Most experienced upper school teachers realize this simple fact of life: Fully engaging students requires meeting them where they are...connecting the classroom experience to their perception of reality.
I am reminded of the children’s book, Fish is Fish, by Leo Lionni. It tells the story of two friends: a fish and a frog. The frog ventures out of the pond to explore and returns to tell the fish what he has seen. But as the frog describes a bird, the fish can only imagine a fish with wings. His pond-based view of the world influences -- and limits -- what he can envision.
So how do we help students see beyond fish-with-wings?
In her book, How Students Learn (2005), Suzanne Bransford builds on this basic idea with three major points. She states:
- Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.
- To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.
- A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.
- Underlying Bransford’s thinking is the primacy of strong teacher-student relationships. When a student feels known by a teacher, he or she is more able to buy into that teacher’s approach, thus making for a better learning environment.
At Friends Select, strong teacher-student relationships support learning in several ways. On the faculty side of the equation, teachers really know their students and make the effort to learn how they see the world so they can teach in a way students can best learn. Moreover, our faculty members are experts in their subject areas, so they bring the depth of understanding needed to make the subject matter intriguing and relevant.
On the student side, upper school students are trained to be self advocates – to have a clear sense of their own learning needs and to voice their opinions and concerns. By expressing themselves with strong and clear voices, students help to shape the classroom and the community experience.
In the upper school, we continue to engage students by relating to their realities, helping them to understand their own learning, and teaching the curriculum in creative and compelling ways. Our goal is to meet students where they are, while encouraging them to broaden their horizons and their knowledge of the world – to help them see beyond fish with wings.