A visit from Tom Porter

Tom Porter (Sakokwenionkwas—“The One Who Wins”) is the Spokesman and Chief Spiritual Leader of the Mohawk Community of Kanatsiohareke (Ga na jó ha láy:gay) in Fonda, New York.  He came to visit the Faculty of Education at Queen's university last week and I was fortunate enough to listen to him talk.

During his talk he shared stories of how he was introduced to formal education and how the events that took place resulted in him hating white people. Since this is a blog about how I learned to teach I'm not going to highlight those events. I certainly don't want to minimise how profoundly painful that part of his life story was,  however I do want to highlight the change that occurred in his life that showed him that not all white teachers were without a heart. The following account helped me the most when thinking about my own development as a teacher. 

 There was one teacher that Mr. Porter recalled who had made an extremely offensive remark. In fact it wasn't her remark, but it was a passage out of a book that she read that caused the native student's to be so offended. At the time, and to some extent to this day, much of the literature that is written by no-natives is inaccurate and at times offensives when reference is made about Native society. In this particular passage the word "Squaw" was read allowed to describe a native women. It was used so much in the past that to this day many people believe the word to mean a Native women.  In fact is means "vagina" in the Mohawk language.

The students told their mothers, who are matriarchal in Mohawk society, what the teacher had said in reference to Mohawk women. To the mothers this kind of remark in front of children was absolutely inappropriate and could not be tolerated. After all, for the Mohawk people, the children's teachings and care were at the centre of their society. This is why after all the children were removed from the community many of the parents felt at a loss for purpose. 

Ultimately something had to be said. So all the students did their best to communicate on a piece of paper, using drawings and the word "squaw"  next it, what had actually been said. Obviously none of the students wanted to be the one who handed to her. Much to their amazement they were able to fold the piece of paper 7 times then someone was brave enough to hand the teacher the note.

Keeping in mind that every teacher that these students had known would have reacted badly to this note. To their surprise the teacher got bright red in the face and began to cry. As Tom Porter was telling us this story he was clearly impassioned as tears streamed down his face. This one teacher made such a profound change in his life to the point where he stopped hating white people. This teacher apologised from the bottom of her heart and hugged the children. One teacher can make such a different in a child life.

What this account reminded me was that teachers need to be as aware as possible, but also be genuine in the face of making mistakes. Its ok to make mistakes. If you can take a mistake and turn it into a teachable moment you make such an impact on students. Students will model that approach to learning and be less tentative in being participants in the class room. It creates an atmosphere of trust because they recognise that you care enough to make things right, rather than perpetuating the "do as I say, not as I do" approach.

Sharing Intellectual Control

We were fortunate enough to have Ian Mitchell visit from Australia. Ian Mitchell is the co-developer of PEEL (Project for Enhanced Effective Learning). What makes PEEL unique is that it advocates putting the responsibility of learning squarely on the shoulder of students. This sounds easy enough but it really takes allot of courage and confidence to let go of old inculcating ways of teaching, partly because it’s the way were taught and therefore we have a tendency to model that style in teaching. Also, I think many teachers equate being a “sage on the stage” with control and therefore classroom management.  However, I learned through Ian that by sharing intellectual control of learning raises student’s interest and engagement level.

The first thing we need to concede is that teachers are ultimately responsible for student’s passive learning tendencies as well as many of the prior misconceptions that students hold. Once these tendencies take hold they are extremely difficult for the student to relinquish. Therefore, as prospective teachers we need to develop a sense of shared intellectual control as early on as possible. As a first step, Mitchell suggests letting the students guide the content as well as the form of assessment. In order for the students to have choice, students first need to ask questions about what they want to know. One of the difficulties in starting, as Mitchell discovered, was that students really weren’t accustomed to asking thoughtful questions or asked questions in which they already had the answers to. In addition, a culture of trust needs to be fostered where students and teachers don’t rush to judge so that students feel safe giving the wrong answer or don’t fear they will be slighted by their peers.  In thinking about my own teaching, I really like the idea of creating a spark by either reading story or showing a video surrounding a topic and then opening it up to questions. Mitchell uses an example where a set of die are faced with interrogatives such as what, how, why, and when, which can be used to generate questions that are on the minds of students after seeing or hearing a narration. Working in groups, students generate questions based on the roll of the die. Seeing which groups can come up with the most questions makes things competitive, which students always like.

