Teacher- Stop being the hero.
Yes, you read that correctly. Teacher, stop being the hero.
I said that to myself multiple times this week as I walked into elementary classrooms. Shannon, stop being the hero. Shannon, don’t be the hero. Shannon. Be the GUIDE.
I don’t want to walk away from my teaching experiences leaving people to believe I ‘saved the day.’ Doing so just leads to utter disappointment in a week when there is a new problem, a new lesson objective, and I’m not there to swoop in and save the day. I’m continuing to learn every day how my role is to be the GUIDE, not the hero. And it is difficult.
If you are anything like me, my teaching friend, you struggle with the same thing. You are quick to be the hero. Your students see you as the hero. Parents see you as a hero. I believe you deserve the hero status and will continue to get that name— but I would like to propose you stop acting like one in the classroom. Perhaps we are doing TOO much for our students. We act heroically all day long. We ‘save’ students from the struggle and from the errors. With innocent intentions, we’ve made ourselves the heroes instead of allowing our students to be their own heroes.
I want students to be the heroes of their own story. I want us, their teachers, to be their guides.
Guides and heroes are a part of every story. We all LOVE the hero, but often, we love the hero because of the work done by the guide.
Yoda—the best guide in the Star Wars series.
Haymitch – Katniss’ guide in the Hunger Games.
Think of your favorite heroic story and look deeply for the guide. Who do we remember? The hero. As it should be.
Every good story has a hero. Someone who has a rise, a fall, and ultimately a win. Every story has a hero for whom the audience roots, cries, and celebrates. What we often forget is that alongside this hero is usually a secondary character. The character that allows the heroine to come into his/her own. This is the guide.
The Hero.
The hero is front and center the entire time.
The hero does the hard work.
The hero ultimately makes the decisions.
The hero finds courage.
The hero has special skills, talents, or wisdom- but often it is hiding, unknown, or not realized (or actualized). But regardless, it’s there.
The Guide:
The guide is off to the SIDE. A critically important character, but not the main character.
The guide provides feedback and advice as hardships arise, but not pre-emptively.
The guide empowers the hero.
The guide often puts the hero in situations to challenge them/push them.
The guide believes in and celebrates with the hero.
The guide knows the special talent and skill and finds a way to make it known.
The guide provides support, wisdom guidance…but not all at once. The guide often offers small doses at just the right time.
Let’s take a look at a very real scenario.
I present a story problem.
Omar had 9 red flowers and 7 yellow flowers. How many flowers did Omar have altogether?
T: Ok, so we know this is a math mountain problem, right everyone?
S’s: nods.
T: Good. Let’s all draw the math mountain. (Or number bond, or other put together model)
S: Copy the math mountain onto their boards after I draw mine.
T: Ok, so how many red flowers?
S: 9.
T: Good! Let’s circle that number so we don’t forget. (I circle the number in the story problem). Let’s write it on our math mountain. (I write 9 at the bottom of my math mountain, one of my addend spots).
S: Follow.
T: Now how many yellow flowers?
S: 7!
T: Yes! You are so smart. Let’s circle that number and put it on our math mountain. (I model where to put the 7). I diligently walk the room to ensure each student has done as I have asked. Any errors I find I quickly correct. “No, John, remember the 9 was the red flowers. IT doesn’t go at the top. Put it on the bottom please.” John follows directions.
T: Ok, now that we have both addends. What do we do next?
S; Put them together!
T: Yes! Everyone go ahead and add those numbers (I model the way to write the addition equation and remind students how to use proof drawings, make a ten strategy, etc.).
As I walk the room, most students have the correct answer. I quickly guide the ones who don’t get there. In some cases, I even take their markers and make the corrections for them.
I planned the lesson. I executed the lesson. Boy, was it a good one. The energy was high. Questions were asked, hands were raised, answers were given. Yes! They’ve got it. Everyone gets it, right? I have students do a few more problems with me and then I guide them to do one by themselves. I instantly get….
‘I don’t get it.” (Interpret: I need the teacher to get it for me.)
I proceed to walk those students through the lesson or the problem, step by step…AGAIN. Students refuse to do the next step until guided to do so. (Interpret: “I need the teacher to get it for me.”)
It works, they get it! I feel good, and the students feel good. Win, win – right? But wait, I’m starting to notice a trend. We all feel great with the positive outcome (or what we view as positive—we have ‘completed’ the lesson. But I want to challenge if we acquired our true outcome of mastery.)
