Who should adapt; our students or us as teachers?

The essence of teaching is that we are there for our students’ futures, not vice versa.  Should students have to adapt to differing expectations and a variety of pedagogies when they go from class to class with different teachers? 

Is it our students’ responsibility to be the ones who have to be flexible? Do they have or should they have the capacities to do this? 

The answer is a definite no.  

It is little wonder that our students become frustrated in class with our behaviours and as a consequence often exhibit inappropriate behaviours as their response.

We need to get it right; we are the professionals and as such we are the ones who should be doing the adapting, not our students.  We have the capacities to do this.

The largest variation in our schools is in the learning outcomes between classrooms; largely due to us, the teacher, teacher and the teacher.  

Then, how do we come up with a shared set of beliefs, practices, languages and expectations as a whole staff?  How do we deprivatise our classrooms to be more readable for our students?

We must establish in our schools, team structures that facilitate regular dialogue amongst teachers about teaching and learning, our core business. Our goals should begin with “Students will………”, our targets be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound and our strategies be agreed school wide practices that are communicated to and understood by students, teachers and parents.

Intensive in house staff professional development focusing on giving and receiving of developmental, non-judgmental feedback, and the framing of open questions, are key strategies.  Setting scheduled times every Term for staff professional dialogue to occur is essential; exclusive opportunities to just talk about and reflect on teaching and learning.

After dialogue each Term, all staff would then incorporate feedback they received in their individual professional development plans. This is an effective way to ensure that all staff reflect deeply on their professional practice and build readable approaches and expectations for students. 

21^st century education is in danger of being derailed by schools being used by the powers that be to address the diverse range of social challenges confronting children, parents and society.  Also, the never ending cycle of testing, testing, and testing is also taking the focus from teaching and learning.  If we weight something 50 times does it get heavier? Of course not, therefore why test, test, test?

Let’s empower ourselves as schools to deflect imposed systemic priorities and the “whizbang policies and initiatives”. It’s time for structured dialogue about what we do in our classrooms. Students will be able to cease acting as the professionals in our classrooms and be empowered to be curious to explore in their learning.

Let’s do it right, let’s do it now and build our profession together.

“Remember; resisting change is like holding your breath; if you succeed you die” Anon