at them a little more closely, and try to figure out 'what were they doing,' because I really wasn't sure. Once I can see them clearly and see their purposes and their fears and their strengths, once they're willing to show that in front of their friends, because they know it's a safe place, then I know how to proceed, but to do that I had to also be able to do that myself. I had to be able to give up some of the inherent power in being a teacher. Some of that control and I had to show them myself as a learner. I had to be learning with them.
Narrator: Like these teachers, you can shift the focus from what 'you' do to what your 'students' learn. Hear yourself less; hear your children more. By listening and watching, you will begin to understand your students and better meet their needs as learners. This process isn't simple, but the rewards are well worth it. Another strategy to restore meaning to teaching is to talk with your colleagues about educational issues and ideas.
Parker Palmer: I think it's about learning to be human in the presence of other human beings, and having a kind of conversation with fellow teachers, with people who understand your situation, that isn't a gripe session or isn't a searching for what's the fix that's going to make all this right, but it's a long slow process of truth-telling, of saying, "This is how it is for me. This is who I am."
Narrator: You would think in a school full of teachers, you would have ample opportunity to share your thoughts with others. But days can go by without meaningful conversation with your colleagues. It's especially difficult if, like Vickie, your classroom is isolated in the first place.
Vickie Brown: I was not assigned to a mentor teacher. I was basically on my own. Physically I was even in a building outside of the building. So, I was pretty well segregated other than some people who worked physically across the hall. It was an outdoor walkway separated. I was in a classroom on my own, and so that was kind of frustrating.
Narrator: But, teachers can feel isolated regardless of their classroom's placement. The sense of being alone makes it hard to share the concerns about your students with others.
Judy Courreges: In the first two to three years that I taught, it was the situation where I was doing this all by myself, and in the back of my mind, I was questioning, "Am I doing enough? Am I doing the right things?" "Am I doing what's appropriate to the grade level? Am I overextending? Am I teaching below these kids?" The feeling of isolation by not planning with other teachers has added years to me—many grey hairs— many sleepless nights, because I wasn't able to bounce off other people—to look at what they were doing. The old cliché about two heads are better than one is even more appropriate when you talk through your foreheads, because you are looking at the differences of opinions and ideas and how you bring those together.
Narrator: Building a community of colleagues breaks down that sense of isolation. By sharing experiences, you can build relationships that encourage you and remind you that you are not alone.
Parker Palmer: None of that is going to happen if collegial relations within a school are as fragmented and broken as student-teacher relationships sometimes are. When you have fragmented and broken relationships, you don't have a learning situation in the classroom. And when you have fragmented and broken relationships, you don't have the type of collegial community that can become a form of power for change—for positive change.
Narrator: You can build collegial relations when you find time to get together to listen to each other and talk about issues that affect your classroom and school. Vickie connected with fellow teachers in a study group where she became an integral part of the group, in spite of her isolated classroom.
Vickie Brown: What we've been able to do is share ideas, share philosophies of education, I don't necessarily always agree with what people say, but that's OK. I have my thoughts; they have their thoughts, but it has sometimes made me reflect in a different area that I had not thought of before.
Narrator: Judy found encouragement to work with her troubled fourth grader when she discussed the situation with colleagues in her study group.
Judy Courreges: Dialoguing has opened up this thing that says I'm not alone in this boat, because there are other people doing the same thing. Because of my conversations with other professionals, I think I have the patience that's going to say, "I'm going to make this. I think that I can be of benefit to this child, because of a lot of the help that I've gotten from others."
Narrator: Dialoguing with colleagues benefits your students as you take valuable insight back to your classroom. It can happen in a study group or in one-on-one conversations. However you connect with your colleagues, collegial relations install confidence in yourself as a teacher, and restore the meaning to teaching.
Parker Palmer: In community, we can encourage each other, which I think is a word, encourage, that means literally 'to take heart.'
Narrator: Another strategy to restore meaning to teaching is finding time to reflect and be thoughtful about your teaching.
Parker Palmer: I don't know how good work of any sort in any field gets done without being deeply reflective about who is doing the work. What are those inner qualities that are driving the methods, the techniques, the skills. Who is the self who is holding this information?
Narrator: Reflection allows teachers to examine the self that ultimately defines them at teachers. Reflection helps you address the internal struggles that affect your teaching philosophies and practices.
Vickie Brown: In my first three years of teaching, I never felt like I really got a handle on my teaching. Some things went well; some things didn't, but I just kept knowing that there was something missing. But, I couldn't put my finger on it.
Narrator: Something was bothering Vickie about her teaching, but she wasn't sure what it was. By spending time in reflection, she was able to look at herself honestly and tackle her concerns in a direct manner. Once she had a clear picture, she could choose her direction.
Vickie Brown: I think more than anything else, it's made me reflect on "What am I doing?" not just "I'm here to teach curriculum," but reflect on "What is happening? Where are we going? How are we progressing?" "How can I improve?" These things didn't. "Well, OK. What can I do to make these better?" And, if I am doing something good, "What can I still do to make it even better, to make it more powerful for the children?"
Narrator: Karen found that when she took time to reflect on her teaching, she discovered a new view of herself fro the eyes of her students.
Karen Gallas: What I found has been the most critical piece for me is that I've become very self-conscious as the teacher. And I think that is something we're not taught to value as teachers— to be self-conscious, and by self-conscious I mean I started to see the children watching me, and listen, and I started to notice the effects of even a "look" and the effect that would have on an entire class of children, and so I really now would like people to celebrate the sense of being self-conscious—that it's not something to be afraid of.
Narrator: To develop a sense of self-consciousness and find time for reflection, some teachers write in personal journals, others record their thoughts on tape or dialogue with colleagues. The method is not critical; all that's important is time. Time for yourself, to examine your profession, and discover how you can restore meaning to teaching and help your students learn. Restoring meaning to teaching doesn't happen overnight. The three strategies: Shifting the focus from teaching to learning, talking with colleagues, and reflecting on the practice of teaching are dependent on one another. Used together, building on each other, they can restore the meaning and joy to teaching.
Vickie Brown: We are here for the children. When I hear them being excited, we can't wait to lead them back to the classroom. That's what it's all about.
