At 70 I know better...

 

We hear a great deal about teachers not being explicit enough, systematic enough, not keep fidelity to their scripted programs...  Policymakers, legislators, and CEOs of commercial learning programs promise that explicit systematic teaching guarantees learning.  Well they never knew my Momma.

When I was a boy, on a cool summer evening in Hoboken, Mom and the neighbors would sit on folding chairs outside our apartment building. I was safe there, we were all safe there. These women came from different places, had different faiths, but they were united by motherhood, and folding chairs... We lived two blocks from the train station, and the ferries. The world passed their chairs each evening ~ as their children played.

Mom would say hello to people passing, these women didn't judge each other or anyone else for that matter. "Hello" did not require you to have the same faith, the same skin color, the same language, or birthplace.

Here I am at 70, and I have well learned from them. No, not from their explicit instruction, but from their actions. She loved to ask me what I'd learnt at school each day, I would say 3 + 3 is 6, the moon is not a planet. She would say that is interesting son, but what did you learn? You can find out lots of things in books Mom. She liked that, remember that one! She was a believer of "We don't always learn what is taught; and often learn from what is not taught."

Listen, honestly, I am not against teaching explicitly. But we all know, there are lessons not listed on the lesson plan, and whoa do they matter! I doubt that I remember any of my teacher's lesson objectives, BUT their unwritten objectives, those are the ones that matter most...
Be kind,
Be respectful,
Try your best,
Remember to take turns,
Listen,
Wash your hands,
Share,
Be your best self,
Open the door for others.

Today, at 70, those lessons are etched into the very fabric of me.

My teachers taught me these, no teacher ever wrote them into their lesson plans.

These wonderful women sitting on their folding chairs, taught me these same lessons ~ without ever stating them.

Were they explicit? Let me just say, they lived their lessons in the authentic context of real world instruction. They never had to explain them, they lived them.

I learned from the best,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
Professor Emeritus of Literacy, Elementary, and Early Childhood Education
Mom's "Golden Boy"


If you like to listen to the tune, that inspired my morning walk, it was Crosby, Stills, and Nash 'Teach your children" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQOaUnSmJr8