Excerpt from Teaching Lessons
Physical infrastructure is highly prized in educational settings. It is critical to the success of our schools. Clean, well developed spaces, with the latest technology, are central to improving our schools. It is a tangible, visible way in which communities can express their support of learning. It provides the opportunity for teachers to teach and for students to learn. However, the quality of instruction is based on the aspects of teaching and learning that are invisible. It is the quality of the relationships that are expressed in the classrooms that impact directly the effectiveness of learning and teaching.
This “Cultural Infrastructure” is what elevates learning. When schools use these factors effectively, achievement happens. Students learn. Relationships that create positive learning environments are the key to achievement. Negative perceptions and poor attitudes destroy the opportunity to learn, no matter how wonderful the facilities may be. Without tending to these factors, there will be no improvement in learning. I want to look at several manifestations of this need for cultural infrastructure.
The first relationship is between the parents and the school. Do parents support the school? The term support implies two things. First, are the parents committed to the importance of school in their lives and the lives of their children? Do they enforce homework first as a primary value in the home? All parents should be required to participate in their child’s school. Many students will not doubt resist limitations on their freedom but are parents committed enough to hold true to their value of learning? If parents have high expectations and reinforce those expectations with consequences, learning has a chance. When parents support teachers that give the grades that students deserve, learning has a chance. When parents expect their children to respect the teacher, they are building the infrastructure for success. Secondly, support means that parents have high expectations of the school. They expect excellent teaching and want to reward that excellence. Parents that express their disagreements with the teacher in a professional way, out of the hearing of the student, are moving the process forward. Parents that focus on finding causes of their child’s failure, not blaming others for their child’s lack of achievement are supporting the learning process.
A second key relationship is the rapport between teacher and student. Learning is a process. That journey requires that students and teachers work in an environment of mutual respect. Law and custom are clear about this relationship. Your teacher is not your friend. There must be common agreement on basics like taking turns, when we speak. Using language that respects our classmates is an essential step toward a positive environment. We must protect the classroom from physical abuse. Each classroom has its unique character based on the personalities in the room. Each person’s life experiences affect how they interact in the classroom setting. Teachers must build a connection with the students and the students have an equal responsibility to connect with the teacher. Teachers must be trained to find the common ground with students.
Teachers must be taught to lead students not boss them. There must be mentoring for young teachers, helping them to learn how to choose the right words to communicate clearly with students. We must make sure that we have a diverse group of teachers to teach an increasingly diverse student population. Our best and brightest college students must become teachers. Today, most of our teachers come from the bottom quartile of college students. We must develop classroom structures that provide alternative approaches from which teachers can choose to use in connecting with students.
Another aspect of “Cultural Infrastructure” is the relationship between the teacher and the school leadership. Unfortunately, in many schools, teachers are not trusted to teach students. They have become the equivalent to button pushers. Super structured “teaching” programs for math or reading ask teachers to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same thing in every classroom in the school. These programs have become popular as a response to standardized testing. This situation reduces the status of the teacher as a hired hand not a true professional. Teachers are paid less than other professionals. It makes teaching a less valuable option for our top college graduates.
High achieving countries use another approach. Without exception, these countries pay their teachers on a par with lawyers, doctors, and other professionals. They encourage teachers to develop their own style of teaching. For example, Finland provides scholarships for their teachers that eliminate the need for students to take out loans. What a lure that would be for potential teachers! Teachers could graduate without loans to repay as they start their teaching career. Teachers must have the freedom to teach their students with methods that fit their particular situation and their unique set of students. We should turn teachers loose to build relationships with students and create innovative ways of teaching their students. Each community is different and each classroom is different. Therefore, these one approach fits all students teaching programs, are certainly not going to create innovative thinkers that will develop new technologies for our economy.
I hear people say all the time that ‘teaching isn’t rocket science” implying that teaching is really not that hard. They are right that teaching is not rocket science. It is much harder. When you deal with students each day, with all the other pressures that society places on the schools, it should demonstrate clearly the difficulty of the teaching process. The chemical reactions that lift a rocket off the ground are predictable. The reaction of a junior high school student is never certain. Moreover, what you say in response can cause an explosion that rivals the explosions that lift that rocket into space.
This cultural infrastructure is where the real battle is to teach students is joined. Too often, we focus on the visible as opposed to the invisible. Let’s focus on these vital relationships to assist students in learning more effectively. Teachers, parents, students, and others have a responsibility to do the hard work of creating the “Cultural Infrastructure” for great schools.
