CURTAIN
Think of your classroom as a theatre.
If the first scene is boring, the audience is forever lost! An opera’s overture
is therefore brilliantly conducted for the effect of buying over the audience.
A teacher must make her lesson as irresistibly captivating an experience for
the varied learners who ‘buy tickets’ for a good time as the conductor seeks to
achieve for his audience.
Perceiving the teacher as the conductor of an opera, or as the
director of a musical, would help focus our lenses on the learner. When we don’t, we tend to see through a veil, just like sheet
music poses as a screen between the performers and the conductor. Performers
want to play as is written. The conductor wants to interpret the written music as
was intended by its composer. Then he does a little else besides, spinning the
entire performance out of the lifelessness of impassive printed pieces of
music.
Keep in mind that he doesn’t play anything.
That doesn’t mean he can’t. His job is to put an ideal in the minds of
performers and trust them to bring it about. Thus he takes their presumptions
away. The illusions, or the
principles they have learnt to live with, go out the window but their skills
remain. Their collective abilities are therefore harnessed to convey that
maestros objectives before a live audience.
Similarly, what twenty-first century
teachers want to do is reverse the familiar
position where the teacher functioned as a violinist or trumpeter. Today’s
treasured teachers guide and prompt learners to drive the very lessons that
brought them to school.
1. CONDUCTORS
The Teacher as an Opera Conductor
Conductors
– from Sir Colin Davis to Sir Georg Solti – have done, and continue to do, more
tremendous work than they get credit for. Art critics and theatre goers don’t
always see how these maestros convert age-old creativities scripted by legends
of the score to such aural energy which delights a packed Royal Opera House.
Teachers may learn a thing or two from the knowledge, skill and understanding
that goes into conducting before a live audience.
Conductors
interpret the score. They set the tempo (speed) at which the music is
performed. They ensure that each instrument or section enter at the right time
because the orchestra is usually large and performers don’t all sit in one spot
but are spread across the stage or pit. Conductors make a crucial note of how
each phrase is expressed to give the appropriate impression in the scrutinizing
ears of an informed audience. They use a baton or their hands to gesture signs
formed from verbal their equivalence in several rehearsals. They know their
musicians’ expertise just as well as they know the music being performed and
its composer. No, they don’t play a note. Yes, they make sheet music from the
grave quiet of libraries come alive to the delight of concert goers who buy
tickets for a good time.
Teachers
ought to be just like conductors. Teachers should pull the very strings which
make their students learn. Teacher should prompt rather than push, aid rather
than goad, make learning occur rather ram contents in. The teacher may operate
like the conductor of the opera.
2. ILLUSIONS
The boring teacher worries about content. The
smart teacher stops to think of what might earn her the students’ attention. Getting your students’
attention is no less important than getting to your subject matter. Only teachers
who get this right ease-out of the rot that places teaching above learning – a
global illusion! Schools which develop students from neck up gain too
little. The time has come for a
test-drive with students in the driver’s seat. Elected citizens are not likely
to govern better than the nation’s education can afford.
Primary Illusion – the Purpose Principle
It shouldn’t be so easy to forget what informed the educational
system we evolved. Challenges posed by the evolving economies of England,
Wales, Germany, France and the rest of Western Europe needed to be met. This
object of functionality necessitated the school system we developed, especially
in nineteen century Britain. No one needs a study revealing a third of sex workers
being graduates to understand that major education issues exist in British
society. But why educational policy makers and school administrators fail to
re-evaluate their systems in favour of functionality should worry twenty-first
century teachers. Think of this as the purpose principle,
our primary illusion, the thought that children go to
school because the government says so.
Secondary Illusion – the Pompous Principle
We can’t afford to continue with all our attention on the teaching and the teacher much more than we
focus our primary target, the learners. If we continue to reverse priorities we
permanently engage a secondary illusion – the
pompous principle. No, it isn’t all about us. Didn't Galileo say it all?
"You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him find it within
himself." If my
focus is me, I’m the same old teacher, a global illusion chief.
