{"id":1321,"date":"2014-05-11T21:45:29","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T04:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/?p=1321"},"modified":"2014-05-11T21:45:29","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T04:45:29","slug":"untangling-the-profession-of-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/untangling-the-profession-of-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Untangling the profession of teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hour of Code<\/a> website offers this tip for teachers: “It\u2019s okay to respond: ‘I don\u2019t know. Let\u2019s figure this out together.'”<\/p>\n

Read that again. “I don’t know. Let’s figure this out together.” How many times did your<\/em>\u00a0high school teachers say that?<\/p>\n

There is a slowly growing recognition that technology and culture are changing much too quickly for teachers to have all the answers. The answers<\/em> are typically found on the internet. In contrast, the teacher<\/em> is there to provide the many other intangibles\u00a0that are a prerequisite for learning, such as connecting with students on a personal level; nurturing curiosity and integrity; creating\u00a0a space where students can fail safely along the way to mastery; and many others.<\/p>\n

So many aspects of teaching have been intertwined for decades in the single\u00a0profession of teacher<\/em>. But software technology is starting to allow a much greater degree of specialization, and the various\u00a0strands of the profession are gradually being untied\u00a0and examined individually.<\/p>\n

I know many teachers will miss their wide-ranging traditional roles. But specialization is also the best route\u00a0I can fathom to cope with the increasingly urgent need to update the curriculum to keep up with the times. Code.org is\u00a0“basically training existing math and science teachers […]\u00a0to become computer science teachers.” [link<\/a>] Computer science didn’t exist a few decades ago. Social media studies\u00a0didn’t exist five years ago. The next world-changing technology is being developed right now. How can teachers\u00a0keep up?<\/p>\n

By not trying to do\u00a0everything themselves \u2014 such as developing their own lesson plans, or\u00a0knowing\u00a0all the answers.\u00a0Fantastic curriculum is increasingly available for free online (often with built-in quizzes and other feedback) \u2014 developed by teachers who are specializing in those subject areas. Can classroom\u00a0teachers take advantage of\u00a0those resources\u00a0to focus on other strands like student engagement and motivation?<\/p>\n

From another\u00a0perspective, the\u00a0teacher without all the answers is practicing a type of “growth mindset.” It’s hard to expect a student to understand\u00a0the value of lifelong learning if their teachers do not model it. From this perspective, the\u00a0accelerating pace of technological change has the byproduct of\u00a0reinforcing the need for lifelong learning across all walks of life. Teachers have the dual challenge of preparing students for this changing world and\u00a0coping with it themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hour of Code website offers this tip for teachers: “It\u2019s okay to respond: ‘I don\u2019t know. Let\u2019s figure this out together.’” Read that again. “I don’t know. Let’s figure this out together.” How many times did your\u00a0high school teachers say that? There is a slowly growing recognition that technology and culture are changing much … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Untangling the profession of teaching”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1321"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1325,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}