As I have been working with teachers on trying to change the focus from teaching to learning, I have been trying to change the language I use to promote the point.
In conversations, I am trying to replace the word “teacher” with one of two terms, depending on the nature of the focus. In it’s place, I will use t
he term “learning leader” or “leading learner”. While the difference appears slight, simply reversing the words has great impact. The terms are not interchangeable, and their use depends on the context of the conversation.
When using the term “learning leader”, the noun is leader, with learning as a supporting adjective. The focus is on the leader part of the teacher’s job. As a pedagogical leader within the school, the teacher’s expertise in curricula, planning, design, preparation and assessment is critical to creating a dynamic and engaging learning environment. We need and expect teachers to be leaders. Most teachers are eager to accept this term.
On the other hand, the term “leading learner” is more complicated, the noun (and the focus) on being a learner, with the word leader serving as a descriptor. These teachers assume the identity as a learner within a community of learners, open to change and willing to switch between the traditional roles of student and teacher. They blur the lines between themselves and the students, offering to model 21st century learning at the risk of failure. This is a harder sell with educators, especially those who hold dear to traditional ideas about learning.
I believe how teachers accept the role as a leading learner is what sets great teachers apart from mere competent ones. They are part of a collective, collaborating with colleagues, “students” and others to establish a flexible, innovative and dynamic learning community. I believe it speaks to their ability to help prepare a new generation of young people to work, play and learn in a 21st century global community.
Photo credit: “Learner-Learner Interaction”, Originally uploaded to Flickr by jrhode
tags: technology, education, learning, whipple
Hmmm, I have to say that I would find it difficult to distinguish the two in the casual conversation that is delivered or listened to at staff developments. That said, I think that it is a very useful distinction to make during a presentation, one that breaks through the barrier of teacher as teacher. I prefer to use the terms model learner and master learner when talking with teachers — but I am increasingly weary of trying to teach teachers to be learners.
It seems to me that helping teachers to see why learning is so important, that how we learn is perhaps more important today than what we learn, is the best that I might do. If teachers start to see that graduating educated students is not so much our goal today as graduating students steeped in a learning lifestyle, then it will come to them how to practice learning in their classrooms, rather than practicing teaching.