For the teacher who models the old way of teaching it may seem like a risky proposition to spend perhaps 3 days finding out from the students what is on their mind without getting any coverage of the curriculum. Also, student led course content may cause a dissonance in some veteran teachers because they rely on the same lessons from year to year.  What teachers need to consider is the pay off in student led learning. Students who embark on a path of learning that is of their choosing have demonstrated higher retention and comprehension levels. Also, by virtue of the fact that the focus is on student centred learning, there is less emphasis on teacher talk and classroom management. 

As mentioned by Mitchell another concern is that “tasks don’t become unmanageably open”.  What’s interesting is that over the past decade I’ve been an outreach educator for an outdoor education program.. There was no need to create a spark. The spark was naturally there. Questions ranged from weather, to plants, to physiology, to geology and hydrology. The questions generally come from every direction. In all my work with outdoor education there was always time in the day for debriefing. I always thought this was nothing more than sitting around a fire. Without recognizing it, I guess I’ve been debriefing since I was a child any time I sat around the fire.  The beauty of this outdoor program is that it served as a conduit for bringing content back into the classroom after debriefing and noting what was on the minds of students. In the classroom links to the curriculum were identified and expanded upon. What do you think the level of interest was in the class afterwards? How much time do you think the teacher spent on classroom management after the students sought out their own learning?

My First Term, Queen's Faculty of Education

I think the title should be aptly named “How I am learning teach”. We have all had teachers that stick out in our mind. Some of those memories are good and some are bad. Unfortunately in my primary and secondary school experience I can only recall a handful of teachers that loved their job.  For those that did love their jobs, there methods looked anything but modern; however they cared about their students. I would like to think I can draw from a more modern pedagogy, but the things that stayed with me are how important it is to let kids know you think they are a worthwhile investment. People always ask me why my kids are such happy kids. It’s not from placating them with material things. I gave them my time. That’s it. Kids want to be fed spiritually. They want to know that you are listening and they want to have a discussion. As a father I learned how to talk to children and not talk down to them. Prior to having children you could not get me to hold a child, now I love holding babies. It has been a blessed experience!

For the last 10 years I have been volunteering with my brother’s Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) Outdoor Ed. Class. I really wish I had something like this when I was in high school. I observed the SHSM class not knowing anything about pedagogy. For instance, every day after climbing a peak in the Adirondacks my brother would get his class to debrief around a campfire. He would use prompting questions such “What do remember the most about today”, “What would you do differently”, “Name one thing that you learned today” and so on. I realise now in getting the students to debrief this way he was getting the students to think about their experience and to think metacognatively. In listening to the students I could hear the neural connections being made when they contrasted what they thought they learned in class to what they experienced that day.

I’m a visual, kinesthetic learner and as such I really enjoyed facilitating these high school students’ learning. The first thing that I noticed is that the students who were not so academic in school were the most curious when it came to the natural world. They were also the most helpful students when it came to team exercises such as cooking, setting up tents and lighting fires.  I see enormous potential in teaching integrated programs. I think everyone learns something about themselves in these experiential programs, especially those students would normally be hindered by the negative stimulus found inside four walls.  Canopy Meg (Lowman) the professor who I will be doing my alternative practicum with has a saying; “No student left indoors”. Similarly, Zabe MacEachren, my Environmental Foci instructor uses the term “Environmental Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” instead of “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

