What is your philosophy of education? This was the question that the professor asked us in my second year of my teacher education undergraduate program. Philosophy of education? I had no idea. In fact it wasn’t until very recently that my philosophy was anything but an inchoate slush of ideas, inclinations, and questions. Though I know that my philosophy will grow and change, almost 20 years after that question was asked, I think I have an answer. Okay, I know. I’m a little on the slow side.

I have taught grades 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and remedial classes in high school. I have worked as a mentor, a cooperating teacher, a professional development coordinator, a reading specialist, and a librarian. I have loved students in tiny Eskimo villages on the Bering Sea Coast, in inner-city Las Vegas, and in rural Wisconsin. I have sat on every possible type of committee and attended more meetings than anyone should ever have to attend. I earned National Board Certification, published in journals, and presented at conferences. Most importantly each year I have loved my profession more deeply and each year has been seminal in my growth as an educator and as an educational philosopher.

Today my philosophy boils down to a list of five things I know to be true about teaching and learning. In my experience these are among the most important truths for successful educators. If I had to distill them into a few sentences it would read something like this:  Students will learn if they work, they will only learn if they work, and they want to work.  A teacher’s job is to lend students their expertise and allow them to get busy.

Without further delay, I am happy to share my list of the 5 things I finally understand about teaching and learning. For each I will give a brief overview and link to resources when possible. All of the resources are quick and easy-to-read. Teachers are busy. I respect this.

1. The brain can be exercised and grown! EVERY single student can grow, learn, and achieve at high levels.

All children want to learn and all crave challenge. This comes from the research of the brilliant psychologist Carol Dweck. Dweck teaches us that our brains are malleable and that humans can actually get smarter. She also reminds us that failure is a part of learning and should be celebrated as part of the process.

• Carol Dweck’s Mindset site
• Carol Dweck Video on Mindset (MUST watch!)
• In Praise of Failure
• You Can Grow Your Brain
• The Perils and Promise of Praise

2. Motivation is key, but the way we think of motivation must change.

Motivation comes from success. Motivation comes from feeling good about your work. Motivation comes from “seeing” growth with hard data. Motivation is not something we give to students is something we teach to students. Daniel Pink and John Hattie have done outstanding work in this area.

• Daniel Pink’s Site
• RSA Animate Video on Drive by Daniel Pink (MUST watch video!!!)
• Profession John Hattie’s Site
• Slide Share Presentation on Visible Learning

3. Classroom management is absolutely foundational to teaching and learning.

Excellent teachers know how to run a classroom, how to manage children, how to differentiate instructional experiences, and how to proactively ward off poor choices. Differentiated instruction is a big part of classroom management.

• Cooperative Discipline by Linda Albert, the best book ever about classroom management.
• Carol Tomlinson’s Site Tomlinson is a professional leader in differentiated instruction:

4. The answers are out there.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Years and years of research by our professional leaders have given us some solid answers about what works. We must let go of our egos and allow ourselves to be open to the possibility that someone else might have better answers. Teachers are trained in colleges that mostly subscribe to a problem-solving approach. The thing is, you’re not in college anymore, you’re in a profession and professions are defined by shared knowledge and resources. Thinking as a professional means using the body of knowledge that is out there. Of course, each of us has something to add to the body of knowledge but we don’t have to and shouldn’t treat all of education as a do-it-yourself endeavor.

• Common Core Standards
• What Works Clearinghouse
• Florida Center for Reading Research
• Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analysis Relating to Achievement by John Hattie
• Robert Marzano’s Site (Marzano has been synthesizing research about what works in education for over a decade.)

5. The best teachers are coaches not facilitators or bosses.

Okay, despite what I said in number 4, this comes mostly from my own head but also seems to be emerging and converging from a variety of sources as we move from the teacher as facilitator model. But, if you’ve ever watched a coach work with her/his team. You know I’m right. Coaching can be defined as the art and science of helping someone achieve their goals through explicit teaching, modeling, hand-on guided practice, and lots of independent practice. That just oozes good teaching.

• Effective Coaching Site: 
• Student as Worker, Teacher as Coach, Coalition of Essential Schools: 

That’s it. A full 20 years after I was asked about my philosophy of education I finally know the answer. Too bad the brilliant old professor who asked this of my cohort of novice educators isn’t around to hear it. His only possible response would have been, “Duh. What took you so long?”

