VALUING YOUR STUDENTS WORDS

I have been tied up with the start of a new school year and have not had time to post anything. So, a good buddy of mine (and great teacher) Steve Markoff of Montclair State wrote the following. His words are ever so true and he says it better than I could have.

Thanks Steve!!!


We’ve probably heard the expression that you were born with two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we talk. I remember the first time I heard this from an elementary school teacher over 40 years ago. Just how does this apply to teaching? How can we use this to become better teachers?

In order to listen more, we need three things:

1. Someone to listen to,

2. Something to listen to

3. A reason to listen


For too many of us, the answer to number 1 is “me”; after all, we have all the academic and professional qualifications along with all of the knowledge from our years of accounting – who better to listen to? It took me a long time to realize that there was someone else worth listening to in this exchange – the students.

So, now that we have someone else to listen to, we need something to listen to. As long as I am talking, there is nothing else to listen to except the sound of my own voice. What else is there to listen to? Answers to questions, that’s what. The math basically looks like this: more asking = more listening. If you ask a question, then you are going to get a response, and THAT gives you something to listen to. Have you ever thought about one of those people who you think of as “great conversationalists?” If you really take notice, all they mostly do is ask questions about YOU and open their ears and listen. Most of the time it is YOU doing the talking, but they are getting all the credit. Students frequently tell me know what a great teacher or explainer I am, when in fact I am mainly just asking and not doing that much explaining in the first place.

So far 1 and 2 sound easy, but one thing I’ve learned in life is this: People can know what to do and how to do it, but, unless they have a reason WHY they should do it – they won’t. When someone isn’t doing something, it’s one of three things. They either: a) don’t know WHAT to do – that’s easy – explain what you want done, b) they don’t know HOW to do it – also easy solution – train them. Show them how to do it. If they still aren’t doing it, then the solution is WHY – they don’t have a good enough reason for doing it.

A lot of us know that we SHOULD be asking more questions, and HOW to go about it, but we don’t have a compelling reason WHY. I’ve found that once I TRULY WANT TO HEAR my students, and then I have a good reason why. I have a real love affair with what is on the minds of my students. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say in class. As long as I honestly WANT TO HEAR them, I will be a better listener and, accordingly, since it is questions that start that process, I will naturally want to ask more and more questions.

So, if you want to ask more and tell less – create that COMPELLING REASON to listen – truly value what your students say. After all, if they had the winning LOTTO numbers, you would listen pretty closely, wouldn’t you? Well, they might not have that, but they have something that I think is worth its weight in teaching gold. Fall in love with what they say – the rest will become easy.

You have 2 ears and one mouth – so ASK twice as much as you TELL – my elementary school teacher gave me great teaching advice!

Need Some Inspiration?

There are times when every teacher needs some inspiration. There will always be days where everything goes wrong and the idea that anyone actually learns anything in your class seems remote. We all need inspiration now and then and I believe you should not ignore those needs. We are human.

One recommendation—the next time you are down and out about teaching, go to the video store and check out a movie from 1988 titled Stand and Deliver. You cannot possibly watch that movie without getting excited about the joys of teaching. It is the true story of a Los Angeles high school math teacher in a very poor area who drives his students to succeed on the AP test for calculus. He pushes them so hard that his students are accused of cheating because they do so well on the exam. They all forced to take the test a second time and they come back and pass it again.

No matter what the problems they encountered, the teacher did not let his students give up. He willed them to succeed.

It is just a wonderful story of how one teacher is able to make such a difference in the lives of so many young people by pushing them to be great. Watch it one night and you will be a better teacher the next day.

Be A Student

If you are always the king, it is very difficult to understand what it is like to be a peasant.

Most college professors that I know have spent a long time being the experts in the classroom. They are the ones who walk in each day with all the knowledge. They are the people in charge. Trust me, that gets to be a very comfortable feeling. At times, teachers can forget the feeling of being a student.

Consequently, whenever possible, I try to take classes where I am the student. I prefer to take classes in subjects where I have little or no knowledge. Over the years, I have taken classes in jewelry making, Russian culture, portrait photography, creative writing, and ballroom dancing. I think I managed to be terrible in all of those classes. I like being the person in the room who is worried about looking stupid. I like sitting through a 75 minute class where I am bored to death after 10 minutes. I like taking a class where I listen to a teacher and try (sometimes hopelessly) to figure out what he would possibly be explaining.

If you have forgotten what it is like to be a student, it can be very difficult to be a good teacher. When is the last time you took a class so that you were the student and not the person in charge?

A few years back, I took a two-day class in large format photography (think Ansel Adams or Matthew Brady). For some reason, I really wanted to do well so I spent the first day of the class taking careful notes and making sure that I understood every step. I asked questions and focused my attention on every demonstration.