But, as the teacher, I’m exhausted. I’m frustrated. They get it today, but by the test, they have no idea. Or they get it while I’m with them, but have no idea once independent.
Whhhhhhhy? We educators scream with hands raised to the education sky.
Because I was the hero and not the guide.
I thought taking over the learning would result in lasting understanding. In fact, I even give it a fancy educational term, “Direct Instruction.” Instead, it resulted in borrowed understanding and a false sense of pride. I thought showing them exactly what to do would help. They needed me. I was there for them, right?
Wrong.
Students may have acquired the desired outcome of ‘right’ answers. (My argument goes even deeper—our desired outcome should NOT be the right answers or a completed workbook page. Our desired outcome is independent understanding. But…I’ll save that for another post.)
Students have completed workbook pages or a board of correct answers, but at a very high cost—their mathematical identities and ownership of learning. Now their identities are wrapped up in my identity. They trust my mathematical talents, but not their own as they continually seek affirmation, help, and support for each step along the way. They no longer trust their own intuitiveness about mathematics, because with every struggle I swoop in to save them. I show them what to write down. I send the silent but deadly message— don’t worry dear, you’re just a child. You NEED me to make sense of this for you.
Uh-oh.
The beginning of helplessness. This is the beginning of students waiting for us to get them started. Waiting on us to find their errors, point them out and then step by step tell them how to fix them. The beginning of them going with whatever the adult or ‘smart kid’ in the room says.
We (I) do this in other simple ways too.
S: I don’t have a whiteboard marker
T: Why not?
S: Shrugs shoulders.
T: Ok, here, use this one (hands student a marker from the front board).
Teacher? Hero.
Student? Dependent on the teacher to solve problems.
Instead:
S: I don’t have a whiteboard marker.
T: Bummer. I’m so glad you’re a problem solver. I know you’ll solve that problem.
S: Looks at teacher dumbfounded.
T: Waits.
S: Stands up and gets a marker from the lost and found bucket in the back.
T: I knew you could solve your own problem.
Student? Hero.
Teacher? Guide.
Now let’s rewrite our student-teacher interaction.
Omar had 9 red flowers and 7 yellow flowers. How many flowers did Omar have altogether?
T: What type of model fits this problem? Show me on your boards how you might set this up.
S: All draw various models of how they interpret the problem. I navigate the room looking for a few boards to share with the class. Two of the boards represent the break apart model I am anticipating (math mountain, number bond, etc.) but only one has the numbers placed correctly, the other has the 9 at the top of the math mountain. I pull another board that shows both quantities in a drawing of flowers and with labels(!), and two additional boards (one that used a number path to solve and another that only wrote the equation 9-7.
Based on what I see students intuitively do with the information, I ask curiosity questions.
T: Tell me about your strategy? Why did you draw….. etc? I have students attempt to retell the problem using their drawings. I pull them to the rug to discuss the boards I pulled. I then sequence boards from the least desirable to the most desirable. As we present each one, I ask students to tell me about the student’s work and what they think that person was thinking, if it matches the story, etc. I help with guiding questions. Students say important things like,
“No, that one couldn’t work because it shows subtraction and none of the flowers left.”
“That one has the right picture, but they put 9 as the total.”
T: So? Why is that a problem? Discuss with your neighbor.
S: Students discuss. I listen to conversations to aid students in connecting back to the story. I pull students together and I call on a partnership to share.
S: Well, we talked about how 9 couldn’t go to the top because that means 9 is the total. And in the story it’s just the red flowers, we still need to add in the yellow flowers!
S: Yeah, but the total is always the largest number, 9 is the largest so we think that’s where it goes.
I’ll stop here. The lesson continues with me sharing that both are correct. The top is the total and the total is always the biggest number. BUT— it’s the biggest number in the END. This leads us to the conversation about what is actually happening in the problem. We all agree that we are putting numbers together. We acknowledge the thinking on all the boards and how some of the methods worked (and matched the story) and others weren’t quite there, but we could see now what they were thinking. I encourage students to go back to their desks to ‘edit’ their work. We remind ourselves that mathematicians often change their minds and often make errors that help us all to understand the problem better.
We try another problem.
10 children go to the park for a birthday party. 3 of the children go home before the party ends. How many children are left in the park?
We’ve had a good conversation that when we put numbers together, our total gets BIGGER. When we take numbers apart, our difference will be smaller than the total we start with. As students get stuck, I encourage them to try something. As they notice work around them different from theirs, I encourage them to trust their intuition and to try out their idea. See if it works!
