Week 1 Reflection - Teacher as Designer
Greetings!
I'll use this blog to record my reflections for EDIT 780 - Principles of School-based Design. Our exploration of school-based design begins with the notion that teachers are designers. It's difficult to imagine life in the modern world without design. The buildings in which we work and live and the cars that take us back and forth between them are all thoughtfully crafted by designers. These people put effort into making sure some raw materials come together to achieve a purpose. I do believe in teachers as designers, and the end result - the purpose they aim to achieve - is student learning and achievement.
This week I learned that planning and designing are not the same thing. A planner may arrange the materials they have at hand, but a designer starts from scratch, crafting an entire experience (car, building, garden) from scratch. When I think of the teacher as designer, I think of my mentor teacher Mr. Thimons. He was a teacher who believed strongly in the value of experiential learning, even in the English classroom. He believed that a lesson embedded into a memorable moment or experience would aid in students' ability to retain concepts and skills. He believed that students would walk away from an interesting experience remembering both the interesting thing that happened and the lesson or content along with it.
I remember one day in Mr. Thimons' drama class when the group of eleventh graders was just about to begin a unit on absurdism. Students knew that this day was unlike any other because first of all, they could not easily get into the classroom. Desks and chairs were piled high in the doorway, forming a sort of tunnel through which students had to crawl in order to enter the room. When they entered the room they found that the light was dim except for the TV in the corner, tuned deliberately to static. Mr. Thimons himself was there, but he did not speak to his students. He did not begin a lesson or put a warm-up on the board. The students did not know what to make of this. Because their desk had been used to build a barrier, they had to either stand or sit on the floor. Many didn't know what to do. Their usually classroom environment had been rendered absurd. They all remembered this day as unlike any other, but then that was the point. From thence sprang the class discussion of absurdism.
I think it's important to remember that, even in this age of prescribed curricula and top-down standards, teachers have an enormous amount of latitude when it comes to presenting and making material memorable. The number of variables a teacher can affect can be overwhelming. I recall standing in my classroom on my first teacher work day at a new school, days before classes were to start, slaving over how best to arrange the desks. Tables? Neat, even rows? A Socratic arc? Even the look and feel of the learning environment can be designed to affect the learning experience. A decision to hold class outside whilst diving into Emerson or Thoreau instead of in the classroom can be a deliberate choice made as part of a well crafted learning experience.
Teachers can design a learning experience in much the same way a theater company brings a play to life before an audience. Every piece of wood and cloth on stage was put there deliberately, and is designed to affect the audience's reaction and emotional response. Teaching is not theatrics, but there is some element of performance in it, and it's important to remember that nothing, not one word or gesture, is frivolous.
-Z-
I'll use this blog to record my reflections for EDIT 780 - Principles of School-based Design. Our exploration of school-based design begins with the notion that teachers are designers. It's difficult to imagine life in the modern world without design. The buildings in which we work and live and the cars that take us back and forth between them are all thoughtfully crafted by designers. These people put effort into making sure some raw materials come together to achieve a purpose. I do believe in teachers as designers, and the end result - the purpose they aim to achieve - is student learning and achievement.
This week I learned that planning and designing are not the same thing. A planner may arrange the materials they have at hand, but a designer starts from scratch, crafting an entire experience (car, building, garden) from scratch. When I think of the teacher as designer, I think of my mentor teacher Mr. Thimons. He was a teacher who believed strongly in the value of experiential learning, even in the English classroom. He believed that a lesson embedded into a memorable moment or experience would aid in students' ability to retain concepts and skills. He believed that students would walk away from an interesting experience remembering both the interesting thing that happened and the lesson or content along with it.
I remember one day in Mr. Thimons' drama class when the group of eleventh graders was just about to begin a unit on absurdism. Students knew that this day was unlike any other because first of all, they could not easily get into the classroom. Desks and chairs were piled high in the doorway, forming a sort of tunnel through which students had to crawl in order to enter the room. When they entered the room they found that the light was dim except for the TV in the corner, tuned deliberately to static. Mr. Thimons himself was there, but he did not speak to his students. He did not begin a lesson or put a warm-up on the board. The students did not know what to make of this. Because their desk had been used to build a barrier, they had to either stand or sit on the floor. Many didn't know what to do. Their usually classroom environment had been rendered absurd. They all remembered this day as unlike any other, but then that was the point. From thence sprang the class discussion of absurdism.
I think it's important to remember that, even in this age of prescribed curricula and top-down standards, teachers have an enormous amount of latitude when it comes to presenting and making material memorable. The number of variables a teacher can affect can be overwhelming. I recall standing in my classroom on my first teacher work day at a new school, days before classes were to start, slaving over how best to arrange the desks. Tables? Neat, even rows? A Socratic arc? Even the look and feel of the learning environment can be designed to affect the learning experience. A decision to hold class outside whilst diving into Emerson or Thoreau instead of in the classroom can be a deliberate choice made as part of a well crafted learning experience.
Teachers can design a learning experience in much the same way a theater company brings a play to life before an audience. Every piece of wood and cloth on stage was put there deliberately, and is designed to affect the audience's reaction and emotional response. Teaching is not theatrics, but there is some element of performance in it, and it's important to remember that nothing, not one word or gesture, is frivolous.
-Z-
HI Zach! I really enjoyed reading your blog entry. I think it's great that you shared the story from your experience with your drama teacher. It's lessons like this one that really stays with students. Also, I definitely agree with your statements about teaching being theatrical and every comment is important. As teachers, we have a great responsibility to affect our students. It reminds me of this quote “I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”
ReplyDelete― Haim G. Ginott
As designers, we even design our attitude, our approach and words.
Thanks for a thoughtful and well written entry and I look forward to reading the next one!
Hey! I like that you ended with the reminder that as teachers, nothing we do is frivolous. I work with 10-12 year olds, and they remind me on a daily basis that nothing I do or say goes unnoticed or unheard, so I better darn well make sure I'm acting the way I want them to.
ReplyDeleteI also really like the way you talk about planning vs. designing. This is a concept that I feel like I get, but have a hard time putting into words. You say designing is "crafting the entire experience from scratch", a phrase that I hope to remember forever. Planning and organizing is easy, designing requires much more thought and ingenuity.
See you Thursday!
Hello Zach. I enjoyed the reference to your mentor teacher Mr. Thimons and his lesson on absurdism. I too had an English teacher who did a whole theatrical monologue on Beowulf, including howling & snarling, it was great! We were all excited for that portion of his class. I like your point of how we as teachers have enormous latitude when it comes to presenting a lesson. It is a bit like performing, the front of that classroom or outside under a tree is our stage. I love the analogy. Nothing is frivolous, planned or designed!
ReplyDeleteHi Zach! Reading your bio, what an interesting job you must have, and I would love to hear more about it. Thank you for sharing your absurdism experience with your mentor teacher, Mr. Thimons. It was inspiring and refreshing to be reminded that teachers can have the latitude to be original crafters or designers in their classrooms, not just boring planners of lessons that must follow a scope and sequence and focus on standardized learning objectives. I do believe that most teachers go into education with a passion and desire to promote student learning and achievement and also strive to provide their students with creative, engaging, fun-filled learning opportunities. However, with federal legislation, state-mandated objectives and testing, locally produced scope and sequences for subject areas, and numerous other culprits, many teachers have lost the art of teaching. The intense pressures put upon them seem to place and keep teachers in a robotic scientific rut of planning lessons day after day which are often not connected to any real-life problem or context, I am excited in the recent shift that has begun, and am relieved that Loudoun County Public Schools is moving in a direction that embraces and expects design with the "One to the World" initiative.
ReplyDelete