trusting the learners

Today's conversation began with holes in the wall and wobbly table legs, but left me bemused about just how we "do school" to students. There is every reason for the slang use of "schooled" it seems.

The students I was with expressed a real concern about what they are asked to do in the classroom -- the depth or lack of it that they perceive in their classwork and discussions. Add that to a conversation about testing that I had with a teacher returning after a family leave absence and there is every reason to believe that we must take a serious look at what we are doing and how we are doing it.

Students want to learn -- they perceive, even if they are not quite able to articulate it, that in some ways they are being sold out, left out, not quite initiated to the world of thinking deeply. Some are, admittedly, quite happy with the trivial pursuit of remembering the name of the dog in chapter 3 -- but many would like to try to make sense of their world, might even find they are good at thinking once they've been shown how and had it expected of them.

But, oh, is it messy. And we can't really stand much of a mess, can we, as adult learners? I was reading Bill Ferriter's excellent observations about professional development, and was struck by two things: 1. how perfectly obvious this should have been to me, and 2. how very stubborn the human species is.

We want that "professional development" to be delivered in 30 minutes or less, in an entertaining style, with minimal effort put forth by us, for maximum return in our classrooms -- as long as there isn't a whole hell of a lot that we have to do differently there. When I get a bit cynical like this that's when they begin to whisper among themselves -- "She doesn't know what it's like in the classroom." And maybe I don't any more. It's been almost 10 years -- have kids changed that much? I don't really think so -- it's just the way that they think that has changed...or maybe that's the same as actually changing altogether.