Do you want learners who are masterful?
“Would you like to …?”
It’s an invitation to the learner. They’re free to decline. But they don’t, because the chance to talk about what they’ve done is always useful, safe and handled with care by this teacher.
“Where would you like to start?”
“Do you think …?”
She’s at their level, but that’s not why this is working. I’ve seen plenty of teachers work at a child’s level and frighten them stupid.
“Tell us more about …”
“I wonder if …”
The point isn’t getting answers or being ‘right’. It’s keeping the thinking going. On the learner’s terms – that means they can ask questions too.
“I’ve been trying to …”
“What about this bit?”
It’s a conversation.
We could get all fancy and give what’s happening a label, name the pedagogical approach dialogic, drawing on Bakhtin’s ideas about there being a “moral imperative to engage in joint meaning making”, thus adding an aura of intimidating intellectualism thanks to the reference of a Russian theorist.
Three other students walk over and join in and start to contribute. The conversation is interesting. They want to be part of it.
It all feels quite close to what real writers do. It doesn’t matter that these ones are 10.
Too many of our kids spend their time at school doing writing. They sit. They type. They hand in. They hope. Some get anointed, told they’re good at writing.
Doing writing and being a writer aren’t the same thing.
What do real writers do? They read. They talk. They think. They scribble. They walk. They type. They share. They play. They chisel. They find themselves and the world.
Process is key. These writers are curious, their writing inspired by the world they’re in. These writers want help, happily spending time with their teacher as they critique both what’s on the page and where things could go. These writers are effective communicators, able to hold a conversation with an adult and their peers as equals. These writers appreciate craftsmanship, aware that to make something good requires thought and effort and care.
These writers step in to the chance to get better, to learn. Isn’t this how mastery develops?
But let’s come back to the importance of how they talk to each other in this classroom. The teacher’s approach. The teacher’s philosophy allows her to open up space for the kids to show themselves. She grants them control of their experience. They are not frightened, guarded, made small by some hovering idea of being good enough in the eyes of someone all-knowing.
She trusts them. Everything she does carries the message, You’ve got this. Don’t underestimate the power of this. If there’s one thing I learnt in my research, it’s that trusting learners unleashes them.
“....we know you trust us so we’re more confident in our work...”.
“If you have a trust you feel ok about asking things [because without it] you don’t know what kind of answer they’re [the teacher] going to give.”
From what I’ve seen, any approach to education that leads with what a kid can’t do and with the teacher in control stymies the development of trust and puts false ceilings on our impressions of what a learner can do.