Before I close this essay I’ve got to talk about Finland. Finland public education has gotten a lot of press recently for the amazing international test scores they’ve been posting. Last week the Finns shared what they consider the reasons for their great success. In a nutshell they cited the following as foundational: universal social services (health care, extended maternity/paternity leave, free quality education), allowing students to grow in developmentally appropriate ways (kids learn when they’re ready not when a grade or age says they should be ready), and treating teachers as professionals (paying them well, respecting them, and offering them generous planning time.)

These are not things America is yet prepared to consider, much less do. While the philosophy I’ve outlined above still holds true, I believe that no systemic change can happen for our public schools until we start taking lessons from Finland.

That may sound negative, but it’s not! Think about understanding number 1 and 5. Idea number 1: Americans can grow their brains!  We will come to realize that fair is fair and equal is equal and we must do right by our most precious American resource, our students. Idea number 5: The answers are out there all we have to do is implement them! Finland found some answers and they’re willing to share.

Now, the question is, what is your philosophy of education?

For more information about the Finnish school system, link to the articles below.

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/finland-schools-success-equality-collaboration_n_1219780.html
• http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html

Rita Platt is a Nationally Board Certified teacher. Her experience includes teaching learners of all levels from kindergarten to graduate students. She currently is a Library Media Specialist for the St. Croix Falls SD in Wisconsin, teaches graduate courses for the Professional Development Institute, and consults with local school districts. 

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The resource room was a rare oasis of calm.

One boy, typically surly and irritable, sprawled in a papasan chair, reading.

Actually reading.

At a round school table, another usually unsettled young man with flashing, intelligent eyes, busily worked through late assignments. The assignment he’d ripped up and refused to finish earlier in the day. Today’s math worksheet, efficiently completed and stowed away in his folder. The vocabulary activity from reading class, done ahead of time, with quality, gladly, inexplicably.

“Let me see your work,” my standard educator’s line, seeking proof and accountability.
His sprite 6th grade frame bopped to my desk and presented a notebook page of amazingly illustrated multi-syllable words.

“This is beautiful.” I don’t remember connecting with his dark eyes. I thought I felt
satisfaction. He wasn’t one to gush over. “You certainly deserve some free time.”

These boys are icebergs, a bit of visible surface, a mysterious terrain underneath. They end up on my caseload, their behavior so atypical from their peers or so problematic in their families or in the community, that special education is deemed necessary. Sometimes they have diagnoses, but in general, they have emotional/behavioral disorders. They are bullies, outcasts, difficult, obstinate, misunderstood, unlovable and in spite of all that, lovable.

I suppose it’s my job is to fix them, but mostly I try to understand them, assure them.
You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.

The bell rang and we were done for the day. A teacher like me plans in baby steps, always
on the look out for progress in the smallest of increments. Today’s good work was hope.
Tomorrow, we’d keep on.

The phone call came not even an hour later reporting one self-inflicted gun-shot, an apparent suicide completed, an incomprehensible fatal final answer. The echo is obtuse, numbing. Still.

That day, he had stuffed his backpack full of books and coats leftover from warm fall
afternoons. Had he really finished all he had to do? Designed a peaceful last hour? Just eleven years. Was this last day all he could endure, all we’d have of him? This day? The last day that anyone would have of him?

This is messed up, the police chief mourned. It’s not right. What could have gone so incredibly wrong?

For us, an answer is inconceivable. As the pastor acknowledged at the funeral–there are no words.

Yet, the rebuttals. Whispers among neighbors. Suggestions, strident, self-assured. Broadcast digital postings and generalized advice in newsprint blurbs. We question: what can we do to fix suicide?

In order to make some sense of the unknowable, the unimaginable, people seek to understand.
To point a finger in a seemingly obvious direction.
To push back on the towering wall of statistics and make them change.
To snap a finger and declare the problem of depressed, traumatized youngsters, of unrest and hurt, the problem of mental illness conquered because someone spoke of it.

If we’d pay more attention to the signs. Weren’t there obvious signs?
If we’d all been properly educated. Where were all the counselors and psychologists?
If we’d not tolerate bullies. Most likely, he felt threatened.

If we’d conduct careful screenings. We’d have documented the signs.
If we’d pay attention to the signs. We could have countered the problem.

If we’d allowed him the comfort of a privilege, maybe even when he hadn’t deserved it.
If we would have talked more and taught more and cared more.
If we’d been kinder, more understanding.
If we would have handled the situation more wisely.
If we wouldn’t have left him alone.
If we would have some answers.

