#BTColumn – The ‘Traffic Jam’ of Learning

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Julia Hanschell

There is not a classroom that is not mixed ability – mixed intelligences, with different natural strengths and needs, a variety of ways in which students think, or find thinking in a particular way challenging, and a range of skill sets where there is competence, evident potential, obvious loopholes and coping mechanisms that disguise weaknesses.

Being a teacher means that every student should be understood as a unique individual if progress is to be made.

I often think of a highway where no two cars are the same, yet all are travelling in the same direction to different destinations. Some are packed to capacity, some drivers are happily, or regretfully, alone.

If you think of the Learning Objective of the class as ‘traffic’, think for a moment of what individual drivers do in traffic. Some daydream, others worry, some pray for help to succeed or just to be ignored, some listen to the news or music, some become angry they will be late, some revert to the dangerous practice
of checking their phones and others lose focus and bump into the car ahead, causing an accident.

This is every classroom.

Every one of us responds in a different way, or in different ways on different days. There is always a response to ‘traffic’, just as there is always a response to what is being taught in a particular subject, on a certain day.

So, for learning to happen in a ‘traffic jam’, a teacher constantly has more to manage more than teaching to the Lesson Plan. A teacher must first acknowledge that there will be a continuum of different responses and care enough to understand or envision the causes.

There is no success to be gained from a teacher being reactive. Expect that the unexpected will always occur. Students’ emotions each day will vary and these will impact their receptivity to learn.

Then the pressure is on, because the syllabus has to be completed. Expectations of teachers are immense. After all, we are not paid to care, we are paid to teach. Right? Wrong. Students ‘don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care’. If they feel the teacher does not ‘get them’, they have little interest in connecting with a single word that comes out of the teacher’s mouth.

I am reminded every day of a line from a movie: “Someone has to love me best”. That is what we all want – to matter
to someone.

Nicholas Ferroni tweeted, “Students who are loved at home, come to school to learn, and students who aren’t, come to school to be loved.”

Therefore, we acknowledge that those who are hardest to love, are the toughest to ‘control’. When teachers are unable to control a student, they are sent to a higher authority to be punished. Punishment will apparently change behaviour through changing attitude. Seriously?

When help is needed, affirmation is key. Punishment fails dismally every time. The cycle of misunderstood behaviour rotates unresolved and almost always increases. Real learning, on an academic and emotional level, commensurately decreases, and then fails altogether.

The truth is, a student is accountable for their grades, but that is not where responsibility starts. The exam grade is where it ends. Where responsibility starts is with each teacher inspiring receptivity, helping those students who are crippled by feelings of inadequacy or low competency.

Sometimes a Grade 3 result for a student is equivalent to a Grade 1* for another. The success is in the student’s resilience to persevere when the going IS tough and the learning is HARD. That Grade 3 denotes incredible success.

I have seen many students who were failing dismally, who with genuine care, honest feedback and incredible hard work on both sides, earn Grade 1 at CXC, in subjects of initial weakness. It always takes a team of teachers, all collaborating and sharing creative solutions to make this happen.

It always takes involved parents who change habits and practices at home.

Whatever causes the ‘traffic jam’ always gets worse before it gets better, and academic improvement is always at the top, at the end of the ladder of learning. Sometimes the ladder is long and often unstable. It is our duty as teachers to do all that we can to improve our methods so that our students can climb to success.

How can teachers improve? The best way is by continued Professional Development. That’s the most effective tool against complacency, demotivation, and frustration. It starts with acknowledging that we teach in a different time. The student of 2020 is a vastly different learner from the student of 2010.

When student learning requires new methodologies, teachers must conscientiously seek them.

As Christmas approaches, let’s envisage these new teaching talents we need like new decorations. Every year some break or just need tossing out.

Let’s replace them. And just as we enthusiastically buy new ornaments with conscious choice, let’s embrace our individual growth as teachers, so that we become more of what our present students will enjoy. After all, if learning is not enjoyable for both teacher and student, how could it ever be effective?

Julia Hanschell can be contacted on smartstudying@gmail.com.