I just spent three days consulting in a district in a neighboring state. At the end of the second day I met with an administrator , as I typically do, to debrief the first two days of my visit. During this meeting, I was struck by a comment she made. She said, “It’s not about our best teaching, it’s about how our kids best learn.” It wasn’t just a clever, pithy remark; to me, it signifies a colossal shift in thinking about teaching and learning. It’s not about our best teaching and this age-old focus is beginning to change in districts everywhere. It’s about what they are (or are not) learning.
Embedded in her comment is the notion that our kids don’t all ‘learn best’ in the same way. That’s one of the shortcomings of the ‘best teaching’ mentality: unless we design lessons that accomodate diverse learners and put into practice the oft-spoken language of differentiated instruction, our ‘best teaching’ – good as it may be for some kids – may sorely miss the mark for many other kids.
When we all as a community of educators shift our emphasis from good teaching to good learning, we begin to design different kinds of lessons, lessons that reflect “how our kids best learn.” dven.
