NBCT and Disney Teaching Award winner Rick Wormeli began his writing and professional development career more than a decade ago, drawing on his many years of practice as a middle school teacher in Northern Virginia. Along the way he has produced two indispensable books for novice middle grades educators, Meet Me in the Middle and Day One and Beyond and other insightful works about key aspects of effective teaching, including Differentiation: From Planning to Practice; , Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom; Summarization in Any Subject: 50 Techniques to Improve Student Learning; and most recently, Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject.
In a recent interview with the Teacher Leaders Network, Wormeli talked about the need for teachers to take full ownership of their own professional growth and to resist the anti-intellectualism that Wormeli sees as a significant barrier to assuring effective teachers in every classroom. Here’s an excerpt – you can read the complete interview at the TLN Teacher Voices blog.
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Rick Wormeli: (I have) a concern about a general sense of anti-intellectualism on the part of some teachers and principals around the country and abroad. In some places, it comes across as “uncool” to be known as someone who contemplates cognitive neuroscience, pedagogy, assessment, instructional practice, critical analysis, learning theories, or to promote serious contemplation of ideas. It isn’t everywhere, but it’s a bit scary how prevalent it is in schools.
Some of this is survival: We don’t like to do what we are not good at doing. This isn’t a sign that teachers are intellectually bereft, it’s a sign that they haven’t been given the tools/resources and autonomy to develop their intellectual side. They shoot down new ideas and research analysis because they aren’t sure how to do it, and it takes less energy to dismiss it than it does to think carefully. They are tired and just trying to survive.
It’s a real problem though. Think about this: Someone at a department, team, or faculty meeting says, “Did anyone read Kovecses’ research on cognitive linguistics in last month’s Kappan magazine? There were three points he made that really changed my thinking about how students learn vocabulary.” Already there are some faculty members who are rolling their eyes and hoping the curious reader will quiet down so they can move on to other business, like whether or not school is closing early on the last day before the holiday.
Think of all the great concepts, tips, skills, and new research that no one passes on to others because they are afraid as coming across as too Joe or Jane Professional Know-it-all in the faculty lounge. With this attitude and an occasional sense of semi-bullying and faculty cliques, it makes me think: What are we, eight years old?
The problem is that these unwilling teachers are actually thoughtful people, and if they heard the ideas, they would enjoy the conversation. They would think seriously about trying the ideas in their own classes. Without administrative and collegial encouragement, a risk-taking, contemplative school culture, PLC’s, Critical Friends Networks, Teacher Action Research Teams, and similar tools, we don’t have the skills or motivation to think intellectually about what we do – but that kind of thinking is vital to student success and evolving our profession.
We have to convince teachers that intellectual and professional explorations are positive things, directly benefitting them. Teachers who question policies, offer new research to consider, share compelling professional reading with others — who post regularly on professional listservs and networks and think critically about teaching and assessment practices — should be affirmed and supported, not made to feel like the goody-goody at the front of the room keeping everyone from recess because they are excited about amphibians and have one more question to ask about tree frogs in the Amazon.
In some places, however, colleagues are suspicious of these individuals, wondering at their motives, irritated by the inquiry, and privately declaring them unrealistic and blaming them for making the rest of the faculty look bad for not reading and discussing those ideas.
There’s no one solution to this, but it starts with affirmation of those who explore professional ideas and report their findings. Teachers who participate in listservs and professional communities on the Web, who maintain blogs, subscribe to at least one professional journal, mentor others, and/or attend professional conferences can be a big part of establishing such a constructive culture. We do well to follow their lead.
