Did you go into teaching because you love children or because you love a content area? Okay, false dichotomy. The choices aren’t mutually exclusive. So assign percentages that add up to 100%. “Children” sounds like the best answer. Who wants to hire a teacher who doesn’t love children? Sometimes I hear, “You don’t teach content; you teach students.” “Content area” sounds like the smart answer. But the word that both of those sentences share is “teach.” So I think there’s a 3rd leg necessary to support the stool of a teacher's efforts: pedagogy.
Most veteran teachers who have sustained their passion for their profession answer the question “What is your favorite thing about teaching?” with something about seeing a student “get it.” The process or moment or result of learning. I’ve also discovered over the last 30 years that sometimes my students don’t get it no matter how much I love them or know about the content. At this point, I need to look at the times they do get it, figure out what it was that worked, and then intentionally structure my class to do more of that. I’ve come to be a studier of how learning takes place in my room, and how I can structure class so that learning is more likely to occur more deeply for more students. I have to know both my students and my content, and I have to know something else, too: how to connect the two.
This connecting students and content is pedagogy. I could say “teaching,” but I want to avoid that word because the traditional image of teaching is one person standing in front of a class delivering information to be assimilated by the students. That image makes it too easy to blame students when learning doesn’t happen. And while that may be true to a greater or lesser extent, blame doesn’t help. It lets me off the hook. It isn’t about the students we used to have or wish we had or used to be. It’s about the students in front of me right now. How can I increase the likelihood that learning will occur for them?
In order to be a studier of how learning takes place in my room, I first have to answer the question “What is the learning I want to see?” As I define it, I need to include not just content and skills (like parts of speech and identifying irony) but also understandings (the importance of audience and purpose) and dispositions (curiosity and love of reading). We know now that what students learn depends greatly on how they learn it. Do they have a significant purpose? Do they have time to process the information or practice the skill? Are they engaged or merely compliant?
How learning opportunities are structured affects not only the extent to which students learn what I think I taught, but what else they learn. In a worst-case scenario this could be things like the following: School is disconnected from life. This is boring. I can’t do it. Don’t get caught. Win at all costs. However, it’s also possible to structure learning opportunities so that in addition to the content and skills, students also learn things like this: The world is an amazing place. I can get what I need to learn. We are smarter and stronger together than alone.
I became a teacher 30 years ago because I loved the content. That was probably 80% of my motivation. Basically, I decided I’d rather spend the bulk of my college credit hours reading and writing than in a science lab. Teaching was a way I could make my living having taken that course of study. I wanted to love kids—though introvert that I am I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with them. My first year I was terrified that I’d made a horrible mistake in career choice and wasted 4 years of college.
In the last 10 years what I’ve discovered is that there is this whole extra leg of pedagogy—better ways to structure learning opportunities. And I am happiest and most effective when I’m growing in all 3 legs of my teaching: content knowledge, love for students, and pedagogy. I grow in my content knowledge by reading and writing. I grow in my love for students (see my blog "Relationships Aren't the Frosting on the Cake of Education"). And I grow in my pedagogy by reading professional books, engaging in book discussions, forming a virtual professional learning network, and reflecting on my teaching through my own blogging.
Why did you become a teacher? What keeps you teaching?
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