Teaching, Scouting, Coaching, Parenting, and Writing

My most dramatic epiphany regarding teaching was in the summer of 2005. I was part of the Oregon Writing Project and for one of my assignments wrote the following (so this entry will likely be my longest but it sets the stage for subsequent thoughts):

Pedagogy, curriculum alignment, cultural competency, rubrics and authentic assessment...this is the jargon of academia, but where does real teaching take place? Prior to my years in college, I had abundant experience working at Boy Scout camps and taught younger boys various skills, like first aid, swimming, life saving, and knot tying. These experiences allowed me to have numerous experiences with boys ages 7-17. I was told, however, they were not "valid practicum teaching experiences."

Now, after 18 [21 now] years of teaching in the trenches in low socio-economic schools and innumerable workshops demonstrating successful practices, I've come to believe that those initial experiences are much more valid when teaching than I ever thought and specifically when teaching writing. Good teaching includes many natural components of Scouting, coaching and parenting.

Scouting: "Scouts learn by doing." "Teach by being a manager of learning: ask them to try to show you if they can do it, show them, have them do it, test them." "Provide immediate advancement when they've earned it." "Good program doesn't focus on advancement, it is a part of the program, so they will advance by being a part of it."

Coaching: "Good job!" "Good hustle!" "Let's work on that in practice." "You need to come to practice every day." "Team work is important." "You are competing with others, but you are also part of a team." "You should prepare before the season begins." "We compete with other teams in our same league." "Let’s work on just one thing at a time."

Parenting: "What would you like to do?" "Let's do that together." "What did you learn today?" "Show me." "That's great--let's put that up on the fridge." "Why don't you read it to me, and I'll type it for you?" "Let's have a pick-up party!" "Do you want to wash or dry the dishes?" "I can’t compare you to your brothers or sisters because you are unique."

Teaching: Practices that work include all of the above. Students need to feel successful immediately. They need to feel safe and they need to be coached while doing, instead of being told. Students learn best by having options during their learning. Once they've done something successfully, they benefit from being congratulated and rewarded for a job well done. Students need to be assessed based on where they are, at their own level. "The curriculum needs to be individualized." Students need to be actively engaged in what they are doing. Technology is a tool to do something better--not an end in itself. Finally, students need to be involved in one-on-one time as much as possible.

Teaching writing: The best writing incorporates short, focused lessons, student choice, one-on-one instruction, and positive encouragement. The writer's workshop has these components imbedded in it.

One of the chief components of the writer’s workshop is the mini-lesson. It is a brief lesson that focuses on just one aspect of writing. Students then receive immediate opportunity to practice what was taught in the mini-lesson. Experienced writer’s workshop teachers may do their own writing during writing time, ing what is to be done. Students have a limited choice for writing topics. The teacher sets the guidelines, but the students are free to choose within those guidelines so they have more of an interest in the paper.

Another major component of the writer’s workshop is sharing student work. This lets the students know they will actually have an audience for their writing and provides an opportunity to celebrate students writing. Celebrating student work is such an encourager for students of all ages, as is the cheering found so often in Scouting, coaching and parenting. Yet another crucial component of the writer’s workshop is a one-on-one conference. This gives each student the personal time they need to be encouraged and to learn one more way to improve their writing, specific to the student’s skill level.

Good teaching, and specifically good writer’s workshop instruction, focuses on the development of each student as an individual while moving them all along the path to becoming more proficient. The students are motivated to help themselves improve and practice the actual skills they will be tested on. This individualized, encouraging instruction is better teaching.