Think Like a Teacher

What does it take to be a leader? Because I am a teacher, I think about the skills teachers have that equip them to lead. Are there lessons that political leaders in Alberta could learn from teachers?

My dad, former teacher, school administrator and Mayor of Tumbler Ridge

A lot of my fellow teachers don't have confidence in their leadership abilities but in my small town, teachers are not just the leaders of their large and complex classrooms; they are often leaders in community groups and other nonprofit organizations. They frequently spearhead innovative projects that make our community a better place. Sometimes they enter politics. My own father went from air force pilot to engineer to teacher to principal to assistant superintendent to healthcare administrator to alderman and later, mayor of Tumbler Ridge B.C.

Some of my relatives don't think much of teachers. When Justin Trudeau was elected they said "Trudeau never held a real job in his life, what equips him to lead?"

For those of you who have never taught, let me assure you teaching is a very real job. A job that requires a myriad of skills that equip people to lead. Teaching requires logistical and organization skills, communication skills, and a thick skin. These are skills all leaders require.

The more you teach, the more you get stuck in the mind set of thinking like a teacher. As Justin Trudeau said shortly after election, "Being a teacher is who I am. It's the way I see the world, the way I understand it..." His recent mini-lecture on the basics of quantum computing exemplifies this worldview.

What does it mean to "see the world as a teacher"? Is it really a worldview? Is there such a thing as "thinking like a teacher?"  


I say there is.

In the summer of 2012 I attended an Olympic Soccer event in the UK. Thousands of people congregated in confusion outside the Coventry Stadium. No signage. No people on hand to say "If you are carrying a bag, you must go through this line for security. Then you must go all the way around the building with your security clearance to enter." People were milling around, frustrated and confused. They would get in one line only to get to the front to be told they had to stand in another line. I said to my husband "If the teachers at CJ Schurter had organized this, this wouldn't be happening." Why? Because experienced teachers speculate on every possible way some thing could go wrong. Teachers would walk themselves through each step of the process, thinking of the pitfalls along the way and coming up with solutions to prevent them.

Teachers see disparity and diversity first hand every day. It's not something they pay lip service to-they live it. Their students are culturally and linguistically and personally unique. They have social and economic differences. They do not have all the same benefits. They don't all start from the same place. As teachers, we see it as our job to give all our students the opportunity to succeed as individuals in society, no matter what their starting place is. That is just part of how we see the world. Sure some teachers get jaded and tired and frustrated. But recognizing our differences is the place we start from.

Drafting boards at South Peace Secondary, Dawson Creek. 1967

Teachers think about how to share ideas. You'll be sitting with your teacher friends watching the Superbowl and someone will say, "You know, you could use that ad to teach such and such a concept." Your retired friend says "I don't think that way anymore." A year later he's back in the classroom. Because he does think like that and he always will. Sometimes "thinking like a teacher" leads to the offering of unwanted advice or the correction of people's grammar or the pointing out of misunderstandings about politics. It might not make you popular, but you just can't help yourself.

Teachers know people don't all think the same way. Not just kids but their parents and their peers have different background knowledge and different values and beliefs. Thinking like a teacher means speculating on gaps in understanding.  It means knowing that people have misconceptions.  It means asking yourself "How did [that kid/my neighbour/Alberta's Plebiscite Warriors/the fools on the Facebook Discussion forum] come to that conclusion?" 
Even Alberta Education knows that is what teachers do.

When a teacher begins a lesson, he or she knows what errors in thinking a student may bring to the subject.  A grade seven teacher knows many students will think "a lot" is one word or the word "month" has a "u" in it.  High school teachers know kids might not remember what BEDMAS is, or think Hitler was a communist, or believe the government is to blame for the falling price of oil. 

One thing I have learned in past 30 years is that if there is a way to misunderstand something, someone will misunderstand it.  If there is a distracter in a multiple choice exam that I think no one would ever select-no matter how ridiculous- someone will select it. Guaranteed. 

My great aunt Margaret who taught junior
high special ed in the Peace Country

These are skills teachers have. Today's leaders should try to "think like teachers." When they roll out legislation, think about the diversity of the population. Think about the best way to teach people why this legislation is necessary. And ask "What preconceptions and misunderstandings might citizens bring to this new bill? What possible ways might they misinterpret its intent or implementation?"  

Once leaders have analyzed the misunderstandings, make preemptive strikes. Plan for successful implementation. Don't assume people will understand what you are trying to do. Communicate clearly. Have a back up plan if things get derailed.

You know what?  Being a teacher-like being a leader-often sucks. You are judged from morning till night by everyone. Kid failed an exam? Your fault. Kid misbehaving?  Your fault. Economy in the toilet?  Your fault.  Kid won a scholarship?  Good for him! Economy booming?  Thank industry and the hard workers of the province! The fact that people think that way is something else you accept as part of your worldview.

Thinking like a teacher won't stop the personal attacks. But it might prevent misunderstandings. Think about the diverse citizens of this province and the many ways in which they see the world before you even begin to implement your plans.

Think like a teacher.

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People ask me what I do.

It's hard to explain what “instruction” looks like in distance education.

Alberta’s Teaching Quality Standards says that quality teaching occurs when teachers understand the contextual variables that affect teaching and learning and respond by making reasoned pedagogical decisions that result in “optimal learning.”

