Think Like a Teacher

As a teacher, I am always intrigued by what people notice first. Reading Kevin Jarrett’s and Kim Cofino’s posts (one recent, one not-so) brought up a flood of ideas about the way I do the things I do and how other people sometimes look at me funny when they see things on my computer.

Teachers are professional observers of the way kids do the things they do, but we forget to notice the same about adults. First grade teachers pride themselves on analyzing the way a kid holds that fat pencil and helping him adjust it so the letters look better and the paper doesn’t tear. Swim coaches watch the way one arm enters the water and know that is why the swimmer rolls too far. Learning support teachers know that Doug or Lisa only “sees” words set off by white space or remembers words he/she says aloud but not the ones he/she hears. Geometry teachers look at how a student starts a proof and know where he/she is headed and what he/she sees first in that maze of triangles and line segments. We constantly analyze brain paths.

Why don’t we do the same when we help adults? The UI* “experts” (hired consultants to tell you your web site is badly designed) can tell you where people go first, click first, and get lost. They are the visual merchandisers in the mall of web pages. (Did you know that Americans almost always walk to the left when they enter a store?) Teachers are experts, too, but we forget to watch when we are trying to show another adult how we managed to make that web tool to do that or how to build a template in Google Docs. We need to remember that the way we do the things we do may not be the other guy does it, and he needs to recognize his own way.

A year ago I reverted to an Mac computer after a ten year hiatus.  Two months ago, my colleague made the same switch.  She read manuals. I did not. She learns from print. I do just fine with print, but given the choice, I go for colors and images. I color code emails, folders, fonts…everything. (I would probably color code people in a room if I could figure out how. Unfortunately, I remember new people first by the colors they were wearing — a real liability since they tend to change clothes!) Color and position have greater impact than text on the way I do the things I do. My colleague wants to write thorough, sequenced explanations of any how-to. She, like most teachers, uses words as her primary means of communication. I certainly talk enough, but I figure things out visually. Then I translate them into words orally, and finally into writing. So when it is time to teach OK2Ask sessions to other teachers, my plan is visual at the start. I want to SHOW things with colorful cues. But I know there are adults who don’t notice color. They are looking for magic words like “start” or “go.” That’s the way they do the things they do. Kim’s second graders in her post had no fixed way to do the things they do because they were young and flexible. She helped them notice their ways. We need to help adults notice, especially if they are accustomed to what seems like random clicking  followed by failure.

What do you notice first in the produce section of the grocery store? Colorful fruit? Signs with prices? The words “Bonus Buy”?  When you open your email, what do you notice first? Names? Dates/Times (numbers)? Red alerts or boldface? Are you an icon person or a label person? Are you a menu person or a drag-it person? If your computer (or Google Docs) folders were color coded, would you remember better where you put things? When you explain where to click do you say “click Save” or “click on the blue button in the top right to save”? How do you do the things you do? How does the way you do the things you do affect the way you help the adults you help?  

[This post is captioned for GLL (Geek Language Learners) *UI= Geek speak for “user interface” or how-people-click-and-do-things.]

This is the final episode in a long fable, and perhaps the start of another. Unravel the previous chapters here.

The town of Forwardthink has completely changed. At the stroke of midnight  (about 1 pm Pacific Time) on May 12, the doors of the Town Hall opened, and an arm tacked one final message on the door. From inside, the sounds of music and dancing and jingling keys of gold echoed across the near-empty square. Outside, the few remaining Innovators rushed to read the message.

It was a vaguely familiar sheet of paper with a scrap pasted at the end– pasted onto the same message that had been posted for others in mid-March. The scrap bore a few new words explaining that the winners were already inside the Town Hall, apparently ushered in by a secret passageway several days before.  As the handful of remaining, bedraggled and tired Innovators huddled to read and re-read, a small voice from among them sighed,

“The Elders did not even take the time to cross out the old version of the “go away” message and start a fresh piece of paper to tell us they did not want us. They have simply pasted a scrap of a sentence at the end of an old message. I guess we were not worthy enough to see the Elders or hear their actual words.”

“But look! We can see the Winners through the windows!” cried another as he jumped up and down to see over the high sill and beyond the newly opened blinds.

They took turns for a minute or two, boosting one another by the foot so each could see the party of Winning Innovators. But their energy for jumping drained quickly. The MySciLife Innovators drew away from the window and stepped to the sidewalk together.