At the end of that first day, each of the four members of the class took two pictures with one of those huge cameras as we crouched under a black cloth. The teacher was going to develop those pictures overnight and we would critique them the following day.

I came back, the next morning, with great anticipation. I had been so careful to do everything correctly and I really wanted to see the finished product. I was so optimistic. When we walked in, the teacher informed us that “three sets of pictures were great but one set did not come out at all.”

Immediately, I felt my stomach clutch up as I mumbled to myself “Oh please, don’t let me be the one who messed up. I tried so hard to get it right.”

The pictures did not have names on them so the teacher held up the first batch and one of the students identified them as her pictures. I am now down to 1 chance in 3 for being the incompetent fool. “Okay,” I said to myself “you were so careful—surely, your pictures were fine. Surely, someone else made a mistake.”

The teacher held up another set of pictures and one of the other men in class held up his hand. Now, we are down to the final set of good prints. By elimination, the dummy will now be unmasked and the other three people and the teacher will know who failed to learn the lesson. I can actually hear my heart beating – no one wants to appear stupid. “I want mine to be good; I want mine to be good” I silently chant, almost in prayer.

Well, the last prints went to the other remaining student and I was left to confess that I was the person who apparently couldn’t complete the assignment. Everyone was nice and told me that such things often happen with these big cameras. But, one person in the group looked dumb, and it was me.

When I went to my own class the next day, where I was once again in control, I looked out at my students with a bit more awareness. No matter how hard you try, sometimes things go wrong and you feel stupid and feeling stupid does not often encourage learning. At least on that one day, I was a bit more careful with my explanations and I had a little more patience when the students did not grasp the concepts immediately. On that day, I was a better teacher. And, I was a better teacher for having been a student—not 40 years ago but on the previous day.

Take some classes. Take hard classes. Be brave and put yourself into the student role. The king and the peasants really need to work together and if you are always the king, it is very difficult to understand what it is like to be a peasant.

Writing Assignments

I want my students to learn to write well. Good writing skills should be a requirement for any college education, regardless of the major. Writing well helps people think more logically. Sentences must follow sentences in a pattern that makes sense. Words need to be positioned so that ideas are clear. The message must be delivered in a fashion that can be understood by the intended reader. Today, the writings of many college students seem to be influenced heavily by Twitter and instant messaging.

How can a teacher assist students in developing good writing habits? I use a four-step approach. I grade each of these steps individually but I put the most emphasis on the finished product that comes from the final step.

First, students need something to write. I instruct them to create a problem or a question (within our discipline) that needs to be addressed. I give them guidance on arriving at their question. They then write a letter or memorandum to describe this issue in an understandable fashion. The reader must be able to comprehend the various aspects of the problem and the reason that it needs to be resolved.

Second, the students do the research necessary to arrive at a reasonable resolution for the problem they have created. Every person writes a response to explain the answer that they believe best solves the problem. Again, clarity is essential. The reader must be able to understand the recommendation and the rationale for following that approach.

Third, these first two writings assignments are collected in class and immediately given back, but to a different student. This second student is assigned to critique every aspect of the problem that was raised and the proposed solution. The critique should look at both the technical answer provided and the first student’s use of the English language. This reader must search for anything that prevents either of the first two assignments from being perfect. I have always felt that requiring an evaluation of this type makes both parties more careful. The original writer feels the pressure of having a peer assess the work. The second student must provide a critical evaluation of the technical answer and the written communication, a task not always encountered in school.

Fourth, the critique letter is given to the first student. Hopefully, the student will see the reason why some portions of the original letters were not clear or where the technical material was inaccurate. This student is given the opportunity to rewrite the first two assignments based on the advice provided in the critique. Students can make whatever changes they feel are needed. They have a chance, before they turn in the final letters, to have another member of the class provide advice.

I want each student to see the elements of what they wrote that were judged by their reader to be unclear and needing additional work. I am not an English professor but I have been well pleased by the improvements that I have seen between the original letters and the final versions.

What Do You Really Want to Accomplish?

When is the last time you took a pencil and paper and wrote down (in a sentence or two) what you wanted to accomplish in your classes? Here, at the start of a new academic year, it might be a profitable way to spend 5 minutes. I always tell my students “if you don’t know where you want to go, any road will get you there.”

Probably, any time in the first 30-35 years that I taught, I would have written down something like “I want to help my students come to understand and appreciate financial accounting so they can use it in the real world to help make good decisions.” That is a worthwhile goal and every word is still true for me today. However, in recent years, I have become more and more convinced that I want to do more than teach students a bunch of stuff. Somehow I feel that there is another plateau to this teaching gig that I am not yet achieving. Could I be doing more?

So, as the 2010-2011 academic year begins, I have added a few additional words to my goal: “I want to help my students become smarter people.” Is that even possible? Colleges are all about creating better educated people. Can they also increase the smartness level of their students? I personally think it can be done but it takes a lot more time and energy.

