Don't Feed the Children

Teachers work hard. We plan the lessons, select the texts, write the questions, and prepare the materials. If we are lucky we do this during our conference period, but more often than not, we do this work on our own time. I am certain you are thinking all of this is part of the job, and well, yes, it is.

But -if we are doing all of the work, who is doing the learning? I must say that I've grown as a reader and writer since I've begun teaching. I'm much better at inferring and using context clues. In fact, I'll confess: I had no idea what a context clue was when I first began. To my embarrassment I recall a teacher leaning towards me (on my first day of my first inservice) to say, "I hope you have some new ideas for teaching context clues." I smiled and nodded my head, but inside, I was panicking. I didn't have a clue. But I learned. I learned fast.

Years later: I know what a context clue is, how to infer and draw conclusions, where to search for text evidence, how to discern the theme of a text, and yada yada yada. I've worked really hard to read a variety of texts, analyze those texts, write about them and discuss them. I've come up with fantastic questions asking students to infer, but in truth, I've already done the work.

Yes, I've been feeding the children.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to hear Dr. John O'Flahaven speak. He has done quite a bit of research looking at how much we step in rather than step out. He argued that we as teachers are doing all of the work, all of the thinking, but our goal should be for our students to do the work and the thinking. He made some good points, and got me to thinking.

Take a look at your classroom walls. How many items on the walls were purchased? Provided? Created by you? Created in a shared context (anchor charts -essentially created by you)? Created by the students? This is something to think about. Who is doing the creating; the constructing of knowledge? Who is engaging in discourse? Are you the master of the discussion? Or are your students thinking critically and engaging in thoughtful discourse?

What happens when we allow the students to choose, analyze, question, lead the discussion, construct knowledge, and create? We want our students to think critically and make wise decisions, but will they reach this goal if we are constantly spoon feeding them?

I do not have the answers today. I only have questions to ponder and discuss. I would like to open up this discussion to public discourse. Please feel free to post your comments.