Long before the folks at Disney lambasted us with Elsa the Ice Queen's soliloquy, "Let It Go," the idea of letting go of our assumptions of other people's perception of us have affected every choice that we make. Some of us are like Elsa and are afraid to be our true self for fear of repeating past mistakes. Some of us are like Anna and we are so desperate for someone to like us that we allow a person, Prince Hans for example, to con us into believing that their dreams are ours as well and take advantage of us. Then there are the fortunate few who are like Olaf and just get along with everyone and do not seem to care either way what anyone thinks of them. We love Olaf because he is sincere and honest (and totally cute). Aside from the fact that I have obviously seen "Frozen" too many times, the truth of the matter is the idea of letting go inside and outside of the classroom is the very real struggle everyone involved in education must face during their time of service.
Over the last few years, I have been thinking about the idea of gradual release of responsibility. GRR is the technique of taking oneself out of the equation as the teacher and allowing students the freedom and responsibility to control the learning that happens in the classroom. I have struggled with GRR over the course of my teaching career to the detriment of my students and their learning. Cooperative learning groups, paired activities, even individual tasks were heavily dictated by what I wanted to see from my students. I felt as though it was my responsibility to teach AND learn the materials. My need for control stemmed from my lack of respect of my students' abilities to be responsible, thoughtful people. Yes, teenagers can be irresponsible and thoughtless in their behavior but the process of learning for teenagers does not always follow suit. If a teacher is doing their job well, then theoretically it is possible for students to take the metaphorical bull by the horns and do the grunt work involved with learning on their own because their teacher has shown them how.
I was afraid that if my students were working independently and silently people would assume the students were doing "busy work." I was afraid that if students were working in a group that one person would learn and the rest of the group would sit around and talking about the party on Friday night. People would think that my class is a joke because I don't do enough independent learning tasks. I built a prison of uncertainty around myself as a teacher and, as a result, felt like I was everything I assumed people were thinking about me as a teacher. I allowed my perception of others' perception of me to stall my own learning and growth as an educator.
I started watching a video on Teacher Channel with Sarah Brown Wessling (like the one of posted here) and it hit me, that if I establish the expectations for what students are to accomplish while working independently or within a group, then I would be able to afford students the ability to become independent/cooperative learners in regards to how they accomplish that feat or demonstrate their learning. It took awhile for me to feel comfortable letting go of absolute control of the classroom. I'm not talking about managing behavior, but allowing for students to take responsibility of their learning has made my life as a teacher easier. Once it began to click for me, my teaching became better and my students learned more.
2 Comments
|
AuthorMy name is Sarah Todd and I teach freshmen and junior English in Southern California. Archives
August 2018
Categories |