Friday, February 4, 2011

Teacher talk


Everybody see that?
You want me to go over that again?
Did I go too fast for you?

Even without context, we recognize these as teacher phrases. These are things well-meaning teachers routinely say to students in an effort to be encouraging and positive about the lesson at hand. There are many more phrases such as these; I am sure you can think of some.

One of my mentors, David R. Johnson from Nicolet High School in suburban Milwaukee, wrote an article, “Every Minute Counts,” and a sequel, “Making Minutes Count Even More.” The articles deal with the nitty-gritty of teaching mathematics. Even the titles embrace an important idea: that good teachers make use of every minute. There is no time to be wasted. 

I bring up these articles now because David had considerable insight about these teacher phrases, and I would like to share some of his thoughts with you.

“Everybody see that?” This kind of question is not answerable by a student and teaches them to ignore my questions.

“You want me to go over that again?” They really didn’t want me to go over it the first time.

“Did I go too fast for you? “ No. Faster, faster. Let’s get this done.

“Here’s an easy one.” This comment could be one of the worst things we say. As a student: if I get it right, so what, it was easy; but what if I don’t? Then I know I can’t even do the easy ones.

When I first heard these comments from David, they hit me hard. I recognized the accuracy of his observations. I also recognized these remarks as things I said virtually every day. I tried to change my habits, but it was hard. Gradually, I realized that these bad habits were symptomatic of a larger problem with my teaching. I was still thinking of myself as the person who was explaining math so well that it would be clear to everyone. My classes were still teacher-centered. 

It took me a long time, and a lot of trial and error to change what was happening in my class so that students were working on authentic problems that taught them important ideas in a coherent way, while I observed and learned from them how they were thinking and what progress they had made.

The questions that David discusses are all about how well I am doing, not how well my students are doing. I look over these remarks, and it strikes me that all of them assume that it is my job as a teacher to explain, and it is the student’s job to listen and therefore learn. Those job descriptions highlight what is really wrong with these teacher comments. The answers to these questions, these comments, are really meant to reassure me that I am doing well in explaining, which is not the point at all. The real question, every minute of every class, is how well are each and every one of my students doing as they struggle to comprehend the new ideas I have confronted them with today. And the best way for me to measure comprehension is to walk around and listen to what they have to say to each other and look at what they write. Then it is still not my job to explain to them how math works. It is my job to ask interesting questions and then to direct the discussion students are having as they try to figure things out. 

A coda: I never would have figured all of this out by myself. We need each other: teachers need students, and teachers need other teachers so that we can all contemplate best models from every angle. I am a pretty good teacher, but only because of the wisdom that has been passed on to me by people like David Johnson.

3 comments:

  1. John, Two comments. First, I could not agree with you more that the most important thing a teacher can do is to set a qood question before the students. When they want achieve a goal there is very little they won't do to get there.....

    The second comment has to do with working with others to improve your instruction. I have never been fortunate to work in a building where teacher routinely visit each others classrooms. When I did the work for my National Board Certification I was forced to video myself and watch it over and over. It was invaluable to see what I did wrong! Much of it is exactly what you write about....those little phrases that are terrible habits. It would have been great to have a peer visit my class and tell me years ago that I needed to stop saying "Is that clear?" I encourage all of you who work on a faculty where visiting each other is an option, to organize a rotation to visit and comment on just such things. Every one wins. Kathleen

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  2. Classics! All 3 of David's books are here:

    http://www.amazon.com/01273-EVERY-MINUTE-COUNTS-SEYMOUR/dp/0866510818

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  3. Any questions? is one of my favorite nonquestions.

    I just spoke with my students the other day about this. About how most of the time, we math teachers don't really mean it when we ask that. And that the evidence that we don't really mean it is that we move right on after we ask it.

    And I told them that I really do mean it. And that evidence for this will be that (1) I ask a different form, What questions do you have?, and (2) I will sometimes wait until everyone is bored and dying for me to move on before actually moving on.

    And yet, I almost didn't wait long enough today. I was ready to move on after what felt like a long wait to me when a student raised his hand.

    Thanks for the reminder.

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