Personal Essays on the Scholarship of Teaching

Clare Ryan Kilbane, Curry School of Education
Seven Society Graduate Fellowship for Superb Teaching, Honoree, 1999
Ashland Oil Golden Apple Achiever Award, 1995

TEACHING FROM GRADE SCHOOL TO GRAD SCHOOL

As a teaching assistant in the Curry School, I have a special challenge-I must teach course content while modeling effective instructional practices for future teachers. Even though knowledge of theoretical and empirical research informs my efforts, practical knowledge gained from my experiences as a classroom teacher make me a more effective teacher-educator. While Robert Fulghum might have learned all he needed to know about living from kindergarten, I have learned most of what I need to know about teaching from my kindergarten students.

We learn from knowing right answers and the right questions. Kindergarteners may not be especially good at tying shoes or holding pencils, but they are especially good at asking questions. Experience has taught me that frequent, insightful questions make interested, energized learners. While teaching EDIS 201, "The Profession of Teaching," at the Curry School, I planned lessons that encouraged my students to question current educational trends and challenge their own assumptions about teaching and learning.

In one lesson, my students took on the roles of citizens living in a community and worked in cooperative groups to plan a school. Given specific information about the beliefs and values of their assigned community members, as well as facts about their town's geography and environment, students worked together as educational decision makers. They were encouraged to act as professionals, to question each other, and to consider the reason for their assumptions about educational practices. Instead of giving them the easy answers, I asked more questions. For example when a student asked, "Should this be an elementary school or a secondary school?" I asked them in return why they thought it had to be a graded school. When they questioned, "Should we use textbooks?" I challenged them to consider the pros and cons of textbooks.

Evaluations of this lesson demonstrated that my students had learned about both the intended content and about how to ask important questions. One student wrote, "I must always question the way I think about curriculum and consider such things as "Who makes the curriculum? Why do we accept what these people agree on?'" Another wrote, "Planning a school's curriculum involves individual interests, politics, and compromise, not just what is best for education." If these responses are any indicator, my students learned that knowing how to ask critical questions is just as important as knowing the answers.

We learn best by manipulating objects and ideas. Kindergarteners' learning experiences are characterized by sensory exploration. As learning becomes less physical and more intellectual, it is more difficult because ideas are harder to manipulate than objects. In one lesson from EDIS 501, "Curriculum and Instruction," I had students create databases so that they could manipulate information about different instructional models. Working in cooperative groups, they compared and contrasted the direct instruction, cooperative learning, inductive, and integrative teaching models. In addition to teaching prescribed content, I demonstrated how technology could be used as an instructional tool and a vehicle for building collaboration among students. The use of spreadsheets during a lesson on school governance and finance gave students the chance to investigate real budget information from public and private school divisions. My students discovered databases gave them a chance to interact with information in a way that using textbooks rarely allows. They were engaged physically and intellectually by experiencing abstract ideas in this concrete manner.

You should learn with both your head and your heart. Educators must care for others and know how to help them. As a teacher, I try to do more than just encourage my students to develop intellectually and morally-I try to provide them opportunities to learn while helping others. After experiencing the Nobel Peace Laureates' Conference at the University of Virginia, one of my students and I began looking for ways to do just this. We contacted the Charlottesville Housing Authority and generated support from other members of the class. We are currently helping to set up after-school computer labs for disadvantaged children living in the projects. It is my hope that working with children in these settings will help my students discover ways to meet the needs of all kinds of learners and show them the importance of sharing their time and talents to help others.

We are both teachers and learners. Because kindergarteners know what it is like not to know, they make eager and patient teachers. Good teachers need to care for their students, but they must remember what it is like to be one. Whether it's swing dancing, kayaking, or digital video production, I make a special effort to learn new things so that I will be sensitive to the frustrations and delights of being a learner. I encourage my students to do the same.

Perhaps what makes me stand out most as a teaching assistant is that I know I learn more from my students than I will ever teach them, and that I put what I learn from them back into my teaching practice.