If is a helpless word.

I am the teacher and I don’t know the answers. None that I know for certain.

But I’ve felt grief before and on this shaky platform, all I know is that I’ll wake up each day.  I’ll remember. I’ll watch. I’ll encourage and I’ll insist we keep on hopefully, stubbornly.  For the other boy, reading in the chair.

Amy Klein is the mother of four kids, all teens or tweens. She is a special education teacher at Osceola Middle School where she works with many more teens and tweens.

This piece emerged from an unexpected tragedy.  As one teacher I know expressed, “The suicidal death of a student affects you.  It does.”  Accepting the reality, telling his fellow classmates, wondering futilely why, feeling anger at outsider’s criticism, deep sadness at the loss for his parents and friends, for all of us at school… left me in a half-baked grief.  Nothing in my personal life had changed, but my head felt so disorderly, like my thoughts had been tossed in the air and left to fall any which way.  I have been affected by this experience and writing about it has helped me figure out how. 

Featured Photo Credit

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So, what difference did it make?  Thanksgiving, that is.  Did you take a moment to:

• Say a thankful prayer?
• Post some sort of thankful blurb on facebook?
• Share appreciation for a sacrifice resulting in your current privilege?

Then what?

Now what?

Back to the grind?  Your job?  Your kids?  Your parenting?  Your teaching?

Thanksgiving is over, yes, but your opportunity (responsibility?) to give thanks for the privileges you have is not.  No, you can’t gather your friends and family together every day for feasting, fellowship and football.

But can you live in a consistent state of appreciation?  Sure.  Here’s what that looks like.

Do important work.

Your job, your family, your community, your society . . . you have the power–no, the responsibility–to do this work with passion and joy and love.  They are your privilege.  Your craft.  Your art.

Your perception, your awareness, your intention about the “work” you do transforms these things into platforms for giving thanks, and giving back, and honoring the gifts you’ve been given–and those that gave them.

Your work is important.  The way you do it is your chance to give back.  Don’t waste it.

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What can I possibly say to make this class understand?  What can I show them?  What can we do so that they “get it?”

We spend a lot of time asking these kinds of questions–searching for that breakthrough moment, the key that will open (for the class) the door to understanding.

Of course, it almost never works that way.

Lessons, guided practice, presentations, project based learning activities– all these succeed (or not) one student at a time.  We plant the the seeds, and slowly, they take root and grow–one at a time.

Students demonstrate growth one at a time.  One at a time, seals are broken and understanding seeps in. Doors open and light bulbs turn on, sure, but rarely all at once–usually (often painfully) one. . . . at . . . a . . . time.

True, we are moving mountains.  But if you’re showing up each day expecting the earth to shift under your feet–it’s going to be a long year.  Yes, there are times to focus on the mountain, but the real progress is being made with the stones at your feet–one at a time.

One student at a time doesn’t grab the headlines.  But it’s the way this works.  Success and failure.  Excellence and mediocrite.  We are winning or we are losing.  And it’s all happening one student at a time.

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Good writing is good thinking.

Well written is well thought out–which is to say that it’s well planned, well organized, speaks to an audience, has a clear and unique voice and just the right words strung together in just the right way to have just the desired effect.

One of the challenges in teaching writing is helping students to internalize what all that actually looks like.  Change one variable–your audience, your purpose, the topic, even the media–and your target shifts.  Writing is a complex task requiring the management of multiple variables, strategies, and processes.

A blank page means anything is possible.  As writing teachers, we need to narrow that down a bit–quite a bit.

Teaching Writing on the Ground

The bottom line, of course, is that we want our students to become better writers.  As we get closer to the actual meat and potatoes of the process (instruction and assessment), the choices we need to make, though many, become clearer:

• What type of writing are we going to focus on (this time)?
• What media will we be using?
• Who is our intended audience?
• What is the prompt?
• Is this something that involves research?
• What are the elements we want to see in the piece?
• How often will students “produce.”
• How will I provide timely and meaningful feedback?

These are just a sampling of the “instructional design” choices a teacher has to make.  And they’re vitally important, because you always want to get the most bang for your buck.  You always want to design the most effective instructional plan.  And then, when it’s all said and done, somehow, you always want to cement new learning with some type of reinforcement–so that it sticks.

