The sole true end of education is to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.
Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning”
As educators, we get excited when classrooms come alive: Hands shoot up. Eyes brighten. And body language across the room broadcasts that discovery is underway.
The other day I stepped in to sub for our science teacher and experienced a fresh taste of these kinds of moments. The class had been studying insects all semester and the topic of the day was beetles. Now, my background is in the humanities, not science, and my teaching experience is not in science instruction. As I studied the lesson plan and scanned the text, the wheels in my mind began to turn. On the one hand, I felt inadequate. What did I know about beetles and the broader field of entomology? How could I step in with minimal prep and pull off an excellent lesson? But on the other hand, all was well. Despite my lack of expertise, I knew what I needed to do: lean on the teaching techniques I had accumulated over the years.
Teaching is a craft. It requires a set of complex skills that, when carefully honed over time, come together with mastery to create something new. These skills in turn can be broken down into techniques.
For example, cultivating a strong classroom culture is a skill. It takes thought, sustained effort, and experience to lead a group of students to interact, collaborate, study, and speak a certain way. It takes practice to learn the secret to holding students to high expectations while letting them never doubt for a second that you support and care for their well-being. If you were to ask a master teacher how she does it, she may not be able to tell you at first. She may even attribute the culture to great students or just getting lucky. But if you press her on specifics, or better, take the time to observe, you will learn that the specific things she does and says to make the culture come alive. In other words, techniques.
Another example: supporting each student to reach his or her full potential as a learner. We probably all have memories growing up of certain teachers who were “easier” than others. Perhaps they would not grade very rigorously or they would let you just get away with napping in the back. In these classrooms, only a small percentage of students actually cared, and an even small percentage applied themselves fully. Most students were not called up to reach their full potential. Sadly, this sort of classroom is probably more often the norm than the exception. But it does not have to be that way. Again, when teachers are equipped with the right techniques, they can pretty quickly make small adjustments and transform students from passive spectators to engaged learners.
Going back to my science class on beetles, I committed right away to using two techniques. First, I committed to a technique from Teach Like a Champion 2.0 called Cold-Call. Instead of calling only on students who raised their hands, I called on students at random. No student could hide. No student could take a pass. All students were invited into the learning experience.
Second, I committed to asking questions more often than providing answers. To some extent, of course, I did not have much of a choice. Having studied entomology all semester, these students knew much more about insects than I did. If I entered the classroom with the intent to wax eloquent, I would not last long. However, even if I did happen to be an amateur beetle expert, I would not have shown it. My strategy to facilitate strong engagement would be to spark student conversation around the topic. To do this, I would resist sharing what I knew and instead ask good questions. For example: “How do you know?” “How does this relate to other insects you have studied?” “Help my understand why…” Through this question-asking exercise, the class quickly ignited into a firework show of ideas, thoughts, and new thought-provoking questions.
Expand Your Tool Belt
If you are a teacher in need of some fresh techniques for your tool belt, I invite you to register for my live webinar on the topic in a couple weeks. I plan to walk through five top techniques that you can implement in your classrooms or homeschools immediately. These techniques will enhance your teaching ability and will do so in a distinctively classical way: getting to great ideas, pondering time-tested values, and honing skills in the liberal arts.
While the end of the year is winding down, now is a great time to receive some fresh inspiration to make it this last stretch of the year. Our students are worth it!