S: Oh wait, this doesn’t work!! If some of the children go home, then my number should get smaller and I got 13, that’s bigger than all the children so I shouldn’t have added.
T: Sounds like you’ve got something new to try.
By the third problem, students are working together and independently. I monitor groups and ‘act curious as I question what students did, why they did that, etc.
Ahhhh. Success.
Honestly, at first, it wasn’t as fun. I like telling students how to do problems. I like them finding instant success. I like the pacing and momentum of getting right answers and making progress on more questions.
Every calorie you burn giving away knowledge is a calorie your student doesn’t have to burn to understand it.
Our students should be burning the MOST calories. They should be doing the heavy lifting. They should be caught in the crisis, be reminded of their skills, talents, and abilities, but ultimately have to figure out their next move. The guide can’t be the hero FOR them.
In the Star Wars series, when Luke has to fight Darth Vader, Yoda doesn’t interfere, take his Light Saber and fight for him. We can all agree that if someone should fight Darth Vader, it should be Yoda. He’d be better at it. (Ok, so my husband informs me that Yoda wasn’t even around when Luke finally fought Darth Vader. But can we just go with it? My apologies to any super Star Wars fans for the not totally accurate analogy.)
Isn’t this kind of what we do though? Ok, I won’t qualify that statement. This IS what we do. We can do it better. We know it better. We should be able to just impart our genius and solve the problems for them! It would be so much easier. It would be so much faster.
But doing the problem for them is not actually fixing the problem.
This doesn’t mean you aren’t burning calories. You are doing SO MUCH WORK being the guide. You are monitoring, deciding what they know /don’t know, then deciding your next question. You still clarify and you still make points explicit. You still cheerlead. What I’m suggesting is that you structure your classroom so that students end the day believing THEY did it. They were successful. They overcame. They are the HERO in their learning journey.
Celebrate! Celebrate student’s heroic behaviors:
“Wow. I could tell you were totally stuck. I love how you…..”
“Hmmmm…. I can tell you struggled with the next step. What do you think you might do next?”
“Oh, you think we should add. Try it. See what happens.”
Instead, we typically talk them out of it, “No, this is subtraction not addition.”
We try to prevent the error instead of honoring the idea, allowing them to try it, then discussing why it didn’t/did work. We need students to trust their intuitiveness, not create co-dependence on us where they only make a move if we affirm it, model it first, etc. Great mathematicians encounter problems and TRY out solutions or methods. It’s about making sense of the math, trying on ideas, determining if it works/make sense, and then adjusting.
Although not fun at first, the more I act as the guide, the more fun I start to have. I get to be curious. I learn waaaaaaay more about what students will organically do, which helps me plan my lessons. I learn about how students think and what their big hang-ups are. I’m able to build problem solvers. They own the thinking and they have to really think about each other’s work. They decide what to draw, where to put numbers, etc. Whereas in my first scenario, I told them all of those things and the only thing I left up to them was to compute. In my second scenario, students try things out, decide if it works, and then try something else. At the end of the lesson, they are the heroes. They did it!!! I get to be the guide on the side. Students are discussing, debating, justifying, editing, evaluating, and most importantly, LEARNING. Did I help guide them to use the circle drawings or the math mountain (number bond). Yep. That was the most preferred. However, I wait until I see what they will do naturally and use STUDENT work to get us to our lesson objective. They become each other’s heroes. They see themselves as capable of coming up with ideas. They saw their peers come up with ideas, in turn telling them, “Wait, that means if they could do it, I COULD DO IT.” Instead of, “My teacher is the only one who can help me.” Oh my. What a lonely classroom it is when YOU, the teacher, are the only hero in the room. Everyone needs help and you’re the only one who can offer help.
The goal is that when you aren’t there, students have the confidence in their intuition, problem-solving skills, and mathematical ideas to try SOMETHING. But when the teacher always swoops in—tells the student what to do and when, points out the errors, fixes the errors, etc. Then the student begins to believe that it is their teacher who is the mathematician. When they are stuck, they don’t know what to do…. But their teacher does! Let’s not try and just wait for her/him to tell us.
Bottom Line: Let’s stop being the hero and empower our students to be their own heroes.
Will you join with me as we try and try again to be the guides? Do you feel empowered and inspired to be the guide?
What else do you do to maintain the guide role and less of the hero role? Please share your other methods and strategies. Share your successes. Share your struggles. Some days you’ll swoop in and slap your own hand afterward …ahhhh! I did it again! I rescued them. Other days, you’ll give yourself a high five in the bathroom mirror. Either way, share. We can do this. We can do it even better together.