My great aunt Isabel Perry in her classroom in Beaverlodge Alberta.

For a traditional teacher in a typical classroom in Alberta, there are many contextual variables. Classroom teachers know that each class in a public school in Alberta will have, among other things, students with a wide range of reading levels, a few ESL students,  a few gifted students, children from a wide variety of income levels including those in poverty, children from broken homes, kids with mental illness, some with physical disabilities, a couple who may be repeating the course, some struggling with bullying, some with family issues, perhaps one or two with addictions issues, and a handful who have been coded with special needs. Yet once those students are in the classroom, the impact of many of those variables can be lessened because each of those kids is in a classroom, probably sitting in a desk, surrounded by his or her peers, receiving group and one on one instruction from a teacher and/or teaching assistant who can gauge the student’s learning through verbal cues, body language and interpersonal interaction. A classroom teacher will make decisions about how to teach these children so that all will learn.Those students also have, for better or worse, a community of their peers who may support or hinder their learning.

Now put that same teacher in a distance education environment. The teacher is faced with the same variables as the classroom teacher and more. For instance, at least 40% of my students are repeating Social Studies 10-2 and close to 60% of them have special needs of one kind or another. And because I am not in control of the daily learning environment, there are even more variables outside my control. Mary has a baby at home, Randy has crippling social anxiety, Jason is working on his own in the library, Jodi has physical disabilities so severe she cannot actually get to school, Siobhan is caring for an ailing parent, Rajan is looking after his grandpa with dementia and Saleem lives in Qatar. These students do not live in the same town and do not have a community in common.  I do not have control of the contextual variables of time and space that the classroom teacher has. Instead of all sitting in desks in the same room at the same time, my students are working in an almost infinite variety of settings. One may be completing a couple of question while on break at Mr. Lube. One maybe work from home with no English speaker in sight to talk to. Another may be wrestling with an elusive concept while changing a diaper or working late at night at the kitchen table after farm chores are done. Another may be on a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico or working in a compound in the Middle East with limited internet access.

When teachers create lessons, they have pictured in their heads the students who will be interacting with the lesson contents.  Based on their experience, they predict what these students will put into their learning, and imagine what they will take away.  Distance educators are no different, yet the contextual differences mean that far more must go into the planning of lessons because teacher is not in front of students to fill in the gaps in learning, to check for understanding, to provide immediate classroom or individual instruction when a lesson goes wrong, or to reteach a concept when formative assessment reveals the lesson taught did not achieve the desired learning outcome.

As distance educators, we try to predict every possible way in which our students might read or misread what we create, the mistakes in completing an assignment, the errors in thinking they may exhibit, the shutdown that may result from material that is too complicated and from directions that are hard to understand. We constantly remind ourselves that we are not there face to face with our students. We cannot hear the little comments made under their breath or out loud that show they just don’t get it. We cannot judge their body language, or observe the moment when the student is no longer engaged in the task at hand. We also know that our students frequently work in isolation. A student cannot turn to his seatmate and ask “what did you get for question 3?” or “how long is your paragraph? or “remind what page the teacher said that tutorial was on”. There is no adult nearby to gently nudge the child in the right direction or assist in the review of a concept or restate the task to be accomplished in a different way. We know that if our lessons are poorly crafted, there may be no “do over” the next day. Our students may easily become lost to the point of no return.

Far beyond being  simple lesson plans, for a distance educators like me, the materials we create become our voices, reaching out to our students and speaking to them in a language we hope they will understand. While I may use Dreamweaver and Photoshop and html and a myriad of other software programmes, I still try to engage my students and capture their interest with my words. I endeavor to scaffold instructions so that my students experience success by learning in increments with as much positive feedback as I can provide, to keep them motivated and interested and achieving. I tell my students that when they read their materials they should think of them as me talking to them.

Yet despite this careful scaffolding of instruction, despite our carefully worded and planned lessons, our focus on formative assessment, our encouragement to phone or email or Skype for extra explanation, despite our meticulously written, peer edited, revised and rewritten assignments, our use of images, audio and video, our students make errors. They do not always exhibit a full understanding of the concepts. They must be retaught. In the classroom, the teacher can discuss these common errors with the entire class. The distance educator, however, must reteach one child at a time. While we do try to automate some feedback, in many cases, the comments we make to our students take the form of mini lessons that teach a prerequisite skill the student has not obtained, or ask guided questions, or explain a concept again in another way, sometimes with video and/or audio explanations. "Marking" assignments in this way is a very different process than that practiced by classroom teachers. 

Another area in the realm of the distance educator is nagging. Distance education programmes have notoriously high attrition rates. Trying to keep students moving forward when they are at a distance is a challenge. We phone and email and video-conference and instant message and use the built-in online pager and contact parents and partner schools. We even send letters by postal mail.We track down lost exams and missing phone numbers and lost kids and assignments gone astray. We encourage and cajole and try to pique interest.

In all of this, what is considered "teaching"? What is considered "lesson planning"? What is "marking?  What is "clerical work"? 

There are many similarities between what a classroom teacher does and what a distance education teacher does. But there are many differences.

People ask me what I do. It's a complicated question. But it has a simple answer.

I teach.