As more and more independent schools transform their programs from “traditional” to “student-owned” teaching, the points of resistance from faculty are remarkably similar from school to school.
Some teachers, for example, have been known to say, “While collaborative learning is fun and engaging for students, there isn’t enough time given the content that has to be covered. How can students be ready to take an AP exam?” Other teachers believe that they will hinder students’ ability to do well on SATs if they trade too much content for skills learning. Still others cite college readiness as the reason to stay the course. Students, they often argue, won’t be prepared for university courses if they don’t cover every bit of content now.
Even school leaders can hesitate when it comes to program change, for they worry about losing parent trust.
These fears are understandable. But what can school leaders do when, on the one hand, they are keenly aware of trends in 21st century education (and of the challenges facing static schools if they are not poised for fierce competitors, as described in Sizing Up the Competition) — and when, on the other hand, they are aware of the trust they risk losing with a variety of stakeholders?
The Curiosity Shop Addresses Current School Challenges
In many ways, these challenges are precisely what The Curiosity Shop (TCS) is designed to examine and address. TCS — which serves all teachers, preK-12 — is McDonogh School’s Community for Teaching and Learning.
With every passing day, I see TCS as a nexus that brings the world of that particular kind of culture that people identify as their school into conversation with the world that will likely have us thinking in new ways about teaching and learning. As director of TCS, I find my work needing to introduce how students may learn the same content but through pedagogies that ask students to perform the knowledge they’re acquiring rather merely to receive it through “direct instruction.”
I can make a strong case for such an approach because of McDonogh’s academic strategic plan, LifeReady. It declares that in addition to traditional content learning, skills-based objectives like collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity are major components of our program.
A first grader presents what she learned about community helpers during a first grade lesson that combined traditional content delivery and skills-based objectives. Credit: Bill Denison Photography.
A Pastoral and Curricular Mission Undergirds Teaching and Learning Center
How can a center like TCS have an impact on the practice of a school? For one, I am beginning to see that TCS can’t only be about providing resources and echoing headlines that call for change. TCS must also be a place of listening and responding individually to teachers’ needs and concerns. In this way, TCS must have a pastoral (in a non-religious sense) as well as a curricular mission. The Curiosity Shop will likely succeed not only by what it can offer to faculty, but by what it can offer for them: time and personalized attention to their questions, fears, and needs.
Why might such centers need to do this work? Current research on cognitive psychology related to education offers some insight. “Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not designed for thinking,” writes Daniel T. Willingham in Why Don’t Students Like School? This provocative thesis seems ludicrous, but Willingham explains that, since thinking is “slow” and “effortful,” we “rely on memory. Most of the problems we face are ones we’ve solved before, so we just do what we’ve done in the past… your memory system is much more reliable than your thinking system, and it provides answers quickly and with little effort” (6–7).
Willingham adds that humans are nevertheless curious and willing and able to learn — as long as the conditions are right to maintain their motivation.
Cognitive Habits of Teachers and Students Are Similar
I argue that, even if we make clear that both content and skills learning can be accomplished in a mutually enriching way, we must keep in mind that teachers, like their students, are prone to the same cognitive habits. It’s little wonder, then, that when faculty have practiced a particular teaching methodology for years, change is hard for reasons that are larger than just their personalities; people seem biologically disposed to staying the course.
What’s more, John Hattie, in Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn, argues that merely “[p]racticing an activity allows you to shift control from a conscious to an automatic function, in order to stop developing” (Hattie, 99). This means that the more you practice a thing (without the objective of learning something new) — and, here, let’s call this thing “teaching” — the more your method becomes automatic, and, hence, resistant to change. He’s talking about student learning, but his point applies readily to teachers.
Faculty members discuss project-based learning ideas with educational consultant Thom Markham during a professional development seminar offered by the Summer Institute of The Curiosity Shop. From left: Elizabeth Irvine, Hugh Rheingold, Lauren Whitty, Thom Markham, Susan Scherz. Credit: Bill Denison Photography.
Carve Out More Time for Faculty Professional Development
Cognitive science urges us to think of teachers as students who, despite their intelligence and careers in schools, are likely to parry change at a structural level. Understanding this must be part of how we prepare for professional development in our schools. In fact, we must schedule a good deal more professional development than the handful of days we usually dedicate to faculty growth. Just as students need classes, time for practice, regular feedback, and group work, so do teachers.
Schools would do well to schedule regular professional learning community (PLC) time when teachers can align their practice with broad institutional goals. Perhaps to start we could carve out 75 minutes once a week (the length of an average class, say). Data show that PLC time is the single greatest factor for improving the quality of teacher impact in schools.
Skills vs. Content Is a False Choice
When our schools find themselves in conditions where some teachers are identified as “traditional” and others as “progressive,” we need to resist such either/or thinking. Given the science of learning and McDonogh’s institutional goals, our faculty actually do not have to make this false choice. We see LifeReady adding a performance dimension to our already-strong liberal arts preparation. We won’t lose that identity. There isn’t any need to.
But why do our schools get caught up in this false choice of content or skills? While literature on 21st century learning challenges traditional teacher-centered methods, researchers like John Hattie show that students still benefit from some direct instruction in class (Hattie, Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn).
This same science, however, also reminds us that students can absorb only 10 or so minutes of direct instruction before their minds take a necessary break, so more traditional teachers haven’t necessarily found a reason to retreat to their current practice. A 10-minute lecture, for example, might be just one element in a larger project-based learning (PBL) unit driven primarily by students and coached by teachers. Change does not necessarily require an either/or choice, and that should be key in our story of institutional growth.
Partners show classmates their tornado evacuation route plans as part of a sixth grade project requiring students to work collaboratively while addressing real-world problems. Credit: Bill Denison Photography.
Make Time to Meet Teachers Face to Face
But, really, I think there is no substitute for the time school leaders take to meet with faculty face to face. The capacity for real change rests on the strength of relationships. Just last week, a middle school social studies teacher sought me out and asked how he might transform his practice to align with LifeReady. I loved the way Steve talked; he didn’t quite have the picture of what he wanted in mind, but he knew he wanted to create something new. I told him that I’d spend time in his classes and that we’d work together to design lessons and units that could align with a LifeReady vision through a PBL framework. At the core, change begins with a conversation, an open mind, and resources that we can work on together.
The Curiosity Shop Looks to the Future of Learning
Schools ought to declare the direction their academic program is taking. For McDonogh, LifeReady does this, and it provides the vision that guides us in our thinking. A school does well to anticipate the most common arguments used to resist change and to understand how to respond in ways that respect skeptics and give them a voice in the school’s growth. A school needs to see teachers themselves as students — ones who are prone to all the cognitive habits of being human — and to plan for that with copious professional development, PLC time, and patience.
I know that, here at McDonogh, The Curiosity Shop will surely evolve as the school does. But, for now, it is a place that looks to the future of learning, one faculty member at a time.
