As educators, we often refer to ourselves as “lifelong learners”—so often that it has become cliche. Yes, we learn from our students, we learn at professional development (sometimes), we learn from our colleagues. But what is a “lifelong learner”?
I have been in education for 24 years—as an elementary teacher for 18 of those years and a high school assistant principal for the last six. During that time, I have attended numerous conferences, workshops, professional development sessions, and earned two master’s degrees. However, as I began a doctoral program this past summer, I had an experience that made me reevaluate how my identities as a student, a teacher, and an educational leader intersect.
On the list of all the courses in my educational leadership doctoral program, statistics was the course that I was least looking forward to. Words like “standard deviation,” “variability,” or “regression analysis” have never meant anything to me.
“I’m going to make a deal with you,” the statistics professor told us on the first day. “Sometimes, I forget what it’s like not to know this stuff, so if I’m going too fast, tell me to slow down, and I’ll slow down. If you have a question or don’t understand, ask. I’ll answer as many questions as you have.” And he meant it.
In that first four-hour class, I took 28 handwritten pages of notes and asked multiple questions. He moved quickly, and I knew if I zoned out for just a moment, I’d be lost. It was a mental exercise in focus and stamina. And about halfway through the class, I came to a new understanding of how our students must feel. I couldn’t remember the last time I truly learned something brand new.
It was exciting, invigorating, challenging, and absolutely exhausting. Most of all, it reminded me how critical fundamental instructional strategies are in developing student understanding.
My statistics professor demonstrated the instructional strategies we know help students of all ages learn: breaking challenging tasks into small chunks, checking for understanding, making the information relevant through meaningful examples, modeling, thinking aloud, demystifying the challenging concepts, and teaching morphology of new vocabulary words so that we could not just memorize them but truly understand. As a student in the class, these instructional moves have made a completely unfamiliar subject accessible, interesting, and meaningful for me.
As an assistant principal, one of my roles is an instructional leader. Recently, my district had been focused on a “back to basics” approach with the basic principles of quality instruction, focusing on the exact strategies I experienced in action in this course. There are teachers who are on board, of course, as there always are in professional development work. And then there are teachers who may not be as open to reflecting on their own practice, or who think the “basic” strategies of effective instruction mentioned above may be too simplistic. As a doctoral student experiencing learning a brand new topic for the very first time, I vehemently disagree. As “lifelong learners,” there exist certain instructional principles that defy grade level or age. They are how human beings learn.
I can’t help but reflect on that experience from the three vantage points from which I’ve experienced school. As a student, I was keenly aware of the cognitive load being asked of me and the mental moves and self-talk required to stay attentive and understand.
As a teacher, I recognized the professor’s instructional strategies and lesson-planning work.
And, finally, as an administrator, observing the instructional expertise made me reassess the instructional feedback, professional development, and coaching I provide to teachers. As an instructional leader, how can I use my personal experience as a learner to help teachers see the “why” behind the instructional moves I am asking them to make? I don’t just want to support teachers in learning and implementing these strategies, I want to empower them to understand the relevance.
Teaching and learning is a reciprocal endeavor. Therefore, we can’t then say, “I taught it; they just didn’t learn it.” We may have said it, explained it, told it, showed it, or did it. But teaching requires responsiveness to the learner, constant communication, countless decisions and adjustments, and mental multitasking. We are only really “teaching” if students are learning.
I would challenge my teacher colleagues to reframe a mentality that inhibits self-reflection. Instead of thinking of teaching as an isolated activity that is “delivered,” we should think of the ability to teach someone an entirely new and novel concept as a superpower. Effective teachers naturally do things when explaining a concept that nonteachers don’t. They know how to evoke understanding, engagement, and meaning-making. Refining those skills only makes us better and more effective in that work.
Upon entering this statistics classroom, I didn’t expect to have an experience in which I simultaneously understood so clearly the role of the student, the teacher, and the instructional leader all at once. As I reflect on the experience, I understand how easy it is for students to shut down, zone out, get frustrated, or not care when it becomes difficult. I see and feel the mental energy it takes to truly learn a new task. And I appreciate the art of a good teacher who knows how to help students to do that with patience, expertise, thoughtful planning, vulnerability, and clear, research-based instructional practices.
So yes. We all call ourselves “lifelong learners.” Thanks to this course, and this teacher, I know what it means. And I know that what I am learning goes far beyond statistics. Learning changes the brain, creates new synapses, and helps us make new connections. My experience in this particular statistics course will, I hope, make me a better instructional leader, teacher of teachers, and champion of my students’ learning experience. I am energized to bring back what I learned to my building and I have never been more convinced of both the power of the teacher and the work it takes to be a learner.
