Choice Literacy posted an article recently by Douglas Fleming for mentor teachers about building effective partnerships with apprentices. I find a myriad of parallels between guiding apprentices and teenage students.
Fleming recommends ten goals for mentors who want to create productive relationships with their apprentices. I think that we as teachers of teenagers may improve student productivity and satisfaction by emulating his recommendations. In today's blog entry, I've considered his second recommendation:
2. Be supportive of each other. Concentrate on achieving your mutual goals, not showing off your individual competencies. It's a partnership, not a competition.
With teaching teens, I say out with the adage, "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile". Instead, let's abide by the Golden Rule.
* demonstrate additional effort on an assignment than they did earlier in the year
* listen and contribute actively to a class discussion
* hover at your desk before or after class to talk about what's new in their lives
Perhaps these small but important examples can be achieved through other teacher-teenager relationships, but I find my goals are achieved as well as students' when such milestones occur in the classroom.
On building a partnership rather than a competition--perhaps you're thinking, "What teacher would try to compete with a teenager?" I have found myself goaded by teen students to demonstrate (or even defend) what I know or to shift from a relevant topic to an extraneous one. While it's not outright competition, the relationship between a teacher and a student can become adversarial--the warm and welcoming classroom can degrade into a figurative battlefield.
The way I interpret competitiveness when considering the teacher-student relationship has to do with sagacity and demonstrated knowledge more than a scenario of besting a teen (though I wouldn't say the latter is out of the question).
In my formative teaching years, when a student asked a question that stumped me, I would feel something close to both shame and self-doubt about my chosen profession. If I did not have all the answers for every student, then how could I call myself an educator? While I occasionally regress into this pitfall, I can mostly appreciate that
1. I still have years of learning in front of me and,
2. I do not need to be a walking-talking Encyclopedia (have we evolved to the point where that idiom should use the word Wikipedia, instead?) to be a good teacher.
Fellow teachers, I hope you appreciate that, too. I think back to times when I did not have an answer and felt I should, and my personality would switch from relaxed, confident, and approachable to tense, insecure, and aloof. This defense mechanism made me a standoffish classroom leader rather than the consistently warm and open educator I strive to be. It is okay not to know (what a wonderful lesson for students to learn!). It is even better to have them discover the answer rather than tell it to them as there can be more meaningful learning therein.
I trust my prolixity presents at minimum some food for thought for you. If you have questions, comments, or your own ideas, share them in the comments below!
* listen and contribute actively to a class discussion
* hover at your desk before or after class to talk about what's new in their lives
Perhaps these small but important examples can be achieved through other teacher-teenager relationships, but I find my goals are achieved as well as students' when such milestones occur in the classroom.
On building a partnership rather than a competition--perhaps you're thinking, "What teacher would try to compete with a teenager?" I have found myself goaded by teen students to demonstrate (or even defend) what I know or to shift from a relevant topic to an extraneous one. While it's not outright competition, the relationship between a teacher and a student can become adversarial--the warm and welcoming classroom can degrade into a figurative battlefield.
The way I interpret competitiveness when considering the teacher-student relationship has to do with sagacity and demonstrated knowledge more than a scenario of besting a teen (though I wouldn't say the latter is out of the question).
In my formative teaching years, when a student asked a question that stumped me, I would feel something close to both shame and self-doubt about my chosen profession. If I did not have all the answers for every student, then how could I call myself an educator? While I occasionally regress into this pitfall, I can mostly appreciate that
1. I still have years of learning in front of me and,
2. I do not need to be a walking-talking Encyclopedia (have we evolved to the point where that idiom should use the word Wikipedia, instead?) to be a good teacher.
Fellow teachers, I hope you appreciate that, too. I think back to times when I did not have an answer and felt I should, and my personality would switch from relaxed, confident, and approachable to tense, insecure, and aloof. This defense mechanism made me a standoffish classroom leader rather than the consistently warm and open educator I strive to be. It is okay not to know (what a wonderful lesson for students to learn!). It is even better to have them discover the answer rather than tell it to them as there can be more meaningful learning therein.
I trust my prolixity presents at minimum some food for thought for you. If you have questions, comments, or your own ideas, share them in the comments below!
Look for further installments about Fleming's other recommendations soon. In the interim, read Fleming's complete article here.
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