Chapter 9: What About My Mind?
The last and final chapter of Daniel T. Willingham’s book Why Don’t Students Like School takes the focus from students and places it on teachers. The key ideas of this chapter are intertwined with applications.
The cognitive principle that guides Chapter 9 is: Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practiced to be improved. Willingham stresses that teaching is indeed a cognitive skill. Just knowing the content isn’t good enough. Teachers need to know how to teach their content and work on increasing their working memory space, relevant factual knowledge, as well as their relevant procedural knowledge.
Key Idea 1: Practice
Willingham believes that practice is the only means by which teachers can improve. He states that teachers seem to improve during their first five years in the field, after which the curve begins to flatten.
There are 3 components of practice
1: Teachers need to consciously try to improve their teaching through practice. What is practice? Practice is the act of trying to improve performance. As opposed to experience, which is simply the act of engaging in an activity. Practice allows teachers to be consciously aware and deliberate in their teaching in order to continuously enhance their craft. This is similar to sports where most people become just good enough, but continue practicing to become great.
2: Teachers constantly receive feedback from their students and should watch for it. They should refrain from being too busy teaching that they lose out on the luxury of watching for what students are trying to express.
3: Teachers should also invest time in activities that are not directly linked to teaching, but help improve teaching practices whether it be public speaking, building relations with students and colleagues, or self-reflection.
Key Idea 2: Feedback (trans)
Willingham suggests a method of feedback for teachers to experiment with.
Step 1: Identify another teacher (or two) with whom you trust and would like to work with
Step 2: Tape yourself and watch the tapes alone. Get comfortable with being recorded and watching yourself teach.
Step 3: Watch tapes of other teachers with your partners and practice constructive observation and commenting with your partner.
Step 4: With your partner, watch and comment on each other’s tapes while being supportive, concrete, and focusing on behavior
Step 5: Bring it back to the classroom and follow up. Remember to keep it simple by addressing one change at a time. Make sure you tape the lesson to see how it went.
Key Idea 3: Self-Management
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Plan your journey and acknowledge the time and energy practice will take. Be realistic. “Decide what is most important to work on, and focus on concrete, manageable steps to move you toward your goal.”
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Keep a journal to help you reflect on your lessons
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Find colleagues to give and receive social support – share problems as well as successes.
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Observe students in the age group you teach in order to better understand them.
The final chapter provides teachers with practical application to help create an environment where students boldly declare, “I like school!”
Jeffrey Fisher 