Teachers, Shut the F@#* Up

As a teacher for over twenty years I have come to a conclusion of what needs to be done to improve our schools, but it’s going to be harder than most think. I say this with all due respect, because I know how hard most teachers work and how difficult their situations can be; teachers, shut the f*@# up!

Many teachers think if they aren’t talking, or in some way in control of the room, nothing is getting done. That may be the case, but mostly because students have been trained that if the teacher is not talking, the class is over. Some teachers go out of their way to get students engaged. They find entertaining videos, they design elaborate projects, they put on a show five or six times a day. Engagement is better than not, but the real goal should be student empowerment.

Teachers, by nature, are talkers. Someone who is extremely introverted is not going to put themselves in front of kids every day, all day. Teachers are, by nature, helpers. We want kids to do well and to learn things. If a student is stuck, we want to help. All too often, despite the best of intentions, the class becomes focused on the teacher, not the students. Either the teacher is literally the focus, listen to me talk all period, or the teacher is in control through what is expected to be done. The teacher designs the project, lesson, debate, etc. with specific outcomes in mind and ways to make sure compliance is achieved.

As good as a lesson or lecture or any other teacher controlled thing maybe, it isn’t about us or the curriculum, or for God’s sake, the test. It’s about the kids. So let’s shut up and listen. Listen to the questions students have about the subject. Their questions will matter more to them than yours will. In fact, many of them will be the same and possibly better than what you came up with. They may even expand your own concept of the issue.

The problem is most high school students no longer know how to ask questions. They have been so acculturated to answer other people’s questions, asking your own is perceived as a weakness in ability. Smart kids know things, they don’t ask questions. The concept that questioning leads to deeper and deeper understanding is akin to saying there may be alternative universes. Even if the concept isn’t completely out of the scope of possibility, the knowledge needed to even talk about that issue is not there.

Unlike quantum physics, learning how to ask questions is not that difficult. There are a variety of techniques that can be used to develop the questioning skill, but they have to be used and valued. If the students know they just need to be quiet long enough for the teacher to take over again, that is what will happen. We, the teachers, have to be comfortable in the silence to let the students learn to develop their own voice and understand that education isn’t done to you, but is an active experience.