Blog #2

Garrett's (2008) article suggests that the philosophy we adopt in our teaching should align with the philosophy we embrace in our management - but, many teachers who believe in student-centered learning struggle to give up teacher-centered management. What do you think about Garrett's premise? Why do you think teachers struggle with this?

I absolutely agree with Garrett's philosophy that our teaching style should align with our management philosophies. The answer is simple, students need consistency. For example, the article examined three different teachers. Two used student centered management with student led learning, while the third, Mike, used teacher led management with student led learning. While it is proven that it is possible to intermix your management and teaching style, it is questioned whether or not this comes with a cost. One thing that Mike's classroom gained was increased time for academic learning. However, it lost the social-emotional learning that was more prevalent in the other teachers classrooms. For me, this cost is heavier than the reward. I strive to have a classroom that benefits students in their own qualities and characteristics and most important;y gives them a voice in their own education. While I can understand why he wanted to save time for learning, he actually lost a lot of opportunity for students to build skills that will be really beneficial later in life. Not to mention, it makes expectations more clear to students. They recognize that they are the driving force behind their learning and they are aware that they are responsible for managing a majority of their classroom behavior. With this, I can only imagine the type of intrinsic motivation it would bring for students to be the leaders in both categories. While I know there is always a combination of a teacher led classroom with a teacher led management, I have chosen to not dive deep into that theory because I strongly disagree with it regardless. So, yes, I believe a classroom should have a connection between it's teaching style and management. To be quite blunt, I think student led is the way to go in both cases, always (with a touch of collaborative management- the sweet spot.) 

I believe teachers struggle with this because it can be hard to give up control in your classroom. While it's relatively easy to let students explore content on their own, it's hard to give them the ability to hold themselves and one another accountable. I am the first to understand the "need for control" or the want for things to be perfect. But the bottom line is, these are the things that shape our students and are huge life lessons in general. A classroom isn't intended to be controlled or even perfect. There is a beauty and thorough amount of learning that takes place in the midst of the beautiful chaos. Next, I think it can be hard in remaining an authority figure and gaining your students respect. It's finding the happy medium between being their friend and being their mentor. Letting them have an appropriate amount of power, while still remaining in charge. While relationships are important, there is a healthy divide in where you have to remain an authority figure. In addition, I know there are so many standards that teachers are required to complete throughout the year. I could see how educators could lose patience or even struggle to give up some of that valuable time if they don't recognize the importance of social and emotional intelligence. When you teach so thoroughly to the book, it's easy to get caught up in what looks perfect on paper rather than what is important in real life. While standards are important, I think it would be valuable for teachers to research the cost of not aligning their management and teaching style to look past some of the downfalls.  

My Sweet Spot

I believe my sweet spot is between student directed and collaborative. I wouldn't say it's directly in the middle, but instead a little bit more to the left. I think this is the best fit for me because I really want to give my students control of their own learning and their own rules. At the end of the day, I am one person in comparison to over twenty of them and their backgrounds are going to be more diverse than mine alone. However, I do think there is a small amount of collaboration between the students and teacher in classroom management that is important. As I mentioned earlier, there is an appropriate level of authority that should be maintained in a classroom. I personally grew up in a lot of teacher led classrooms and it was harmful to my relationships because it felt like I almost had a fear or upsetting my teachers. I personally, would never want to recreate that in my own classroom. I think the main way to sum this up is there is a power and long list of benefits in a student led classroom and I think it would be a mistake to not lean strongly towards that. In conclusion, my sweet spot is very similar to Gus'.