There’s no question, the most practical hands on experience I’ve had teaching has been on my practicum. Leading a class is an extremely challenging task that keeps you wondering and learning on an ongoing basis. A common rookie mistake that I was making at the beginning of my practicum was focusing too much on the delivery of content and not enough on the student’s learning. Near the end of my practicum I was a little more relaxed and started taking the time to start a discussion with the students. In my next practicum I want to take the “extra 4-5 second wait time” and not judge whether a respondent was correct or not, until we are ready to formulate a class note.  I was also aware that I was nervously directing all my questions and answers through 3 or 4 students. At the end of the lesson my associate teacher would highlight the fact that it was a great lesson plan but there were 25 other students who were completely lost.  This hit home and I began to realize that I wasn’t using my time effectively by spending hours preparing only to teach 4 students. I followed a faulty assumption that students shared the same interpretation of knowledge that I shared. I didn’t take enough time to evaluate students understanding.  I also realized that I was working far too much and not getting the students more actively involved.

One experience which I cherish and has affected my learning/teaching is marrying into an Anishnawbe family. As the fastest growing demographic in Canada it is very important to talk to Native people and not about them. Sadly many Canadians don’t have conversations with Native people. Eternal talk is essential to Native sovereignty. Without open dialogue there can be no harmony.  This is particularly true in the area of Native education. The MOE has policy on Native inclusion, however, the bulk of the policy recommendations that were made by the National Indian Brotherhood (Now know as the Assembly of First Nations) in the 70s and accepted by the accepted by the Minster of Indian and Northern Affairs has not been ratified. The common recommendation that the National Indian Brotherhood made was the reclamation of native education by natives. In living with my native family there was a cognitive dissonance at first because I held fast to a linear progressive mind set. However, I’ve learned to step out of that mindset and look at the world holistically through the medicine wheel. I think if I were to incorporate curricula through the medicine wheel it would bring a cultural context to lessons. This is especially true of science, because there is allot of mistrust towards science in the Native community. Using the medicine wheel would also be a powerful tool for all students of various cultural backgrounds since it shows how a topic fits into an open interwoven world. “The teachings found on the Medicine Wheel create a bio-psychosocial and spiritual foundation for human behaviour and interaction.” (Dancing To Eagle Spirit Society – 2008)

In both my curriculum courses we’ve spent a fair bit of time talking about student and teacher misconceptions and how hard they are to diagnose and remedy.  The interesting thing is most alternative conceptions result from teacher’s oversimplification of lesson material. Teacher’s need to be thoughtful in the choice of words they are using as they lay the ground work for more in depth understanding. It’s particularly useful to use a variety of models and exercises to convey ideas so that students can see what is being put forward is just a portrayal of our current understanding of phenomenon and that these models are constantly changing. It’s also imperative that teachers are specialists in their field and that they stay current in the subject matter and how to best teach their subject matter.

In my next practicum placement I hope to have the freedom to take advantage of the great resources found on D2L and the PEEL website. Using the predict, observe explain method is such a great student centred way of learning.  I particularly enjoyed seeing how you turned a widely held misconception into a teachable moment after the “Candle in a jar” POE. As I plan for my next practicum this week I will be looking at the unit (plants) that I’ll be teaching and thinking about a top down approach to assessment and learning.  One of the comments I received on my last placement was that I didn’t effectively make links from one lesson to the next as I moved through the unit. Using a top down approach to unit lesson planning not only focuses in on the ultimate goals and expectations (as found in the curriculum guideline) by outlining the summative assessment task but also it clearly outlines the steps the students are going to use to get to the summit.

Finally, I have a profound respect for my colleagues both in the Faculty of Education as well in the schools. I feel an enormous amount of support from everyone involved in the whole process of education. I’ve had a lot of words of encouragement particularly during my first practicum where I ran into allot of difficulty. I felt safe in talking to my colleagues as well as my faculty liaison about some real challenges in my life. I felt reassured by everyone that I would make a good teacher even when I was full of self doubt.  My hope is that as I continue my teaching career there will be a culture that fosters support and mutual respect.  Having experienced the high school setting I now know there are days where you feel pretty foolish and demoralized.  I think those days become fewer the more we teach ourselves to be human and that students are at the centre of learning.