There’s no real secret to teaching, but I’m going to give one anyway:
Get students on board with you and they will follow you anywhere.
In the countless books, tweets, blog posts and conversations I’ve had with master teachers/student favourites, they’ve all had that one trait in common.
Their approach to the classroom can vary across the pedagogical spectrum, but the core of their method is getting students on board with them. Jamie Escalante (“Stand and Deliver”) gave daily quizzes, kicked students out with the threat of never being invited back and kept his students strictly in line. Some of his methods were innovative, but students didn’t care until they realized he cared about their learning.
And that’s the key right there. He established rapport with them.
However, and here’s the kicker, it’s about showing, not telling.
Take, for example, the following two approaches:
“Listen Terrie, I care about your success, but I can only do so much. It’s up to you to try harder on the next assignment.”
“Here’s what we can do, Terrie. I’ve been tracking your progress this term and noticed a decrease in effort for your last few assignments and I want to reverse that trend. So I’m going to check in with you every day to see where you’re at with this latest one and if it’s going downhill again, we’re going to sit down right away. I’ll call your parents and let them know as well.”
The second one sounds draining, but it’s obvious the teacher is putting more effort into seeing positive results with that student.
In the first few weeks of classes, these teachers know an upfront investment into their students, at the cost of fully fleshed curriculum based lessons, will give them more time afterwards. That’s not to say no learning is happening, it’s just skewed in favour of rapport building.
Does it mean every student will be on board?
No.
Even the most popular teacher celebrities will tell you (if they’re honest), one hundred percent enthusiasm rarely happens. And that’s okay. I would rather have most students on board all year than fighting to get half of them at the end.
Also, it isn’t about being liked. That is never the aim. Building rapport is significantly different and demands you still keep your professionalism in tact.
My aunt, a retired teacher who had a reputation for being the greatest teacher any student has had (and also developed curriculum for the province and was way ahead of her time in methodology), offered this piece of advice to me when I started:
“Spend time getting them on board with you. That’s it.”
I suppose it’s the reason two of my best compliments have been the following:
“I’ve never seen a student population attach to someone so fast.”
“Vito, you just have to look at a student for ten seconds and you’ve built rapport with them.”
It was something I was doing subconsciously and my students kept telling me how much they loved having me as their teacher. This was humbling because my lessons weren’t anything special and I could still really use a lot of work in the pedagogy department. However, they were willing to overlook it and still produce work that showed ample learning.
There are several other factors that contribute to successful teaching, countless really, but it all starts with getting students on board.
In order to do it, one must be willing to teach outside the curriculum