That’s what I want to show you today: a way to pour cement so that we might firm up the foundation of new learning you’ve established in your instruction.

Relevance: The Rubber on the Road

At this stage in my development, I’d have to argue that good writing instruction includes what I’ll call a range of relevance.  What I mean is, from a student’s perspective, some assignments (read practice) are more real and some less real.  In other words, we aren’t publishing everything.  We aren’t actually sending every letter, or submitting every opinion piece to our local paper–nor do we want too.

To write and share our ideas with a real audience, for a real purpose, is what we’re working toward. It’s the game day for which we’ve been preparing.

So, what that means is: We Need Game Days!

And I would argue that, once we’ve reached a certain level of writing–we need them as often as we can get them.  There is a reason writing is such a valuable skill.  And it’s not to impress a teacher.

So how do we do that?  How do we consistently create unique, meaningful, relevant writing opportunities for individual students–without completely losing our minds?  Because, let’s be honest–this can be a lot of work.

I would argue. . . let them argue.  I’ve written about this before.

Most often, the most relevant writing tasks are not graded assignments, but opportunities that spontaneously present themselves–you just need to be able to recognize them.  How?  Here’s a tip: They almost always center around something a student wants (or does not want).

Like:

• A detention
• A field trip
• A grade
• A due date (for an assignment)
• An assignment
• A point or points on a particular test, quiz, project, or assignment
• The ability to choose (a partner, an assignment, a due date, some element of a project)
• The right/privilege to eat or drink or chew gum in class
• The right/privilege to listen to music
• To go outside
• The list goes on and on!

The key here is that students MUST have the ability to actually create change with their writing. I strongly caution teachers against merely pretending that students have some control.  This is not a semi-relevant prompt in which only the problem is real.  

Do that–only go half way–and we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.  Part of the opportunity here is to show students the very real power of quality writing.  And therein lies the second key. The student must produce quality writing in whatever form and at whatever level of expectation you’ve already established.

As writing teachers, we know we have a problem when it comes to skill transfer.  Students will write well in a Language Arts, English, or Writing class–but ask them to produce a quality lab summary for Science and it all falls apart.

The piece itself–or I should say, the reason for the piece–may have nothing to do with your class.  In short, we are demanding transfer of skills.  But, again, in order to pull this off, quality must be king.

I’ll close here with an example.

At the beginning of the year, we supply each of our Middle School students with a planner. Recently, a girl in my class came to me with a request.  She’d lost her planner, and she knew I had a spare.

Initially, her approach was to make a verbal plea.  Bingo. This was my chance to create an opportunity for her to reinforce what she’d already learned about persuasive writing.

I told her that I would consider giving her my extra planner if she was able to produce a persuasive essay convincing me to to do so.

Below, is her actual handwritten essay (and below that, because it might be hard to read, I’ve supplied a typed version).

Please keep in mind that I offer this up, not so much as an example of quality (there’s plenty of room for improvement here as you will see), but as just one example of an almost limitless number of simple, yet very relevant opportunities to reinforce the elements of quality writing that you’ve established in your instruction.

I think it’s a great supplement to an already rigorous instructional plan.  And on top of that, it’s always fun to read what students will create when it really counts.

 I pledge, yup that’s right, pledge to be a more organized student.  For years I have been a disorganized student and the messiness has to stop.  I can’t stress this enough.  I can’t be a well organized student without a well organized assignment notebook.  And that is why I strongly believe that I should have the nice new neat assignment notebook kept in your planning page box.

Let’s think about this.  As a teacher, you encourage kids to improve in there weak spots, like reading and writing , and you try to help them in whatever way you can.  So if you think about it, you would be helping me in my weak spot by letting me start over in a nice new assignment notebook.  You know, you would really be helping me succeed.

In my own defense, I have to say that you’re not actually using the assignment notebook.  You did say so yourself.  So by giving me the assignment notebook, you would be saving paper and giving it to a good cause.  ME!  You could be a really eco friendly man.

And last but not least, I am going to say that this is no joke.  I’m not going to rip it or write dumb stuff on it, like my last one.  I promise.  And trust me, Mr. Wondra, I never break my promises.  I also promise not to lose it or let anyone draw on it.  I will guard it with my life.

Mr. Wondra, giving me that assignment notebook would give me a chance to be more organized, which not only is extra stress off my back, but also it will help with my grades and so much more.  You will see improvement in my organization right before your eyes if you just let me have your assignment notebook.

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