We Don't Teach In Simulators

I am often asked how it is that I am able to get invited into so many classes to teach math lessons. I believe it is for two reasons: vulnerability and listening.

As a math coach, my willingness to make myself vulnerable has opened doors for me, literally. What teacher is willing to teach in a fishbowl, if I am not willing to do the same?

The craft of teaching, and our connections with our own students, are so personal that trust is paramount when building relationships with coaches. I was on the teaching side of this design for 22 years, so I get it. Now, as a coach, I work to build that trust by making myself vulnerable.

I often tease that my willingness to have one of my lessons go awry is just one of the services I provide. If I can’t meet with a teacher about the ways I can improve my practice, or reflect on my lesson, then I have no business doing the same for others. Our best approach towards building trust is showing our teaching partners that we are teachers first. Sometimes I snicker at the term “model lessons.” Yes, I push into classrooms and teach “model lessons,” but who really knows what I will be modeling? Kids, after all, are unpredictable critters.

We don't teach in simulators. Spanning all my years as a classroom teacher, I didn't want to learn about hypothetical practices, detailed in a grown-up, sterile, after-school environment. And I certainly didn't want to hear about how some strategy SHOULD work in a classroom. I wanted to be shown in a real life setting, with my 32 fidgety kiddos.

I always cringe watching training videos when there is a total of five students sitting on the carpet. That doesn't help me. When I am differentiating for 30+ kids, I need to see someone modeling that for me in a real-life working classroom, not some simulation. That, I believe, is the power of coaching. And, understanding this helps me get invitations into classrooms.

When teachers know that coaches are real people who are willing to be in the trenches with them, learning together, real growth happens. Stuff gets done because authentic collaboration is happening. We can’t ask teachers what we can learn from their lessons until we ask them what we can learn from our lessons.

In addition to allowing myself to be vulnerable, I perhaps get invited into classrooms because I try to listen. The key word here is “try.”

Of course, I am opinionated. I have many years of teaching behind me, and I have my way of doing things; but the inquiry model is so much more powerful towards soliciting real change. It also helps me side-step out of the professional ruts I sometimes find myself in. Of course I fall short at times, but I try to keep conversations and collaboration focused on the teacher’s goals by asking what it is they want to see or have help with? In what capacity do they want to grow in their pedagogy? What is it about their class this year, or in their own teaching practice, that they need support with?

The teacher gets to decide the direction of their own growth. I can gently nudge, but I try to adhere to following their lead.

Teacher needs can change from lesson to lesson and class to class. Sometimes they want help teaching from a new curriculum adoption, or planning for differentiation. Other times, they may wish to learn how to supplement with quality math tasks or, frankly, just to run to the restroom. Whatever it may be, the goal is up to them, and it is my responsibility to listen. As someone who is deeply excited about education, that does not always come easy. 

I was sitting with a teacher one evening, helping her plan lessons on division with decimals. I thought I was listening and supporting, but while I was trying to “help” her map out all of the different ways she could organize her lessons, she became more and more frustrated and upset.

I finally stopped what I was doing, looked at her, and said, “I am not understanding what you need, am I? Tell me what it is you need, and I will try to listen better.”

Through her tears, she confessed, “I, myself, need to be reminded how to divide with decimals!”

She had forgotten what to do when there was a decimal in both the dividend and the divisor. And, why wouldn't she? The fifth grade was a long time ago for her.

After a quick reminder on how to do the math, we were back on track with smiles. But it took me stopping to listen, and not make assumptions, in order for us to move forward. 

Teachers are overwhelmed. The task of educating a classroom full of children is daunting, to say the least. We don't need added stress. We need someone to stand with us so we can learn together.

Coaching is not a model of, “I show you what to do,” or, “I tell you how this should be done.” We are colleagues, and colleagues work together for the good of the whole.

As coaches, we need to be willing to stand alongside our partners and teach. We need to look them in the eye and listen with the purpose of understanding.

-Guest blog post by Niki, written for @edupreneurtoday

Kids & Fracking

I am not an expert on fracking, but I know enough that it scares me. I know that there are unanswered questions and safety precautions being overlooked. I feel alarmed. At the risk of sounding ignorant, drilling sideways 4,000 feet below the earth’s surface, in our beautiful fault-line state, concerns me. Forget about the toxic chemicals used, or the fumes released during the process. What about the integrity of our earth? The whole thing freaks me out. It seems to me that the knowledge of what fracking does to our earth lags way behind the knowledge of how to do it. Who knows what irreversible damage it will leave behind? A little like Thanksgiving dinner, everyone wants to come and enjoy the bounty, but when the table is abandoned and the guests are full, there is still a big fat mess to clean. And what if cleaning it wasn't possible? How would we feel if the carnage of our genius in the kitchen would last forever? I suspect it would feel pretty frakin' bad.