“I was SURE you would be among the winners,” came a voice from a passerby. Others who passed hummed in agreement.

Epilogue

Although the Elders of Forwardthink have not invited the MySciLife Innovators  to join the Winners inside the Town Hall, these Innovators did not simply pack their knapsacks. As the small gathering around the Town Hall dispersed, careful ears caught the MySciLifers words, “I heard there may be a different kind of Elders in other villages who may be willing to help. Let’s look at our maps, then set out for the unknown territories. If we stick together, we will find our own key of gold somewhere.”

Moral:

In a tug of war between the wisdom of the crowd and competition, who wins?

[In the spirit of crowdly wisdom, insert your moral here]

I can only imagine what a teacher in Colorado must have felt as she watched this senior’s “last lecture” in her classroom.  A few times a year– maybe a few dozen in a career– a student takes your breath away with such wisdom and depth that you want to open the windows and yell to the world. Watch a high school the next time you drive past and look for teacher heads popping out the windows to say, “THIS is it. THIS is the power of minds that I learn from. THIS is richness of thought. EVERYONE should hear this kid!”  It doesn’t happen often enough. Luckily for one teacher in Colorado, a blog post of a simple video opens the school windows for all of us fortunate to listen. She says nothing because she does not need to. Kyle says it.

Kyle teaches us about thought and connection and irony and waste in our classrooms. Mostly, he teaches us the poetry of learning. I do not mean simply that he has composed poetry. I mean that he helps us to feel the nuance and richness and layering of learning as a poem itself. The few who have commented on his video have requested a transcript. I want to read and re-read it, still hearing his voice and watching his hands poke through his pouch-pocket as he speaks. I also want to share what he says with everyone from President Obama to every disgruntled eighth grader who grimaces and scuffs his way through school. I want to let Kyle spread the poetry of learning as I could not possibly say it. And I want people to listen to him. Simply sending the link or clicking to “share” does not open my windows wide enough to overcome the noise of passing traffic. But they should stop and notice. This kid gets it and tells us what he gets…more than we get ourselves. He makes us want to get more —  from ourselves and from our schools.

So I hope that the small audience for this post will go beyond click-sharing Kyle’s last lecture. Open your windows and tell the world. This is the poetry of learning.

Teachers have a skewed view of motherhood. Teacher-moms know when their kids have homework, read the comments on the report cards (even memorize what the comment letters stand for), and remove red pens from their own kids’ school supply pack  so the kids won’t disguise the markings on their papers. With their first kid,  a teacher-mom even looks over EVERY sheet of paper that erupts from her child’s backpack. A teacher-mom sets aside time unloading backpacks on the evening of the first day of school to fill out all the forms, cards, and permissions to go back to school the NEXT day. Mind you, that was her first day with students, too, but she finds the time — perhaps wine in hand.

A teacher-mom dies of embarrassment and avoids the faculty room when her son is the one who at 16 organizes the speed races  in front of the high school or the drafts a team of twenty to cleverly decorate the HS front lawn with plastic forks, spelling out an inappropriate message.

As professionals, we know how important parent involvement is for our students, but we need to know that what we do is skewed from what most moms do. We need to stop and ask: What is it that we bring to our children’s lives (both good and bad) that the other moms do not? This is not to pat ourselves on the back, but to help us realize where our students are not coming from. It is not to make a list of “must-dos” for our student’s moms. It is simply to build an awareness of how their lives may differ from what we see at home each night.

Teacher-moms:

• Live and breathe school. We have talked about it every day of our child’s life. School is an exaggerated slice of the life-pie for our own kids.
• Overtly value education. ‘Nuf said.
• Talk about school taxes, budget priorities, and the importance of the kids. By the time a child is two, he/she has overheard it repeatedly from the grocery cart seat or the swimming pool deck.
• Use words for everything.
• See life in ten month blocks.
• Think New Year’s Day is the same as Labor Day.
• Plan ahead — for this week, next summer, next child, college…
• Change the channel when the show makes a teacher look stupid.

My list could continue, but I know there are many bright, busy teacher-moms who may have something to add. So I salute all of us this Mother’s Day weekend and ask you to add your thoughts. Maybe even ask your kids. It could make for an interesting conversation over burnt pancakes or a lovely dinner.

Happy Teacher-Mom’s Day to us.