Do teachers who make mistakes, become better teachers?
For the past 25 years, I've been teaching in the classroom in some capacity. What I mean by this, is now working as a deputy headteacher, I still teach, but not as much as I used to.
In this post, I offer the analogy of cycling and teaching and how practise makes for a better teacher. I wonder if I make more mistakes as an experienced teacher, or I am less likely to take risks in the classroom ...
[Tweet "If you're not making mistakes, you're not doing
The bicycle riding / teaching analogy is a great one – one I indeed often use. I point out a few points very consistent with this excellent post. First, no one can teach you how to ride a bike; you have to learn how to ride. Second, it is very helpful to have one help you learn – to be another observer helping you reflect on your efforts and from time to time actually helping you physically. Third, maybe most importantly, you won’t learn to ride a bike and subsequently become better and better if you don’t make the decision to do so; when you do, those falls and the subsequent scrapes or worse will not stop progress because you’ve decided to do it! All fit with your analogy I believe!
Love the phrase, “High Challenge, Low Threat.” Exactly what we in education should seek for our students. Pretty good goal to set for our individual lives as well… Hope to check out the book. Thanks for that as well!!!
Cheers John!
Great post and reflects my thinking totally especially after reading the excellent book by Matthew Syed “Black Box Thinking” which highlights need to use mistakes constructively and the dangers of not learning from mistakes or worse still trying to cover them up.
My concern for education today is that in the high stakes accountability culture that permeates schools, going out there and trying new things, taking risks, knowing full well you may fall flat on your face is, if not discouraged, then certainly thought to be very “brave” (some may use that as a euphemism for stupid). Unfortunately I fear our educational system is rewarding opting for safety rather than going out there and taking risks – calculated risks of course.
I fervently believe I’m a decent teacher now because I made plenty of mistakes in the past (and still do!). The secret is reflecting and learning from your mistakes so you don’t make those mistakes again? Mistakes can be such wonderfully rich learning experiences if embraced properly and I really do fear we are now growing teachers that may be more risk averse and this can only be to the detriment of education in this country.
It takes a brave school to create and encourage a culture of risk takers.
Totally agree – but I really do feel this is the silver bullet that could radically accelerate school improvement and ultimately the life-chances of our future generations. It is the paradox at the heart of modern education in this country!
The best learners are characterised in addressing challenges by being creative with their ideas, taking calculated (and some uncalculated) risks confident that they will learn effectively from what did and did not work. They follow up with refinements and adjustments, collaborate, critique and can then apply their learning at an even deeper level (Dennetts ideas and thinking in @LearningSpy – aka David Didau’s site http://www.learningspy.co.uk/ are well worth consideration!). No surprises and nothing particularly illuminating there then. However, we regularly reflect (or should do) on our own modelling of good learning strategies – and we should recognise who the most experienced (and, often, most proficient) learners in schools are …. teachers. And yet, the current regime has nothing in it which encourages or celebrates teachers adopting this stance. In fact, as mrchadburn (@mrchadburn) rightly points out, it does the opposite creating the biggest missed opportunity in our vocation.
It will take a tipping point to be reached when our profession finally comes to the realisation that we do actually know best (up to a point) and that we really need some serious debate as professionals about what constitutes best practice in the drive to improve learning experiences, outcomes and subsequent opportunities for our kids. In addition, if we do not adopt a strength focussed and developmental coaching (and mentoring) approach the woeful predictions of teacher losses may sadly materialise.