An Outsider's Perspective

A couple of weeks ago a board member stopped by our school for a Community Meeting where she addressed parents about "hot" topics in our district's schools. As we all imagined it would, the new mathematics curriculum was the primary topic that was addressed during the meeting. I was one of the few teachers present for this meeting, so I was one of the only ones who questioned the following statement made by this particular board member. In regards to the new math curriculum she stated, "We are moving away from a direct instruction model to one where our children's teachers are now standing with their hands behind their backs and waiting for the children to arrive at the answers by themselves."

At first I was appalled by this presumption that this is what we as teachers are doing on a daily basis. Then I decided to take a moment and step outside of myself and see things from her point of view. I posed the following questions for my own reflection:

• Why is direct instruction seen as authentic learning?
• What is it about student centered instruction that makes teachers appear to be passive observers?

Direct instruction is a model where teachers are standing in front of the class "teaching" while students sit quietly in their desks "learning." Teachers hold the children's attention using exhaustive body language and sporadic questioning. From an outsiders point of view I can see the teacher is working hard delivering the information that the children must acquire. They are on stage putting on the performance of a lifetime and well earning their pay. This appears to be authentic teaching, so children must be learning what is being taught.

In the case of student centered instruction, teachers pose questions to the class and then the children take it upon themselves to work through hypothesis and engage in conversation with their peers about their ideas. Then the class meets back and children share their conclusions with their teacher and their classmates about what they have found. In this model the teacher appears on the outskirts of the classroom "standing with their hands behind their backs and waiting for the children to arrive at the answers by themselves." Now as an outsider I can see how this would look like a teacher not working as hard as in the previous direct instruction model provided above.

Now the problem with student centered instruction is the work that the outside observer doesn't see. The bulk of the teachers work isn't in the lesson; it is in the preparation and reflection of the lesson. First a teacher must consider which questions will most provoke students to become engaged in the concept that they are exploring. This takes a deeper knowledge of the curriculum and the children inside of the class. The same questions cannot be used year after year because different children might not respond to them the same. Next the environment must be carefully planned in order for the children to have the best setting in order to explore the ideas presented. The teacher must plan for what materials need to be readily available for the children to use, or in what ways the children should be grouped to encourage the greatest amount of conversation about what they are learning. Then the teacher needs to pose their own questions that they will ask the children about what they are doing in order to understand where the child's thinking is coming from or initially headed. Finally after the lesson has concluded the teacher must then revisit the children's conceptions on a child-to-child basis and plan on how instruction will reflect these findings the next day. Which children need to spend more time with the concept, and which children will need to explore the concept from different angles in order to enrich their understandings?

As a teacher I see each of these steps because I am present for them on a day-to-day basis. I have a difficult time seeing this progression of a well planned lesson as "standing with my hands behind my back." But in the end I have to think about which is worse, an outsider's misconceptions of authentic instruction, or children forced to participate in a curriculum that leaves them listening all the while with their hands behind their backs?