Tertiary Illusion – the Process Principle
We recently reviewed our music curriculum to further reflect
international mindedness, practice and a better understanding of the basics of
creativity. Perhaps I should state that
to achieve this new approach we had to go through too many bottlenecks. Why? We
have processes! This is the process principle –
our tertiary illusion. We have such process in
place as if to ensure that students don’t learn, bureaucracy and all.
Quaternary Illusion – the Promoter Principle
They learn like a sponge on a wet table mops up the liquid. Thus
must a teacher determine what students need retain for
a short while different from what they need to hold on to for a long, long time
to come. If he doesn’t, he practices the promoter principle –
our quaternary illusion. Too long stories, too lengthy notes, too
complex explanations, too many demonstrations, yet the salesman sells nothing.
Quinary Illusion – the Pointless Principle
You probably know nations in which engineers have been raised but
whose governments contract foreign construction firms for infrastructural
projects. This is the pointless principle – our quinary illusion –
that doesn’t make me want to go to school.
3. REVERSAL
Today’s
treasured teachers make learning happen by making conscious efforts to assume
mastery of its styles and strategies. Putting students in charge of their own
learning comes with practice as it does in the experience of the conductor of
the orchestra. Teachers who share best practices affirm
that a thorough mix of theory and practice brings learning about especially if
the former is not favoured over the latter.
Learner-Driven
Approach
To achieve learning the learner’s way,
teachers adopt one or more methods of teaching. The key is to split the time in
two so that one part favours preliminaries as well as the shortest concept
introduction possible whereas the other part centers around activities. Both
lesson plan and lesson delivery ought to be structured in this way.
· Preliminaries and briefest concept
intros – 30 min
· Activity-centered delivery – 30 min
Another approach is to split the period
in three as highlighted below:
· Preliminaries and briefest concept
intros – 15 min
· Activity-centered delivery – 15 min
[advance]
· Management, corrections – 15 min
[redress]
Learner-Driven
Options
There
are many options available online in use by many teachers already. Whatever
helps give the learning process to students may be created by a teacher so long
as lessons objectives are achieved and the strategy is not at variance with
school policy. A few of them are suggested below:
Student-Centered
Instructions
Ø Discussion
Ø Presentation
Ø Experiment/Workshop
Ø Project
Ø Debate
Instructional
Strategies
§ Practice
§ Reciprocal teaching
§ Comparison matrix
§ Learning feedback
Learner-Driven
Assessments
Once students have been put in charge
of their own learning, it is only fair to assess them with that strategy in
mind. For instance, multiple choice questions, fill-in the blank spaces and
essay type questions may be categorized as theoretical while projects,
experiments and performances are practical. Assessment should therefore reflect
these in appropriate proportions.
A
Sandwich strategy may put practical
work in between essay and objectives – 50/50 standard
1.
Written [theory] – 30 min
2.
Practice
[activity] – 60 min
3.
Written [objectives] – 30 min
An ice cream strategy may simply adopt one
theoretical instrument and another practical one.
a.
Written
[theory] – 30 min
b.
Practice
[activity] – 30 min
RECAPITULATION
Like opera conductors,
working past the score, or avoiding illusions which translate into faulty
teaching principles, is what teachers need to do. Once done, we reverse
these principles by harnessing those styles
& strategies which help
learners drive their own lessons.
CONDUCTORS interpret the written music, set the speed of the
performance, ensure musicians enter when they should and shape how each phrase
is expressed. They do all that without playing a note during the performance,
yet the audience enjoy an awesome experience.
ILLUSIONS in the teaching profession, apart from those plaguing
society and government, have blur how learners are perceived. They eventually
have constituted themselves as fault lines capable of wrecking the very essence
of education. By reason of calling however, teachers have a unique opportunity
to rectify these fault lines.
REVERSAL, that is all teachers have to do now. Teachers would do well
to focus on learning sequence, styles and strategies when planning and delivering
lessons. Teachers may then approach this noble profession and adopt suiting
options which ensure that learners drive their own lessons.
