Who’s Driving?
My kids have had many dynamite teachers over the years and I’m so grateful for these talented educators. In kid words, they “make learning fun” and they “include hands-on activities”. And learning should bring many moments of joy and spark wonder, curiosity…all the things.
What are those moments of joy? When I asked my younger son what makes math fun, he explained that they used blocks to solve geometry problems earlier in the week. That’s not rocket science. It’s not expensive and it didn’t take a lot of teacher planning time, and it’s not anything new. We’re talking about unifix cubes that any math teacher can make accessible and that most kids have used from pre-K.
It’s not about the blocks. Those simple blocks were part of a classroom culture that put him in the driver’s seat. That teacher didn’t just plan content, but thought intentionally about what the kids would be doing that invited active engagement and ownership of learning. She literally invited them to pick up the learning and engage with the content for themselves.
One of my favorite educators in the world asks the simple question of the new teachers she mentors: “What are the kids doing?”.
So often new teachers will pause, review the lesson plan they spent hours creating, and then slowly say, “They’re listening.” And while listening will always be part of the school day, it shouldn’t be our go-to answer. If most of our lessons involve kids sitting and listening to the teacher, we’re not maximizing learning time for anyone.
How do we start putting kids in the driver’s seat? We look at our lesson plans with a few simple considerations:
Who’s doing the talking?
Who’s engaging in productive struggle?
Who’s explaining and synthesizing ideas?
Who’s asking questions?
If it’s the teacher who’s doing most of these things, then the teacher is doing most of the learning and thinking in that classroom. Those kids are not in the driver’s seat…they’re way back in the third row passenger seat and looking out the window. Yes, they’re listening sometimes and some of them are actively engaging…but sometimes and some kids mean we’re wasting precious learning time.
Dynamic, responsive educators spark self-motivation and intentionally plan so the kids are in the driver’s seat. Those teachers are not just thinking about the content they will deliver but the space they intentionally create for kids to step on the gas pedal.
