During the teacher interview process, when asked if you have any questions for us, a candidate will oftentimes respond, “What are you looking for in a candidate?” The most common answer I have given to this question is that we are looking for a “learner.” Of course there is more to being an effective educator than just being a learner, for example you have to like kids, but if you are an educator who is not a learner your opportunity for growth has stagnated and you will soon find yourself not being as effective in helping young people to meet their own potential. (see also The Red Queen Effect) If this is true, which it is by the way, than that means we all must continue to evolve our practices and build on what we currently understand about teaching and learning. There are typically three responses to this fact.
Educators are either excited about the prospect of change and growth, burdened by the inconvenience of change and look to avoid it, or nervous about their own ability to change and grow. Fortunately two of the three responses, the first and the third, are good for both our profession and the young people in which we serve. These two responses carry with them an energy that provides the pressure needed to evolve our practices in order to meet the needs of the current population of young people. Often times people see the second as a “death sentence” when it comes to being an effective educator. I do feel it is the most challenging response of the three to overcome, but it is the reality of many educators and one that I feel can be altered.
Many times those who see change as a burden feel that the hard work that was previously put in will somehow be lost if they were to make some sort of shift. I would argue that what we do and learn is never lost, but rather helps us to lay a foundation of understanding for where we currently stand which we then build upon over time. Another common reaction to change from this second group is to become defensive and jump to the conclusion that they are being labeled with accusations of incompetency and “doing things wrong all this time.” I would argue that this is also not the case. There is a quote by an unknown author (to me anyway) that states, “What we learn today doesn’t make yesterday wrong, it makes tomorrow better.” When have any of us done something “right” the first time? If we were to look back on our first years as teachers we would all cringe at much of what we did. However, we did the best we could for the time and then when we learned something different we changed. That is what made us better and therefore more effective educators. So, I would argue this second group has changed over their careers, are still capable of change, and therefore are not “dead in the water” as previously mentioned. What is missing for them is the rationale to change and the avenue by which to make the changes. This takes us back to the term “learners.”
There is a difference between knowing and learning. Knowing something is a static binary product. You either “know” something or you don’t know something. In contrast, learning is a dynamic process and not merely a product. There are many different ways to go about learning and therefore many different ways to learn. The first step for this second group is to ask if they are focused on helping young people “know” about their subject area or “learn.” Through the process of learning we are not abandoning what we know, but instead creating something new or applying it to something different. Even those people who we have identified as being one of the most creative or innovative thinkers in the world ranging from Pablo Picasso to Steve Jobs, did not invent something new out of nothing. They instead took what they knew or understood and applied it to something new by either bending, breaking, or blending what they already knew.
(see also Promoting a Proliferation of Options via the Three B’s) Therefor educators who identify with this second group can take heart that what they have worked on and what they know will not be going to waste even if they change their approach, but instead should recognize that what they have worked on and know will serve as the material which can then be bent, broken, or blended in order to create a new approach to teaching this particular group of young people how to learn. In making these changes for young people we become better learners ourselves.
One of my favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes is “It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself.” Developing learners is one of these actions, but requires change in order to be most effective. Whether we see the change as exciting, nerve racking, or even a burden, the change will help each of us to become better learners. I am sure you have heard the maxim “Like begets Like” which also can be extrapolated to “Learners beget Learners.” If our goal as educators is to develop learners, then we ALL must be learners to accomplish this goal.
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