{"id":2988,"date":"2012-12-31T05:54:47","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T10:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=2988"},"modified":"2012-12-31T05:54:47","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T10:54:47","slug":"we-need-teachers-not-facilitators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=2988","title":{"rendered":"We Need Teachers, Not Facilitators!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently heard that a conference speaker told his audience, \u201cWe need fewer teachers and more facilitators.\u201d My first reaction was, \u201c1986 called and would like its keynote back.\u201d My second thought was that the speaker is dead wrong!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The use of terms like \u201cfacilitator\u201d always makes me queasy. The desire to rebrand teaching as facilitation results more from the low self-esteem of educators than either public opinion or a serious commitment to pedagogical progress. Regardless of the speaker\u2019s intent, \u201cteacher as facilitator\u201d is a clich\u00e9 that makes teaching sound more mechanistic and impersonal, not more. Modern medicine evolves and changes constantly, yet we still call its practitioners doctors. The invention of Viagra didn\u2019t cause the public to make erector appointments. They call their doctor.<\/p>\n

If one truly wants to improve the educational experience of children, then we need more teachers and fewer facilitators.<\/p>\n

A popular parlor game among educators is debating the precise moment when \u201ceducation went bad.\u201d (Whether or not you believe there is a crisis in education.) A Nation at Risk, <\/em>No Child Left Behind, Race-to-the-Top are often cited as the tipping point in the decline of K-12 education. I don\u2019t blame a specific piece of legislation or blue-ribbon report entirely for the challenges faced by educators on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

In my humble opinion, classrooms became less productive contexts for learning when teacher education became more concerned with training facilitators than creating teachers. The die was cast when professional educators accepted such dystopian rebranding as \u201cfacilitator.\u201d<\/p>\n

While earning my BA in teacher education during the early to mid-1980s, I was in the last class required to learn to play the piano a little bit, teach physical education, make puppets out of pop-tart boxes, create math manipulatives, design science experiments and setup a convivial classroom environment. When teaching was viewed as equal parts art and science, teacher education reflected that balance.<\/p>\n

Around 1985, legislatures across the nation concluded that \u201cteaching ain\u2019t nuthin\u2019\u201d and changed credentialing requirements to ensure that teachers studied something \u201creal\u201d instead of education courses. Today, Teach-for-America spends five weeks preparing college grads to be teachers \u2013 less than half the time required for Marine Corps basic training and exponentially less time than I spent becoming an elementary school teacher. Educators know well that when elementary teacher preparation is less child-centered, secondary education gets even worse.<\/p>\n

Today, new teachers truly are facilitators. They are \u201ctrained\u201d to manage classrooms and deliver the curriculum handed to them. That\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n

This is great news for policy-makers and ideologues. Teachers are more compliant and less questioning than ever before. Flip the classroom? Sure! Tie teacher pay to standardized testing? Why not? Abandon labor protections secured by unionization? You betcha!<\/p>\n

I remember being taught explicitly how to justify playing Scrabble for days or putting on a puppet show as educationally efficacious. This wasn\u2019t just a \u201ccover-your-ass in the plan book strategy,\u201d but a way of understanding and articulating what your students were learning. The deafening calls for \u201caccountability\u201d are partially the result of teachers incapable of making learning visible. The less teachers have to think about their students\u2019 thinking, the less thinking they do generally. Teaching needs to be thoughtful.<\/p>\n

I have been stunned to observe the complete and utter return to whole class instruction in nearly every school I visit (public, private, rich, poor, urban, suburban and rural) everywhere in the world. New teachers have little or no experience with classroom centers, independent work, student projects and the sorts of agency that allow children to enjoy the \u201cflow\u201d experiences that build upon their obsessions and lead to understanding. Even when teachers are not lecturing from bell-to-bell, the classroom agenda is top-down and leaves little chance for serendipity or student initiative.<\/p>\n

The most generous rationale for the Common Core Content Standards is that teachers lack a personal compass for what students should know and do. Teachers expert in inspiring long-term, personally meaningful and interdisciplinary projects or thematic instruction regularly exceed the standards, but that realization is lost on facilitators.<\/p>\n

Great teachers know<\/em> their students in deeper ways than any data can provide. They ask kids about their weekends. They chat about what kids are reading and console them when their hamster dies. Teachers spend thirty minutes per month in Toys R Us on the lookout for cool stuff to use in the classroom and as a means to learning about the culture of the children they serve. They learn continuously for themselves and their students. Teachers share their love of reading and are patrons of the arts. They are active citizens and engage students in current events. Outstanding teachers are not afraid to appear silly or create a whimsical classroom environment. They play in the snow with kindergarteners like Maria Knee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The best thing we can do for children is to have them spend as much time with possible with interesting adults. So, great teachers need to be passionate, competent and interesting humans beyond the scope and sequence of the curriculum.<\/p>\n

If we truly wish to make the world a better place for children, then we need many more teachers and a lot fewer facilitators!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently heard that a conference speaker told his audience, \u201cWe need fewer teachers and more facilitators.\u201d My first reaction was, \u201c1986 called and would … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[430,427,435,428,526,434,429,431],"tags":[1205,1220,1390,654,1219,1218],"class_list":["post-2988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","category-education-policy","category-featured","category-general","category-leadership","category-learning","category-project-based-learning","category-teaching","tag-common-core","tag-maria-knee","tag-project-based-learning","tag-standards","tag-teacher-as-facilitator","tag-teacher-educator"],"yoast_head":"\nWe Need Teachers, Not Facilitators! 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