How do you increase smartness? Whenever I consider such questions, I always go back to my favorite quote about learning—one that I reflect on virtually every day. In his wonderful book, What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain talks with one highly successful professor about his teaching style. “’It’s sort of Socratic . . . You begin with a puzzle—you get somebody puzzled, and tied in knots, and mixed up.’ Those puzzles and knots generate questions for students, he went on to say, and then you begin to help them untie the knots.”

You puzzle the students; you tie them into knots. And, then you begin to help them untie those knots. What a glorious description of what education can be—learning that I think not only educates but can actually makes the student a smarter person.

Yesterday in class, we discussed two small accounting rules. My students could have easily “learned” these two rules in 5 minutes or less. Instead, we took the rules apart, piece by piece, looking for connections and contradictions trying to figure out their purpose and how they were supposed to achieve that purpose. After 50 minutes of questions and debates, I asked the students another question, one that seemed unrelated. The students were able to take the understanding they had developed and figure out how to use it to resolve this final question. That was my ultimate goal. They were able to figure out something new on their own.

Were they actually smarter people? Well, after just 50 minutes, they probably weren’t really any smarter. But, if we are able to create those puzzles and knots for an entire semester and work to figure out how to untie them, then, yes, I do hope they will become both educated and smarter by December.

The Opening

In my previous post, I indicated that I believed teachers should do a lot less than 100 percent of the talking in class—especially on the opening day. Several people wrote to ask me how I do that.

I view every class as a conversation. So, how do you start a conversation? Most conversations begin with a question. “Do you come here often?” “Have you ever had better barbecue?” “What did you think about that baseball game last night?” “Do you remember the weather ever being this hot?” Questions are a natural conversation starter. You then reply based on the answer you get. A good question can lead to hours of non-scripted conversation. The same is true in class.

Therefore, I really think about my opening question. Where do I hope it will lead our conversation? I think it often sets the tone for the entire day. In fact, on the first day, you may well be setting the tone for the entire semester.

Okay, I teach accounting classes so my opening question probably cannot be about William Shakespeare or e. e. cummings. I have to start convincing some very skeptical students that my accounting class is going to be both beneficial to them and interesting. English majors, biology majors and the like are not always sure that this accounting stuff is worth their time.

In each of my three opening classes yesterday, I walked in, read out the roll, and then called on a student randomly and asked the following question. “I was listening to National Public Radio on Friday and heard a bit of news announced at 6:40 p.m. Day in and day out, more people probably pay attention to this piece of news than any other single news item in the entire world. The announcer said ‘Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 57.59 points.’"

My guess is that most people in the business community around the world had a pretty good understanding of what that meant. What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average? What fell? Why did it fall? Why should anyone care? And, what did accounting have to do with this?” I actually asked these questions one at a time as the conversation flowed back and forth.

The students were immediately intrigued. To them, it is like there is secret information out there in the real world that everyone seems to know and understand but they don’t. This is not about being able to pass a test. This is about avoiding looking embarrassingly dumb when you enter the real world.

We proceeded to have a wonderful conversation as the students worked out what the Dow Jones Industrial Average is and what its drop on Friday signified and how accounting information helps investors know which company stocks to buy and which to sell. The students were interested to learn that Alcoa’s stock with up .02 on Friday while DuPont went down .25 – what accounting information might have led to that shift?

At the end of the day, the students seemed to feel that this accounting stuff was actually pretty interesting and might be worth spending some time to learn. And, I had only done about 50 percent of the talking which is always my goal.

Okay -- here might be the important part of this post:
In the minds of many students, there is school and there is the real world and it is that divide that makes school seem unimportant. With my very first question on the very first day of the semester, I wanted the students to see that we were going to be studying something that really could be important to their lives beyond school. And, if you cannot establish that, right from the beginning, is there any reason to have the class?

Send Them The Message

I watched a bit of a movie the other night (Where the Wild Things Are) and they had a classroom scene where the teacher stood in front of the group and did 100 percent of the talking while the students stared around the room in a mix of distraction, boredom, and random note taking. Education at its best(?) I watched a television show the other night (Breaking Bad) and they had a classroom scene where the teacher stood in front of the group and did 100 percent of the talking while the students stared around the room in a mix of distraction, boredom, and note taking. Education at its best(?)

I am convinced that you need to set the tone for the entire semester on the very first day. Right at the beginning, you need to send a signal for what you want and expect from the students. My recommendation for the first day would be to do a whole lot less than 100 percent of the talking. Make that a very high priority. Send the message immediately: In this course, you have to be actively involved.

As we all head toward the opening of a new semester, I will leave you with a quote that I have used before but it seems even most applicable at the start of a new academic year. “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” Education at its best!!!