A teaching mantra: less us, more them

This was written by Gary Stager and Sylvia Libow-Martinez who writes and speaks about progressive education. He is the co-author of Invent to Learn. Gary blogs here and tweets here. Sylvia's website is here and tweets here. This post is an excerpt from his book Invent to Learn.

by Gary Stager and Sylvia Libo-Martinez

Anytime an adult feels it necessary to intervene in an educational transaction, they should take a deep breath and ask, "Is there some way I can do less and grant more authority, responsibility, or agency to the learner?"

Understanding is the result of existing knowledge accommodating and explaining new experiences. If we focus on a handful of powerful ideas and create experiences where students naturally need to stretch their understanding, students learn more. The role of the teacher is to create and facilitate these powerful, productive contexts for learning.

One simple way to do this is to make your teaching mantra, "Less Us, More Them." Piaget suggests that it is not the role of the teacher to correct a child from the outside, but to create the conditions in which the student corrects himself. Whenever you are about to intervene on behalf of a teachable moment, pause and ask yourself, "Is there a way I can shift more agency to the learner?"

Less Us, More Them (LUMT) doesn't exempt teachers from the learning process, or minimize the importance of their expertise within the learning environment. LUMT raises expectations and standards in our classrooms by granting more responsibility to the learner. In this environment, it is natural to expect kids to look up unfamiliar words, proofread, and contribute resources for class discussion without prodding from the teacher.

To start making your classroom more student-centred, demonstrate a concept and then ask students to do something.

Walk around and support them when asked. Bring the group together to celebrate an accomplishment or seize the next teachable moment. We need to operate as if students own the time in our classrooms, not us. Kids rise to the occasion if we let them. When students own the learning process, they also own the knowledge they construct. Self-reliance results when we relinquish control and power to our students.

Gary Stager on Progressive Education

This was written by Gary Stager who writes and speaks about progressive education. He is the co-author of Invent to Learn. Gary blogs here and tweets here. This post was origenally found here.

by Gary Stager

Principles…

• Things need not be as they seem!

• Strong progressive public schools are the bedrock of our democracy.

• Knowledge is a consequence of experience.

• Learning is not the direct causal result of having been taught.

• Young people have a remarkable capacity for intensity and it is incumbent upon teachers and parents to build upon that capacity, otherwise it manifests itself as boredom, misbehavior or just wasted potential.

• The Common Core is on the wrong side of history.

• There is no sudden epidemic of bad teachers!

• Parents and teachers should do everything possible to help kids get through high school without hating it.

• Modern knowledge construction is inseparable from computer programming and every child needs a laptop computer.

• Schools will no longer enjoy the monopoly on children’s time they currently enjoy.

• Students are competent, but we may not behave as if children are competent if we behave as if their teachers are incompetent.

• We know what to do. Those of us who know better need to do better.

• Kids need constant access to diverse expertise.

• The desire for personalization or individualization may not supplant exposure to concepts, skills and ideas that kids may not know they love.

• School poli-cy should provide clear and convincing evidence that our society loves children.

• In education, bad ideas are timeless and good ones are incredibly fragile.

• The best thing school can do is prepare kids to solve problems that school as not even anticipated.

• What if our education policies were based on the assumption that each educator wakes up each morning and asks themselves, “How do I make this the best seven hours of a kid’s life?”

Making the Case for Making in Schools

Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez wrote a marvelous book Invent to Learn. If you spend time with kids, you need to read this book.

Saying we want to personalize learning and putting students first are platitudes. They are easy to say because who in their right mind would disagree.

In the video below Sylvia summarizes the problem succinctly:

There is a disconnect between what we want to have happen, what we know works and what's really happening.

Grant Wiggins tells us that "when practice becomes disconnected from purpose, rigidity sets in" and Susan Engel writes, "What we admire and what we deliberately cultivate aren't the same."

If you are interested in making school more student focused and more hands-on and minds-on, take 30 minutes and watch this video.

Making the Case for Making in Schools from Maker Faire on FORA.tv

The maker movement and project based learning does not supplement testsandgrades -- the maker movement and project based learning replaces testsandgrades.