Every day of the school year, educators are faced with battling student needs as well as demands of the curricular placed on them by the administration. Many quickly become overwhelmed as they push through the curricula but also see that their students need more than the allotted time to fully understand a concept being presented. The pressure then builds as peers are moving their classes on in curricula along with students and teachers both exhibiting stress over all that is expected to be covered in short periods of time. Often there is a split between teachers who throw up their hands and say, “My students come first;” and teachers who say, “We have to get this done.” All this does is lead to teaching frustration for everyone: students, teachers, parents, and administrators. Have you been there or seen this? The common denominator is that everyone is there for the students and wants them to have a complete understanding of the materials. Everyone involved can be coming at the instruction from a different pedagogy. Understanding your pedagogy and your students’ needs will possibly release some of this stress.
What is your pedagogy? Is your instruction “student-focused or curriculum-focused?” Gaining a better understanding of each of these forms of instruction along with knowing your students’ learning styles will possibly provide you some stress relief. Starting with student-focused instruction, the teacher or instructor evaluates what the students need to understand the material and be able to apply it in life or outside the classroom. Some of the students may need additional support, more time, or need to look at the information from a different instructional approach. The student drives the timeline and the theory behind this is that they build a stronger foundation. Skills that are added later should not need as much time to master because they are able to use their applied knowledge. If you are more “curriculum-focused” the instruction is driven by the publisher? There are variables built into most curricula to deal with a large range of different instructional situations. Classroom sizes can vary from a few students to 30+ students in a class. Also, curricula may be designed for 60-minutes but schedules may only allow for 30-minutes of instruction. The real question is what is driving instruction during the day. Often teachers have one pedagogy but are working in a building where expectations are set based upon a different philosophy without them even realizing it.
When talking with teachers, the majority would probably say they are teaching because they want to help children learn. Even though that was their main reason for entering the profession, many have become very frustrated without really understanding why. Sometimes this might be because they themselves did not fully understand all the different philosophies that exist in teaching. Some might even truly believe they teach using one philosophy when really it is a completely different one. One way to find out what is driving your instruction is to STOP and LISTEN to yourself when you talk at lunch about how your class did in the morning lessons.
Which of the following sounds the most like you?
#1 - “What a morning; we made it through the lesson. I have one group that is going to need a little more practice but the other groups seemed to be doing okay. I really liked how they were able to do a couple of problems with computers. Once we got them going the kids breezed through that center.”
#2 - “What a morning; my class would not be quiet and listen! We needed to get that workbook page completed and I only had two students start it. They just wouldn’t listen! I’m not going to finish this unit by Friday. I do not know why they would think these students need to do problems on computers. Mine can’t even load the page.”
Teachers who keep their focus on what the students are accomplishing and not stressing about what lesson they need to be on by Friday most often are more student-focused. They tend to be looking for better ways to serve their students and help them be successful.
Teachers who bring their frustrations about their class to the teacher’s room or to meetings tend to be curriculum focused and feel the pressure put on by the administration to have their students at a certain point by a specific date. Not realizing it, they are pushing the curriculum and their students’ behaviors digress due to lack of understanding. These teachers feel the curriculum must roll on and they hope students catch it when it spirals around again like the publisher says it will.
Both groups would say they are there for the students. One group celebrates students’ learning while the other blames the administration for their students not learning. In many cases, teachers who change how they talk about their students with peers toward what students learn tend to have higher student success and are more positive leaders on their teams and in their buildings. The subconscious is very impactful of student learning. 