How can we shift our approaches to our own best practices?
I agree with one of my mentors about the best way to run our classrooms -- but she sees the reason why from a whole new perspective.
Meg, who seems to me to be above pet peeves but is, in fact, still very much prone to them, told me in my first interview for R.E.A.L. that it bothers her “when [students are] just talking to me. I really need to not be the one who’s affirming the answers.”
Resistance to the teacher-student approval loop is my hallmark at the school where I teach now. While I don’t necessarily feel that this difference in my practice is a problem, I do think it’s a conundrum. Like other professionals, teachers have individual philosophies that guide their practices – when you apply for a job, you even submit a personal statement called a Teaching Philosophy, which is its own genre of writing – and that diversity of approach, to a certain extent, benefits learners.
The effort I put in to respect fellow teachers’ approaches isn’t simple, though, because I obviously also think that my way is the right way. A combination of significant peer-reviewed Education research and wisdom from teachers whom I respected led me to the conclusion that restraining teacher approval in the classroom. Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain further solidified the idea that creating space for many voices in a classroom requires teachers not to prioritize just a few. It’s hard to think that my colleagues’ motivations for hefty student encouragement – egging kids on for their straw man arguments or for answering a yes or no question correctly – aren’t wan, even insulting, replacements for “real” teaching.
It’s also my job to see that those other approaches are and to engage in an authentically open-minded conversation about what strategies guide the students in our school best.
Earlier this week, a senior who I’ve now taught for almost two years straight proclaimed to our class: “Ms. Burd, remember when I was SO scared of you last year?”
I laughed.
“It’s because you never seemed to show if you thought I was smart or not! That’s so intimidating!”
I’ve heard this kind of “feedback” from many students at my school. Context is important. First, this student never earned a grade below an A from me last year; my written feedback, while it still always included an area for growth (there’s always a way to grow as a writer), but it was overwhelmingly glowing. The second layer of context is this: our school has a major approval problem. I consider this problem particularly critical because I teach at a girls’ school, and I’m passionate about forming learners who are committed to speaking their minds, even when it causes them trouble or risk disapproval.
I asked the students, who are really a formidable group of kids, why they thought I ran discussions but rarely gave them more than a gentle nod of encouragement or a very rare correction.
“You don’t want us to look to you for approval,” one student, who knows me less well than the others, knew immediately. I’m not especially surprised that this student, an elite athlete, understood the approach better than some others.
“Interesting!” another student shouted from the seat in the corner where she’d seemed, a second before, absorbed in her essay. I realized that everyone in the room was listening to our conversation.
“Yes, that’s one reason,” I replied, “and a really important one. What does it matter if I think you’re right? I’m not grading your discussions, and I won’t be around forever.”
“But it matters to us what you think of us, because we like you,” the original student said. (I already know that they like me, so this wasn’t a kiss-up moment).
“There’s another reason,” I continued. “A lot of the educational research points to the idea that approving certain students, particularly the ones who are most eager to speak, usually leads to a sense of hierarchy among students. Some kids are gunning for approval, and everyone else decides that raising their voice just isn’t their thing, just isn’t something that they’re qualified to do. If I start doling out approval, I’m creating a hierarchy that ultimately fosters a classroom in which only a few people will ever really feel they can succeed.”
They were silent. “Yeah, I really do think about this that much.”
We laughed and moved on with the conversation. I know that my restraint is not always popular at my school, because it’s countercultural. In a sense, by insisting upon it, I’m standing firm in what I try to challenge students to do: to develop their voice from a foundation of critical, individual thought, rather than a focus on outside approval. Students and their parents complain, because the accountability my silence places on students to generate and create their own value is uncomfortable. To a degree, I think that some parents want their students to lean on adult approval, because it can help ensure that their kids remain compliant. Whenever my father complains about my or my siblings’ lack of agreement with his beliefs, I know that there’s a part of him that’s proud that he and my mother raised adults who can, with care, compassion, and intelligence, stand for our beliefs.
Let it be known that, though I’m pro-restraint in the classroom, I do believe in encouraging students. I find that restraint in the classroom can even make my private encouragement mean more. My students never have to doubt if my approval is disingenuous or not, because it’s harder (but not too hard) to earn.
I want to return to Meg’s quote, though, because it adds a layer that I’m trying to take seriously – a layer that makes my respect for my colleagues’ divergent approaches a lot easier. Meg told me that she “really [needs] to not be the one who’s affirming the answers” that her students present. Her idea that this is actually a personal need flips my self-righteous belief in my practice on its head, instead centering the reality that part of my feedback restraint stems from my own need.
It’s exhausting to approve every student in a classroom, especially when that approval is, at worst, dishonest and at best, hard-won through the inner and immediate process of seeking a reason why that student’s work is worth approving. But more importantly than even the weight of that labor is the simple fact that I need to not be the one approving because I’m not the world’s arbiter of what’s right and wrong, good and bad.
This last reason is, I think, what Meg is pointing to. Despite her celebrated, decades-long career in the classroom, Meg is a humble teacher, one who models and teaches me to prioritize what I can learn about teaching over what I know. Though it seems that this part of my teaching practice is drawn from my own intelligent, thoughtful strategy, it’s equally drawn from the burden of my human limitation: my awareness that I can’t, and shouldn’t, and need to not be the single person who others look to for answers.
This Friday morning, that change in sentiment is causing me to reframe more than just my teaching practice, but also the way that I interact with my friends, move through the world, and even challenge myself. I recently turned thirty years old, and I know that I hold much more certainty and conviction about my opinions and approach to life than most people my age. That isn’t necessarily a problem, and I’ve achieved those postures through significant, often laborious self-reflection and searching.
And yet. This week alone, I’ve run myself down, watching the mental, physical, and spiritual habits that I’ve cultivated go haywire because my eye’s been on what I can do well, rather than where I need support or help. Rereading Meg’s approach changes my perspective, asks me to rethink my approaches, goads me to remember my fragility, my humanity, and then to think again.