With the return of Major League Baseball, my thoughts this week took me back to Kevin Costner's scene in the movie "A Field of Dreams." As the ghosts of baseball's past look to Costner as an avenue to bring back a renewed energy to one of America's pastimes, the words "If you build it...they will come" grew into a forever-remembered tagline for the blockbuster film. And, that line stuck with me as I thought about my experience this week in connection to learning design and the emphasis teachers should have on such an important foundation to all work with students.
As I met with teachers this week in our local Writing Project Summer Institute gathering, I had an opportunity to participate in a teaching demonstration constructed by a high school teacher, fellow colleague, and friend. My friend prefaced his teaching demonstration with contextual thoughts - he teaches in a predominately rural, white, conservative school district and that the material he chose to share with the Writing Project group that morning was the first time he had ever taught the material. The centerpiece to my friend's demonstration that morning connected to Nic Stone's Dear Martin because he wanted to use literature as a means to discuss current social events with his high school students this fall.
The teaching demonstration started by having the participants think and list aspects that connect to their personal identities. From that created list, we were encouraged to choose one those identities and expand our thoughts about why this identity seemed essential to each of us. As we continued the demonstration, my friend then invited us to examine our personal identities and think about various other identities that others may embody. His example related to being a father - other aspects might be mother, single parent, no children, and so on. It was with this brainstorm that my friend asked we write from another perspective to tell a story that isn't our own.
At that point, I put my pencil down and did not participate in the writing activity. After a period of time, my friend asked for volunteers to read the created stories. Many teachers shared their narratives of other lived experiences unknowingly laced with nuances, biases, and stereotypes. When my friend read his writing about being a single mother, I couldn't keep quiet any longer.
"I'd like to talk about why I didn't participate in this assignment" I spoke up to the group. Many of the teachers turned their heads and raised their eyebrows at my words. My friend - lovingly and willingly - wanted me to speak my peace. From there, I professed to the group that I felt it was extremely wrong to create stories from places of other lived experiences beyond our own. If the need is to cultivate empathy and listening to others, we should be talking to others who identify in those means, not make up speculation in the form of fiction. I called attention to my friend who wrote his piece from a woman's perspective. I didn't appreciate it. Men have spent decades speaking on behalf of women, but it doesn't mean that it's right.
As I brought my points forward, my friend unveiled his blindfold, apologetically understood my talking points, and engaged the group in how his teaching demonstration lesson could be strengthen and revised. To his credit, my friend said that he just wants to "do these conversations the right way."
Upon reflection, I thought about the blindness my friend experienced when thinking about his assignment. And, while I believe that we should always stay in a lane of listening and learning as humans; to me, I felt like his work really came down to design. This left me with these questions:
Why isn't design more prevalent in today's work with students?
How can we rethink the nature of design to support student learning experiences?
Why Not Design?
In many classrooms, one might see the labeled organized shelves, the collaborative seating arrangements, and even the collection of motivational posters downloaded from Pinterest, but, as teachers, do we ever stop to think about the 'why' behind our professional decision-making? Specifically, when it comes to curricular design? As I'm sure you've guessed by now, the bedrock of TeachWhys seeks to emphasize WHY we do things in the classroom with students.
Participating in this week's Writing Project teaching demonstration, it became one of the first questions I asked my friend, "Why did you choose to do this?" And, while he answered by noting his need to cultivate empathy among his students, the question did create a pause for him as it became obvious he had to think about it.
Design planning tells us that the WHY should drive our understanding to help us follow through with the HOW and the WHAT. Simon Sinek explains in his TED Talk "Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Action" the importance of why because it's the driving force for understanding the purpose and goals of....in this case, learning.
When we mantle WHY in our design as teachers, we become...
More Responsive. We can be more responsive in our teaching and the resources we need in order to support student learning. Not only can we be more responsive in the resources our learners may need when we use design but we can also be more in tune with the messages our learning experience may or may not send prior to engaging students.
A Facilitator. When we're not tied to the daily planning of our classroom or the haunting question of "What am I going to do tomorrow?"... we become facilitators to our students because these visionary elements have been planned prior to even starting the learning experience.
Focused. We're focused on the end goals of our learning experiences and decisions related this focus become easy and manageable.
Stronger Communicators. We can articulate our vision so that students can make it a part of their own learning journey. Additionally, classroom stakeholders like parents, community members, and school administration can understand this planning if they understand WHY we make the choices we do as teachers.
Rethinking the Nature of Design
So, how do we integrate more design into our curricular planning? How do we start with the WHY? Take some time to look at the topics/texts/themes you want to engage students in throughout the school year. Choose one of those areas to focus on, specifically.
As teachers, we focus quite a bit on what we need and what we'll be doing with students - but what if we took what has already been created and put it through a series of questions that help us think through the learning experience using design?
Using the guide above, we can rethink how we construct learning experiences for our students. In addition, we can seek to understand our work from a bird's eye view and then hone in on the details as we continue to understand our students' needs as we venture throughout the planning process.
As I asked my friend these questions in connection to his teaching demonstration, I could see that as he was thinking deeply about his answers. He concluded that his practice would have been designed differently as he became aware of the blindness he evoked in his lesson. Motivated by change, he used those questions to rethink his teaching demonstration as he plans to engage students in meaningful and important work later in the year.
One step in taking back our professional practice as teachers must come in the form of design. WE are the professionals...WE are the designers, the prescribers, the motivators, the engagers. When we take time to focus on the WHY of our work, we invite others to be empowered by this vision as well.
If we build it....they will learn!
Comments