are your students necessary?

I asked a few teachers that question. "In your classroom, how necessary are your students?" In other words, "how essentially necessary are the students to the material/content you bring?" In this question, I believe, is the root of educational reform. In every classroom, a student must be engaged as an absolutely essential necessity. If the textbook or the lesson plan, or god-forbid, the internet is the most essential component of the classroom, something is very wrong. Kurt Hahn wrote, "On this journey there are no passengers, only crew." How many classrooms operate with this mantra? Well, the answers is, only the classrooms that are highly effective.

What's the difference between a piano lesson and a piano recital - What's the most essential difference? Well, a good teacher is critical as well as a piano that's mostly in tune. There's a great story about Charlie Parker playing a sold-out show on a plastic saxophone he bought at a Woolworth's because he lost his real saxophone. So, if there's truth in that legend, then a master player can deliver with a less than master instrument. But that's still just a recital. What about the lesson? Well, in a lesson the necessary student is the difference. Because if there's no "student," there's no lesson and if there's no lesson if there's no learning. We can have the best, most accomplished piano teacher/player and put them at the most finely crafted piano and have them play for an informed audience. The members of that audience are passengers, not crew; they are not necessary. And while listening to great piano playing is a wonderful experience, it is not experiential. Only students as crew in a classroom make the difference. Patrick Pearse, Irish educator and revolutionary, wrote, "The only thing we teach is the enthusiasm to learn." After 21 years with students, I believe this to be true.

The failure to unpack and grapple with this fundamental aspect of learning, of education is a great non sequitur. It's not true that students are ESSENTIAL in classrooms across the country. In our average English classroom, Macbeth is more important. In Science, the right answer to the chemistry lab is more important. In History, the Hammurabi Code is more important. That's what we find in most Ed. reform plans. I've never been to a meeting or heard any educator ask this question (How necessary are your students?) when the topic was closing the achievement gap or empowering students to take the lead in their learning. (that sounds like a great workshop title. Sign up for my workshop today!) How essential are your students to your lesson? Now, all top-down mechanisms for change in a classroom that do not put this question front and center will create an Epic Fail. always.

So, to sum this up...

What if you took away grades? Because I think grades are the tangible mechanism that keeps students from being necessary. Grades are a false gate-keeper. They're too tidy and neat. The brain and learning are not. We say, as educators, that grades are not important, but we've elevated that alpha-numeric laurel to the bottom line. We've packed this symbol, which is symbolic of everything except learning and intelligence, with the power to cloud our judgement and delude the masses into thinking that the little letter/number lie is learning. It is not.

Let the teachers say, let the students know...

This class can't function without you.