Years ago our school's science department ran an annual research symposium that we called "Festivus." The name was a vicious ripoff of a Seinfeld bit, and the name was about the only thing that our event had in common with Frank Costanza's made-up holiday. It was a reasonably cool thing. Kids would prepare presentations on a scientific research topic of their choice in 11th grade across 3 different subjects. Students could even work with partners in other classes. We would invite members of the scientific community and academia to come and judge the presentations. Students would get all dressed up and we'd make an evening of it. Pretty progressive for being over a dozen years ago, hey?
What ever happened to it? Quite simply, we axed it. It was just too much work. The coordination and communication of all the judges was hours upon hours of work alone. But that extra effort would have been tolerable had it not been for what the project did to the rest of our classes. We set aside multiple class days for students to research and prepare their talks. Each presentation required a visual, so triboards and PowerPoints all needed to be completed. All the talks were dry-ran in front of peers for feedback before the "real thing." Hours of in-class and out-of-class time was spent perfecting the research, its synthesis, and its presentation.
But once we were done squeezing open our semesters to fit in Festivus, we then had to race like mad to stand-and-deliver our way through to completing all our course objectives in time for final exams. It was exhausting. We poured all this time and energy into a two to three week project only to pretty much destroy the other 14 or 15 weeks of our terms. It was hard on the kids, and hard on us.
Where had we gone wrong? Was Festivus a waste of time? Certainly, in retrospect, I'd have changed a few things, but more recently I've realized that it wasn't Festivus that needed to change. It was the rest of the semester.
It's taken some time, but I've come to realize that the exclusive use of teacher-centered methods, while safe, familiar, and comfortable are ultimately as bad for my mental health as for that of my students'. The body of literature extolling the virtues of progressive education models for students is massive. I'll concede that the jury (at least the scientifically supported with data jury) is still out on many progressive methodologies as far as their efficacy for students goes. In this post, however, I'd like to share my equally unsupported with data theory that certain progressive methods are good for teachers too. That is, they offer us both the opportunity to be more effective teachers, but they also give us the opportunity to do a better job of balancing our work lives and non-work lives.
I'm not going to try to bite off every progressive method. Some are more illustrative than others, and I'm already wordy enough. Let me, however illustrate why adoption of certain progressive habits makes such a big difference in the life of the average educator:
Team Teaching:
I've already expressed my insistence that this is the most important systemic change required in education today, so I shouldn't need to beat the horse much "deader." That said, I've got one of the most salient and juicy sales pitches to you teachers still on the fence about this one:
No Sub Plans.
I'll give you a sec to let that sink in... Go ahead... Let it rattle around a bit.
Picture this: it's a Tuesday morning. You wake up and your head is pounding, your throat feels like it is harboring tiny porcupines, and your sinuses are so runny, you're considering crushing up Sinutab tablets and just snorting them Scarface style. You need to call in a sub. Your options are to frantically type out a set of plans for them in the desperate hope that the day won't just wind up being a complete write-off for your kids or just sucking it up and heading in despite the likelihood you will spread this plague to every colleague and student who passes within a meter of you.
But what if instead, you've got a partner teacher or two that you're cohorting with at school? Well then it's nothing more than a simple phone call: "sorry to do this to you, but I've got the plague. Can you handle them today?" They tell you it's no problem and you settle in with a pack of Dayquil and enough Dristan to unclog a toilet without a second thought to what's not happening in your classes. Down the road, you'll probably return the favor, and you'll be happy to do it, for you'll understand the wisdom that is not living on an island as a teacher.
I bet there will be people reading this who will want to make a shift for this benefit alone (I too loathe doing up sub plans). So I don't even have to go into the value of being able to trade off shouldering the kids for a period while your partner gets caught up on some marking or planning. Or having an extra set of eyes in the room when you're trying to manage a number of smaller group discussions. Or being able to meet privately with kids to give feedback or assess while the other teacher is managing a larger discussion. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Trust me gang... you want this in your lives.
Making Community Connections:
Finding experts, allies, initiatives, and partners outside your school's walls is powerful for a lot of reasons. Some of the unmentioned reasons include the fact that it gives you the teacher an opportunity to learn alongside your students. Going into a "field experience" with a limitation on your own understanding puts you in the position that your students are in. That is a truly invaluable perspective and may even allow you to better refine your own teaching practices in light of what you learn by taking on the role of learner.
It also potentially offers you more productivity in your day. For instance, if you've brought in a carpenter to help your physics students design and construct their projectile hurling objects, that potentially provides you with more freedom to work with students who are struggling a bit more with the physics behind their trebuchets. The saying goes that "many hands make for light work," but in this context, it also makes for better work.
Projects:
I may or may not do a post on Project Based Learning down the road, but it won't be a How-To if I do go there. That's because there is such a wealth of internet resources on the subject, that there is no way that I would be able to approach the quality and quantity of even a thin slice of the best sites. If I do a PBL post, it will likely be more of a "hey just because you're doing PBL, doesn't mean you stop teaching" post.
Being an effective PBL teacher can also very liberating. One of the things that doing a lot of PBL forces you to do is to take stock of all the little bits of work you used to make kids do before your PBL-life. Sitting down with your curriculum and your resources and carefully asking yourself (or better yet, asking your learning team) why you make kids do the things that you make them do, and being very honest about your answers, will often reveal that your students probably do a lot of busy work. It's probably very well designed busy work, but having both done this exercise and seen other educators do this exercise in a number of different settings, I'm reasonably convinced that most of us will find that there is actually a lot of fat to trim in most of the classes we teach. Replacing that fat with engaging, intense, visible, connected, and relevant project or inquiry work releases you from a lot of that paper burden.
I often advise my students that it's not just about working hard, but about working smart -- making the most of the time you have and getting maximum bang for your buck. I used to do that while carrying around stacks and stacks of marking that often didn't get completed until a final exam break started and I would finally have time to catch up on it all. What hypocrisy. More recently I've started taking my own advice and have learned how to give more precise and useful feedback with less paper coming home with me. Emphasizing quality of assessment over quantity of assessment can make for better and more efficient feedback with less paper to take home each day.
Making Learning Visible:
Having students exhibit and present their work to an audience outside the school environment is tremendously powerful for improving productivity and buy-in from students. But we also can't deny its effect on us either. When we invite our stakeholders in to observe our kids, we invite them in to observe us as well. That layer of accountability works for us too, and I think it's a good thing. And let's not also forget that feedback, whether bad or good can be valuable. We can't ignore the positive bump in job satisfaction that comes with hearing a thank you from a parent who is thrilled with the work their son or daughter has done in your class.
Additionally, exhibiting also gives us an all-important avenue for making more community connections. It's part of the networking process that I think will be essential to effective 21st century education. Inviting even just your students' parents in to see the display of student work throughout the year might just supply you with the connection for the next great project or partnership.
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TL;DR: Are the pressures of teaching driving you to an early grave, or at least an early retirement? Collaborate with colleagues, make connections in your community, shift to more student-centered practices, and exhibit their (and your) learning. Then enjoy your new lease on life and the career you imagined back when you first applied to teacher college!
Vive la revolution!!
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