What if there were no centre?
Consider the healthy human body. A system of organs, all with various functions, all working together, adapting to each other's actions and changes.

Focus closer. Each organ comprised of a group of different cells working together, acting, reacting. And closer. An individual cell, with different organelles working away. Closer still. Different molecules acting, reacting, combining, transforming.

Now move to a wider view. A classroom. A group of people, working away, acting, reacting, transforming. Discoveries are made, ripples of reaction and interpretation spread outwards.

Notice something about these situations. All of them are ecological systems, working to stay in balance. All parts are dependent on one another; what affects the individual affects the collective. And notice something else. In the classroom situation, there is no differentiation between teacher and student.

Lately I've been reading articles written by Brent Davis of the University of Alberta and others (Jo Towers, Elaime Simmt, Thomas Kieren, etc) about complexity theory as it may be applied to teaching, learning, and understanding. It's slippery stuff, difficult for me to grasp without several rereadings, but fascinating. And incredibly valuable for rethinking about the average classroom as a learning system.

Up til now I'd heard of teacher-centred classrooms and student-centred classrooms, and neither side of the dicotomy really fit with the vague construct I had in my head of what learning and understanding are all about. The expert lecturing in the front of the room as while everyone else soaked in Knowledge didn't feel true to me - my memories of learning had as much to do with what the students around me said and did as with the teacher. The other extreme, with each student charging away on her/his own individual project, seemed impossible for me as a teacher to manage, never mind guide and assess.

I kept thinking back to the years when I was a swim instructor, particularly to when I worked with 3 to 5 year olds. Things seem to have changed - my local pool's swimming lesson guide shows that they now have a multi-levelled learn-to-swim program - but back in my day all 3 to 5 year olds were lumped together. Maybe because none of them were tall enough to touch the bottom of the pool with their toes and breathe at the same time. And from what I remember, our course objectives were few and, frankly, unrealistic for that age level. What the kids and I ended up doing was hanging out together.

So, depending on how comfortable the kids were with being in a swimming pool, I'd have 4 kids either perched on my hips, or orbiting around me wearing water wings, and off we'd go exploring. I guess I had a purpose - keep them moving so they wouldn't get cold, keep them interested, and increase their ease in the water. But every group was different, and with in every group we developed different routines. Some groups liked traditional games. Some liked to chase toys around the shallow end. Some liked simply standing on me and splashing my face.

One group I remember in particular (because it was so exhilarating and tiring working with them) liked to play a version of "House" in a loud fast-forward way. I'd call out "What are we doing now?" and they'd call back "WE'RE EATING BREAKFAST!" and then we'd all splash ourselves in the face and pretend we were eating. "What are we doing now?" "WE"RE BRUSHING OUR TEETH!" More water in the face. "WE"RE WASHING OUR HAIR!" And so on, for 1/2 an hour.

The thing was, in any of these classes, I wasn't in charge. Sure I was the tall one who knew how to swim, how to tell time, and could physically carry everyone around. But I didn't come up with most of the ideas, and I didn't decide how long each idea would last. The group did, and I was part of the group.

What Davis and his colleagues argue in various articles is that a classroom situation functions in very much the same way. Knowledge/understanding is not an object/reality transmitted from the teacher to the learner. The locus of learning is not situated in a solitary individual. Learning and understanding occur within the classroom collective, which "unfolds from and is enfolded in learners and teachers" This point of view "undercuts many of the binary oppositions that are so often used to characterize learners and schooling - most obviously, perhaps, the common contrast of teacher-centred and student centred instruction. There are no centres to complex systems."

These complexivist notions are both liberating for me as the teacher (less perceived responsibility) and a bit frightening (less perceived power). It will be interesting to see how folding back to the way I used to see teaching 3-5 year olds in the pool will affect how I now perceive teaching 12-13 year olds in the classroom.

* Quotes are from "Teachers' Mathematics: Curious Obligations" by Elaine Simmt, Brent Davis, Lynn Gordon, and Jo Towers but I'm not sure yet what the name of the Journal is.

Why don't we trust experience?
"What he told us was what *experienced* teachers already know - although it's always good to be reminded."

Last Friday was a professional development day, and our school district held a mini-conference focusing on middle school issues, featuring three "experts" running the workshop sessions. The paraphrased quote I've opened this blog entry with is from an e-mail written by a friend and colleague of mine, who's been teaching for over 20 years. Her words got me thinking: why do we need "experts" to tell us what our experience shows us?

Of course, often these experts are former teachers, with lots of experience behind them, who have chosen to study a specific area of education. And sometimes they're experts in different areas, whose ideas might be applicable to what goes on in our classrooms.

But still, if Dr. Neufeldt tells me that children may be acting up because they haven't formed an emotional attachment with me, and my experienced teacher friend tells me the same thing, why would I privilege his words over hers? Are his quantitative data worth more than her qualitative experiences in the classroom? Is it simply hard versus soft science?

Perhaps there's more to it. I think of the actions of our provincial government, which took over the College of Teachers and filled the board with its own appointees, the insinuation being that teachers can't be trusted to oversee their own members. I read the occasional "those damn teachers" letter in the paper - you know, the "they work from 9 til 3 and have the summer off so why are they complaining" type. And I wonder why teachers aren't trusted, and I wonder if that mistrust may sometimes subtly flavour teachers' attitudes towards one another.

