A Teaching Life

Most teachers understand that to teach is to impart knowledge, skills, and understandings. (I’m focusing on middle/high school.) They position themselves at the front of the room with students sitting in rows. They talk most of the time. Not all of course, but given the fixation of school systems for textbooks, which are information providers (often outdated), many departments rely on them. They parallel their curriculum to its chapters.

Lessons become information-given, information-returned on quizzes and tests, onto the next and the next in a similar pattern. Perhaps I am overstating it.

Here’s where Rowe’s “10-2” becomes important: Whenever a teacher talks or lectures, after ten minutes, she provides two-minute intervals where her students process what they’ve heard among themselves in a variety of formats. After several 10-2 episodes, by the time students leave class they will have internalized information from the lecture and not have to rely on notes to study at home if they took them. And they bring their understandings to class the next day ready to build on them.

“10-2,” two numbers, big consequence.

Invite teachers you know to read my blog, written with them in mind to provide hope in these troubled times.