Back off…

During the last day of class before Thanksgiving break, I handed out written feedback to my Entrepreneurship 1 students. The feedback specifically identified next steps based on a reflection they had written. I watched as several discussed their formal dance plans for the coming Friday. One played a game on his phone. Two other students were finishing up an essay for English class. One was working on coding for his app project and one was designing a pair of shoes related to his entrepreneurship project. I resisted the temptation to reprimand those students who were not working on their Entrepreneurship projects. I reflected on my own ability to procrastinate or be unproductive at times. I considered the fact that despite the ability to work on something personally relevant in this class, many students had trouble finding something that was really meaningful for them. I reflected that the coming dance or essay due in English was probably what they found relevant right now. I know that many times I think about work-related issues or problems during a morning commute or in the evening while I make dinner; On the weekends, I frequently find myself researching something for work. And many times when I am at school (Friday afternoon, for example), I can’t focus on those very same things. If the principal came in and told me to get back to work while I was taking a tea or bathroom break, would that make me more productive? Maybe a sarcastic comment about my work habits would get me back on track? Maybe not. Yet, I (and most of us) do this all the time to kids. We are under the time crunch of getting things done. But that is our agenda.

Chill out…

Over the past few years and most recently while teaching a course on Proficiency-based assessment, I have had the following conversation with teachers. They tell me they have content to cover and if they don’t move at a certain pace, it won’t get covered. In addition, if kids don’t do their work when it is assigned, they won’t learn the content in time for a grade or test. And then I ask what I am sure is an annoying question. What if they don’t learn it? What will happen ten years from now if a student doesn’t write that essay, read that book, or learn about plate tectonics? What then? If they do learn it in your class, are we sure their lives are better?

Let kids figure it out…

When I thought about this question myself the other day, I was relieved and certain that all of my students would be alright. I looked around and saw that every kid there had something to offer the world, already. Knowing the elements of business isn’t going to make or break them. The lessons that will make or break them are about skills like overcoming obstacles; being able to approach novel ideas with confidence; being able to search for needed information and know what is good and what isn’t; being able to ask for help or find people to collaborate with when they don’t have all the skills needed to accomplish something. Lori Lisai recently wrote about a visit to a program that allows learners to simply get over these procrastination or unproductivity humps themselves. In her post, she writes, “How many times do your kids pester you for answers and you finally give in and tell them just because it’s easier or you don’t want to listen to them whine any more?  (Okay, maybe it’s just me.) But that’s not happening at NuVu. Students are figuring shit out”.

Why it’s so hard and what to do…

So what is so hard about this? Most people agree that these are the most important skills, in theory. Most teachers will tell you they are teaching kids how to collaborate or use other transferable skills through their lessons activities so why do they focus so much on work completion, content, and grades? Ultimately, our system is set up as a content delivery machine and sorting mechanism. So unless teachers consciously, every day, every minute (really) remind themselves that it is not their job to deliver content and approach their job in a different way, it’s virtually impossible to stop doing. Even me, not a content teacher, not attached to this system in the slightest, has had to resist urges and I frequently don’t resist those urges or at the very least lose that battle. In addition, our teacher professional learning system further ingrains this tendency. Teachers need a whole new set of skills to teach in a system that doesn’t value content acquisition.

So when you are frustrated with a kid who is not working on what you want them to work on, ask yourself, “how will their life be different in ten years if they don’t do this right now?” Once you realize that nothing major will occur, ask, “what do they need right now?” and “how can I help them have the energy to learn what I think is important?” or “what can they learn from this experience right now if it isn’t content?”

A few years back on a trip to some schools in Finland, one of the teachers said, “when a kid doesn’t learn to read right away, we trust that it will happen”. I felt a weight lifted when she said that. How must her students feel? We know kids don’t learn when they are stressed out or worried about something. Brain research is very clear. So, maybe if we just chill out a bit and let kids “figure shit out”, they will, in fact, learn more efficiently in the long run. When kids fail after they leave school, it is never because they got a D in your class. Never.