So, as I do with most major problems, I turn them over to my fifth grade students. In the classroom, my kids have learned a detailed process for solving future problems. As critical thinkers, they have learned how to triage a situation and decide on the first step to take. They look for global solutions, ones that would have the most impact.

During our first session together, my students had never heard of this so-called fracking, and after recovering from their giggles over the name, we read about fracking, watched kids’ newsreels about fracking, and participated in long discussions about fracking. One of my students immediately piped up to predict, "Well, here we go again, causing problems before we think things through!"

We can’t teach about our nation’s past without students becoming disheartened over repeated atrocities as the result of tragic and irresponsible decisions. They launched into naming such infractions, and, sadly, the list went on and on. My reassurance to their obvious distress is always the same. I am hopeful we can be a nation who learns from the past and does not repeat catastrophic aberrations. I do worry, however, that fifty years from now I will be standing in my classroom reassuring students that I am hopeful our country won’t repeat the mistakes we have afflicted on our precious earth. It is quite possible that this is just another example of how flippant we can be with our planet. My rule of thumb: if my students are concerned, then so am I. And they are concerned.

We fret over what we are leaving behind for our grandchildren, yet we continue to close our eyes and bow down to money and convenience. As a society, we are busy. No one knows that more than me. So, let's turn this over to our future leaders. Let's give them a voice. These kids are our legacy. They are not bogged down with bills and driving carpools. They have some free time to figure this out while we are busy making them an organic dinner. And they are smart. They are able to think outside the box. They are willing to wrestle with complicated ideas because, let's face it, they are not tired. They are in the moment. So, I took my own advice.

The next afternoon, I took my questions to the classroom. We began the fracking debate, and it didn't take long before the first comment was launched. “But Ms. R-G, what will happen to our land if farmers are being bought out by large oil companies?"

I don't know son, but can I give you a hug?

You see, my students learned earlier this year about desertification and how proper farming and grazing practices are critical for keeping our earth lush. Even though we were not learning about desertification on our own North American soil, these are just the types of connections kids have the brain space to make.

Another student so eloquently confessed, “It seems to me that natural gas is about money, and money is about power. We can't let other countries get ahead of us while we’re sitting around worrying about the effects of fracking. He said (and this is a direct quote), “I think they should frack away!” On the contrary, many of my pint sized liberals can only see looking to sustainable energy sources. These are Davis kids after all.

During the second day of discussion, another student spilled the beans that her dad was leery. “Of course your teacher taught you to be against fracking. That’s what they're supposed to do.” 

Okay, I get it. As a whole, we teachers are a bunch of liberals. In all fairness, how can we possibly be fiscally conservative with a salary like ours? But that's another op-ed for another day. 

In my defense, I did expose them to both sides. I have to. I wholeheartedly count on their logic. But, her honesty is the reason I teach. It certainly isn't for sissies.

Applying the problem-solving process we use in our classroom, the kids labored in groups to come up with a solution for the most pressing issue. They picked out what they determined to be the most critical challenges and decided on one that would offer a wide range of solutions and have the greatest impact. Students then wrestled in their groups to develop solutions and generate criteria to help them decide on one solution that best addresses the challenge at hand. Their final task was to develop a detailed action plan, describing how their solution would be implemented.

During one particular afternoon discussion, the students heard the word “moratorium” mentioned in a student debate, and they wanted to know more. Burning questions started flying, and one student chimed in to claim that, “We can’t assign a moratorium preventing fracking only in California, because the extraction of natural gas is a race, and as such we would lose the race. If there is any kind of moratorium,” he said, “it needs to be worldwide, so countries don’t feel the need to race.”

Hmm. Good point. The nuances of competition and power do tend to complicate matters.  

Another student quickly brought it back to earth, literally. She said, “That’s the problem! This keeps getting turned away from the fact that this is about our planet.”

And, this is when I love my job.

I don’t know that I said another word for an hour. I simply listened. This would be reality T.V. worth watching, and these are the moments teachers have the good fortune of being privy to. They are our fly on the wall moments, and it doesn't get any better than this.

As the conversation came to a close, I challenged my students to consider their action plans carefully, and, even without knowing their final proposals, my conclusion is the same as it always is. We are in good hands here folks.

In the end, many 5^th graders decided that fracking is in fact a bad word. But, unlike the other “f” word, this is one that needs to be talked about.

Written with Niki's fifth grade class.

New Platforom

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