{"id":7271,"date":"2023-10-02T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=7271"},"modified":"2023-09-30T08:32:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-30T13:32:06","slug":"the-dangers-of-the-big-ask-in-defense-of-stubborn-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/the-dangers-of-the-big-ask-in-defense-of-stubborn-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dangers of “The Big Ask”: In Defense of Stubborn (?) Teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s face it:\u00a0teaching is hard<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’ve been a classroom teacher for roughly 20 years — how do I count summer school?\u00a0— and I still find the work exhillarating, exhausting, baffling, uplifting, frustrating, humbling, and joyous.<\/p>\n

\"Exasperated<\/a><\/p>\n

And that was Tuesday.<\/p>\n

And: I think I’m not the only one who finds teaching to be an extra-ordinary challenge. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love it. But GOSH it’s hard.<\/p>\n

This hard-won experience leads me — and perhaps you — to two conclusions:<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>: people who haven’t taught in the classroom don’t fully understand the challenges of the work.<\/p>\n

Until you’ve tried to follow a scrupulously-devised lesson plan despite the fact\u00a0that an un-announced fire-drill is in progress, two students have switched sections, three don’t have their notebooks, and four don’t think the cell-phone policy applies at just this moment…you just don’t really know.<\/p>\n

How could you? It’s “Misson Impossible: Chalkdust” in here.<\/p>\n

Second:<\/strong> I need all the help I can get<\/em>.<\/p>\n

No, really.<\/p>\n

You’ve got some research that might …<\/p>\n

… help me\u00a0create a more effective lesson plan?<\/p>\n

… explain how attention really works?<\/p>\n

… suggest study strategies to help my students learn?<\/p>\n

… foster motivation, at the beginning of a lesson on grammar?<\/p>\n

I’m all ears. Please. I’m practically begging here…<\/p>\n

My Learning and the Brain<\/em> Journey<\/h2>\n

I attended my first LatB conference in 2008; the topic was The Science of Attention.<\/p>\n

I IMMEDIATELY realized that this conference was just what I needed<\/em>.\u00a0So much wisdom and advice. So many compelling suggestions.<\/p>\n

And, so many graphs and pictures of brains!<\/p>\n

I returned to the classroom and started rethinking everything.<\/p>\n

What should be rewrite policy be?<\/p>\n

Should my classroom decorations be in primary colors?<\/p>\n

What’s the right number of new vocabulary words to teach per class?<\/p>\n

I had research-y answers to all those questions.<\/p>\n

After several years of attending conferences, I went back to grad school and got a degree combining education, psychology, and neuroscience.<\/p>\n

And, in addition to teaching, I started training other teachers.<\/p>\n

Now I offered LOTS of advice of my own:<\/p>\n

Because working memory does this<\/em>, teachers should do that<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because long-term memory\u00a0benefits from\u00a0this<\/em>, teachers should do that.<\/em><\/p>\n

Because stress affects\u00a0this<\/em>…you get the picture.<\/p>\n

Many teachers appreciated all this guidance. But some obviously didn’t.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, they just didn’t want to do what I was telling them to do!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was genuinely surprised; after all, I knew I was right because\u00a0the research said so!<\/em><\/p>\n

“The Big Ask”<\/h2>\n

Over time, I’ve come to realize that those teachers didn’t want to do what I was telling them — and “what the research said” — because I had forgotten the first lesson described above<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I mean: yes (lesson #2), “I need all the help I can get.” So, research-based advice MIGHT help.<\/p>\n

But also,<\/p>\n

Yes (lesson #1), “people who haven’t taught in the classroom don’t\u00a0fully understand the challenges of the work.” So, research-based advice might not\u00a0apply to this<\/em> classroom, this<\/em> topic, this<\/em> teacher, or this<\/em> student.<\/p>\n

In other words,<\/p>\n

When I say to teachers, “you should change the way you teach because research says so, ” I’m making a REALLY BIG ASK.<\/p>\n

After all, those students are ultimately their responsibility, not mine.<\/p>\n

Yes, I have taught — but I teach English to 10th graders at a very selective school. I should be very careful when offering guidance to, say\u00a0…<\/p>\n

… 2nd grade teachers who work with struggling readers, or<\/p>\n

… those with lots of students on the Autism spectrum, or<\/p>\n

… teachers who work in different cultures.<\/p>\n

Because I do know research well, and I know classrooms fairly well, I can make those Big Asks. But I should be humble about doing so. And I should be respectful when a teacher says, “your ‘research-based advice’ …<\/p>\n

… conflicts with our school’s mission, or<\/p>\n

… might work with college students, but probably won’t work with 2nd graders, or<\/p>\n

… requires personality traits that I don’t have.”<\/p>\n

Yes, I think teachers should listen thoughtfully to the guidance that comes from research. And, I think those of us who cite research should listen thoughtfully to the classroom specifics, and the experience, of teachers.<\/p>\n

Teachers who resist ‘research-based advice’ might seem “stubborn,” but they also might be right.<\/p>\n

The Story Behind the Story<\/h2>\n

In\u00a0last week’s blog post<\/a>,\u00a0I summarized research about using gestures<\/strong> to teach specific science concepts<\/strong>. I also sounded a few notes of caution:<\/p>\n

I don’t fully understand the concept of “embodied cognition,” and<\/p>\n

I worry that a few very specific studies<\/em> will be used to insist that teachers make broad changes<\/em> to our classroom work.<\/p>\n

Even as I wrote that post, I could hear colleagues’ voices in my head: “why are you always so grouchy? Why don’t you listen when people with PhDs say ‘this is the Next Important Thing’?”<\/p>\n

The answer to those question is\u00a0this week’s blog post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’m ‘grouchy’ because I worry our field is constantly making Big Asks of teachers.<\/p>\n

We often make those Asks without acknowledging a) the limits of our research knowledge, and b) the breadth of teachers’ experience.<\/p>\n

I am indeed optimistic about combining cognitive psychology research with teacherly experience to improve teaching and foster learning.<\/p>\n

To make that combination work, we should respect “stubborn” teachers by making Respectful Asks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s face it:\u00a0teaching is hard. I’ve been a classroom teacher for roughly 20 years — how do I count summer school?\u00a0— and I still find the work exhillarating, exhausting, baffling, uplifting, frustrating, humbling, and joyous. And that was Tuesday. And: I think I’m not the only one who finds teaching to be an extra-ordinary challenge. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7271"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7280,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7271\/revisions\/7280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}