Want to know the top-secret way that I learned how to teach? I watched great teachers in action. It’s cheap and effective, and you can trust that the person actually knows what they’re doing (since you’re watching them do it!). Plus, teachers are already teaching all day, everyday! There’s no complex planning necessary. Just connect with the right person and set up a time.
My Mentor Teacher
As a student teacher, I was incredibly fortunate to have an outstanding mentor named Nanci. In the two months I spent in her class, I watched her demonstrate (and explain) technique after technique with real students in a real classroom. No hand-waving! Just actual teaching.
I learned how to embed Depth and Complexity into lessons from her, but I didn’t read a single article about Depth and Complexity! I didn’t watch someone talk about Depth and Complexity at a conference. Instead, I watched someone actually use Depth and Complexity in actual lessons with actual students.
After school, Nanci and I would sit down and plan lessons together. I learned how to write lessons by watching someone write lessons! Nanci checked my work and made recommendations. She gave me feedback on how I ran the lesson. I got better!
It may sound trite, but I learned to teach by watching teachers teach!
My Boss
Our director of gifted education, Sandi, was also an expert teacher. In my second year of teaching, I asked her, “What more can I do with this reading lesson from our textbook?”
Did she forward me an article to read? Did she recommend a conference to attend next Fall? Did she hand me a book written by a university professsor?
No way!
She grabbed a pencil and wrote a darn lesson right in front of me! I’ll never forget it. She used concentric circles so students could explore how a big idea would apply differently in increasingly larger situations: home, school, city, etc. I went on to use that technique over and over in my career. Ten minutes well spent!
There’s no professional development like watching someone actually do the work right in front of your eyes.
It’s Cheap!
The best part? This costs virtually nothing. We didn’t have a huge budget. My school’s parent association was non-existent. So my bosses created opportunities for teachers to watch other teachers teach.
When I struggled with running differentiated groups in my classroom, my principal didn’t hand me a book (which I wouldn’t have had time to read anyway). Instead, she said, “Oh, go check out Diane’s class. She does a great job with grouping.”
Guess what?
It took like ten minutes, and my problem was fixed. Diane did know her stuff! And my principal sent me to exactly the right person. She DID NOT try to fake it herself.
When I was learning about Think Like a Disciplinarian, my principal took my class while I popped into Jamie’s class to observe a lesson. Jamie knew I was coming and had a great lesson ready for me to watch.
I got to see every bit of the process. See, a big problem with expert speakers and book studies is that they leave all the tricky stuff out. They make things sound simple. But nothing in teaching is simple! The devil is always in the details. When you watch a teacher teach, you see how they handle the problems that inevitably pop up. You get to see how to handle it when Calvin tips his chair over in the middle of a lesson and everyone loses focus.
Plus, showcasing teachers creates an ongoing supply of leaders.
New Leaders Rise
Eventually, as I learned the ropes, teachers would come to my class to see a particular technique in action. In my fourth year, Cindy watched me run a Junior Great Books discussion, which I had learned by watching Nanci (who by then was a principal at a different school).
My boss didn’t blow our limited funds on trendy doodads or expensive events. She spent it on substitutes!
All of our district’s new gifted ed teachers (Year One Rookies!), spent a day traveling to each of our gifted magnet schools, watching teachers teach. This was carefully planned. My director briefed us in the morning on what we’d see, drove us to each school, observed the lessons with us, and then we all debriefed in the afternoon. The cost for this day was a substitute teacher for each of us. And she bought us lunch! We’d meet again for another day in our second year.
Years later, my class became a stop on these days of professional development. I got to show new teachers a particular type of lesson or differentiation technique.
Sure, my mentor, Nanci, was no longer in a classroom, but the next generation of teachers passed her knowledge on. I call this “growing your own leaders.” Nowadays a new set of teachers demonstrate those same techniques, even though most of the original leaders have moved on to new adventures. When I visit my former school, I see the fingerprints of past teachers!
And our little elementary school became a place for all kind of visitors to watch teachers teach. Districts new to Depth and Complexity would send teachers over to see it in action. At one point, people started sending middle and high school teachers to our elementary school to observe the thinking we were getting out of our students. You’ve never seen 4th graders so scared as when high school teachers show up and talk to them!
You’ve Got To See It To Learn It
In short, the great educational leaders in my life did one of two things:
- Showed me exactly what to do themselves.
- Sent me to the right person so I could watch it in action.