Or maybe it's just that we need to rework our notions of what an expert is. Chances are she/he could be in the classroom next door.

Introvert as Performer
Early last summer, there was a feature published in our local daily newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, that I cut out and kept because it was so personally reassuring.

It was about Brian Little, originally from Victoria but now a popular psychology professor at Harvard. The reason he's so popular? He simply loves to teach, managing, as he put it, that "creative tendency between whimsy and gravitas that is something that professors who truly profess need to strive for."

He describes his improvisational method as being like a symphony: "There's a slow movement and there's an allegro movement. You can be allegro vivace for three lecturs and then largo."

The improvisational metaphor is a fascinating one, and one I'll no doubt beat to death in a future entry. But what really fascinated me when I first read about Prof. Little was his personality. You see, like me, he considers himself an introvert.

I didn't return to university to become a teacher until I was in my early 30's because, although I loved teaching swimming and did so for 12 years (despite the funny-coloured hair and constant whiff of chlorine about my person that it generated) I never thought I was the right type of person. I'm not talkative, I don't enjoy being in the spotlight, I don't like telling people what to do: now where I came up with this stereotype in the first place I don't know, but I fully bought into it.

So this was what was reassuring about reading Prof. Little's profile. He doesn't fit the stereotype either. As an introvert what he has learned to do is turn it "on" in order to perform. And then, after a lecture, he seeks solitude to recharge himself, even going as far as hiding in a washroom cubicle. Apparently, he's not alone - when he confessed this to CBC radio-broadcaster Peter Gzowski during "Morningside," Gzowski admitted that he did much the same thing.

"It's a fine balance, [Little] says, because introverts do make good professors - or radio hosts - attuned as they are to other people's cues, constantly scanning the room to make sure they haven't lost anyone. If they have introverts will adjust their style mid-lecture, throwing in a different example, elaborating a particular point.

'The risk is that they can burn out, because in a sense you're acting out of character. That's why we really need those restorative niches.'"

It makes sense then that some of Little's academic research has to do with what he calls "personal projects." These are core projects that are so meaningful to the individual that they can make one act out of character. Little says, "'One project for me is to profess with passion.... So, that as a professor, I am 'on' as a pseudo-extrovert.' This does not make it wrong or phoney [sic], he says. But it does help to understand what is occurring, so that you can take time to re-balance and reduce the risk of burnout."

I used to feel guilty that I prefer to spend my lunch break quietly at my classroom desk rather than chatting with my colleagues in the staff room, or that I spend most of my weekends by myself, just milling around in a semi-meditative (vegetative?) state. But really, my behaviour makes sense given who I am.

A couple of years ago, at a June staff farewell function I gave a very energetic presentation, acting pretty much as I normally do in front of my students, and surprising most of my colleagues who have never been in my classroom.

Afterwards, one of them, a wonderful woman and excellent teacher - and, may I add, a complete extrovert - came up to me and said "You shouldn't hide your light under a bushel so much!" After reading about Brian Little and his theories I now know that isn't true. I'm not hiding anything; I'm just recharging.

[All quotes are from the Saturday, July 5th edition of The Vancouver Sun]

Specialist or Generalist?
"I teach kids."

That's supposed to be the definitive answer to give when someone asks you what you teach. In reality when asked, people either describe the level they teach, the subject(s), or both.

And then there's middle school.

Last year my answer would have been "I teach grade 8 math/science/French/drama" and, having taught those subjects for five years, it would have been an answer with which I was pretty comfortable.

Then I changed schools. I still teach grade 8, I still teach math and French, but now CAPP (which I haven't taught in five years), Social Studies (which I haven't taught in six), and Art (which I've never ever taught, although I took oil painting lessons as a kid and know my colour wheel inside and out dammit) are now supposedly among my repertoire.

This, I admit, scares me. I hate to represent myself as something I'm not - the fact I'm teaching French after posting straight C's through my high school French career still bothers me. I am a teacher, I've taken methods courses in these subjects, but I'm hardly a specialist (although I'm very slowly working towards becoming one in math). Is that fair to the kids?

One could argue that it's not, that I lack the requisite knowledge to lead the more capable kids to "exceed expectations" (as the current jargon goes). And it's true - I find myself saying "I don't know" more often than I like or, the tested-and-true "Why don't you look that up?" dodge.

On the other hand, one could also argue that you can know everything in the world about a subject but if you can't get it across to a bunch of rangy 12/13 year olds then what's the point? Six years ago, I had little to no experience teaching math or science. Every summer I did a whole bunch of reading and research about the curriculum topics and ways to teach them. Every year I tried new things - some worked and some practically burst into flames before my eyes. And last spring, when I collected and read my students' anonymous evaluation forms about the past year's work, I realized that the majority of them not only liked math and science but that their interest had increased because of our work together.

So, when I sit down, as I did this very afternoon, wondering "What on earth will we do in Social Studies this week and what's the most effective way to do it?" I need to remind myself that with time it will come. And what matters most is what I really teach: kids.