Physical infrastructure is highly prized in educational settings. It is critical to the success of our schools. Clean, well developed spaces, with the latest technology, are central to improving our schools. It is a tangible, visible way in which communities can express their support of learning. It provides the opportunity for teachers to teach and for students to learn. However, the quality of instruction is based on the aspects of teaching and learning that are invisible. It is the quality of the relationships that are expressed in the classrooms that impact directly the effectiveness of learning and teaching.
This “Cultural Infrastructure” is what elevates learning. When schools use these factors effectively, achievement happens. Students learn. Relationships that create positive learning environments are the key to achievement. Negative perceptions and poor attitudes destroy the opportunity to learn, no matter how wonderful the facilities may be. Without tending to these factors, there will be no improvement in learning. I want to look at several manifestations of this need for cultural infrastructure.
The first relationship is between the parents and the school. Do parents support the school? The term support implies two things. First, are the parents committed to the importance of school in their lives and the lives of their children? Do they enforce homework first as a primary value in the home? All parents should be required to participate in their child’s school. Many students will not doubt resist limitations on their freedom but are parents committed enough to hold true to their value of learning? If parents have high expectations and reinforce those expectations with consequences, learning has a chance. When parents support teachers that give the grades that students deserve, learning has a chance. When parents expect their children to respect the teacher, they are building the infrastructure for success. Secondly, support means that parents have high expectations of the school. They expect excellent teaching and want to reward that excellence. Parents that express their disagreements with the teacher in a professional way, out of the hearing of the student, are moving the process forward. Parents that focus on finding causes of their child’s failure, not blaming others for their child’s lack of achievement are supporting the learning process.
A second key relationship is the rapport between teacher and student. Learning is a process. That journey requires that students and teachers work in an environment of mutual respect. Law and custom are clear about this relationship. Your teacher is not your friend. There must be common agreement on basics like taking turns, when we speak. Using language that respects our classmates is an essential step toward a positive environment. We must protect the classroom from physical abuse. Each classroom has its unique character based on the personalities in the room. Each person’s life experiences affect how they interact in the classroom setting. Teachers must build a connection with the students and the students have an equal responsibility to connect with the teacher. Teachers must be trained to find the common ground with students.
Teachers must be taught to lead students not boss them. There must be mentoring for young teachers, helping them to learn how to choose the right words to communicate clearly with students. We must make sure that we have a diverse group of teachers to teach an increasingly diverse student population. Our best and brightest college students must become teachers. Today, most of our teachers come from the bottom quartile of college students. We must develop classroom structures that provide alternative approaches from which teachers can choose to use in connecting with students.
Another aspect of “Cultural Infrastructure” is the relationship between the teacher and the school leadership. Unfortunately, in many schools, teachers are not trusted to teach students. They have become the equivalent to button pushers. Super structured “teaching” programs for math or reading ask teachers to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same thing in every classroom in the school. These programs have become popular as a response to standardized testing. This situation reduces the status of the teacher as a hired hand not a true professional. Teachers are paid less than other professionals. It makes teaching a less valuable option for our top college graduates.
High achieving countries use another approach. Without exception, these countries pay their teachers on a par with lawyers, doctors, and other professionals. They encourage teachers to develop their own style of teaching. For example, Finland provides scholarships for their teachers that eliminate the need for students to take out loans. What a lure that would be for potential teachers! Teachers could graduate without loans to repay as they start their teaching career. Teachers must have the freedom to teach their students with methods that fit their particular situation and their unique set of students. We should turn teachers loose to build relationships with students and create innovative ways of teaching their students. Each community is different and each classroom is different. Therefore, these one approach fits all students teaching programs, are certainly not going to create innovative thinkers that will develop new technologies for our economy.
I hear people say all the time that ‘teaching isn’t rocket science” implying that teaching is really not that hard. They are right that teaching is not rocket science. It is much harder. When you deal with students each day, with all the other pressures that society places on the schools, it should demonstrate clearly the difficulty of the teaching process. The chemical reactions that lift a rocket off the ground are predictable. The reaction of a junior high school student is never certain. Moreover, what you say in response can cause an explosion that rivals the explosions that lift that rocket into space.
This cultural infrastructure is where the real battle is to teach students is joined. Too often, we focus on the visible as opposed to the invisible. Let’s focus on these vital relationships to assist students in learning more effectively. Teachers, parents, students, and others have a responsibility to do the hard work of creating the “Cultural Infrastructure” for great schools.