More Than One Right Way

Think of your top five favorite teachers?  Were they all alike?  I cannot speak for you, but mine were not.  I had great teachers who used many different techniques to accomplish their goals.  Some of my best teachers were strict about deadlines, teaching me about responsibility.  Others were willing to accept things late, teaching me about flexibility.  I had great teachers who engaged us in collaborative efforts, but one of my favorite teachers was a straight-up lecturer.  I was enthralled by him, and I learned a lot as I absorbed every word.  One of my best teachers always affirmed students' thinking, even if they were wrong; but another one of my great teachers was not shy about telling you when you were wrong and needed to think again.  Not all great teachers look the same. 

Even in the midst of COVID-19, the beginning of the school year starts with professional development.  Professional development is great, but it can make you feel terrible.  One of the people near me (who is a fantastic teacher, by the way) said that she always feels guilty when she sits in a seminar because she thinks they are telling her that what she currently does is wrong.  It isn't.  I work with fabulous teachers, and their approach to education is fabulous.  I'm not saying we can't all learn ways to improve, but great teachers shouldn't feel like they have to turn everything they are doing upside down in order to fit in box that holds the current educational fad.  

Here's the thing.  There's a lot of science behind what we do.  You can see a myriad of my own blog posts regarding things I've learned from Learning and the Brain conferences to see that there is a ton of science that can inform our technique.  There is, however, also a lot of art to our craft.  Just like a painter can understand the chemistry of paint, but mix it different ways to get the hues they want in their painting, we can apply the same brain science in a myriad of ways to accomplish learning in our classrooms.  One of the most interesting speakers at last year's Learning and the Brain conference made a great analogy.  He said the experiments we carry out in education research are like plants in a greenhouse.  We have very controlled conditions, so we can test one specific variable (because that's what a good scientific experiment is).  The conclusions we draw are based on those very narrowly drawn parameters.  Applying those techniques in your classroom, he said, is like growing plants in your yard.  You no longer have control over the conditions, and there are many variables involved that will influence the outcome of your technique.  That means you can't just adopt wholesale a technique based on the idea that "studies say" this works well.   You have to adapt techniques to your context.  It would be crazy to think that some techniques wouldn't work differently in a rural area than in an urban one.  I know some techniques that do NOT work in public school work beautifully in a Christian school because there is a different expectation of worldview.  Kids who have suffered trauma will respond differently to some words than those who have not experienced trauma.  As a science teacher who is interested in brain research, I have to resist the idea that there is a magic pill that will work with every brain.

I know there are some procedures in the world that can only be done in one right way.  I assume there is only one right way to land a 747, and that all other ways are dangerous.  Brain surgery, I imagine, doesn't have a lot of room for the individual expression of the surgeon.  Teaching is not restrictive in that way.  You might be a teacher who strongly believes in a student-led classroom and get your students to learn a lot, but you might also be a teacher who knows that their expertise is valuable to your students and that they don't know what they don't know and teach your students a lot as well.  There is not ONE right way to teach a class, and every other way is wrong.  There are at least a dozen right ways to teach the same content, so don't feel guilty if the one you have chosen doesn't fit the seminar you are sitting in.  That may just be another one of the right ways.

You don't have to be the same as the teacher across the hall to be a great teacher.  Good teachers don't fit in a box, so stop trying to make yourself fit in one.