Tim Krell - Junior High Principal at Bellevue Christian School in Medina, Washington & Alta Vista Board Member

(First published in the February 2008 edition of the Christian School Teacher, a publication of Schools International)

            Young children are innately curious.  They poke sticks in puddles, chase grasshoppers, and wonder how things work.  When these little explorers go to school a different set of discoveries is set before them by their teachers.  Slowly but surely, they lose the intrinsic wonder for life and learning, and it is replaced with the extrinsic need to please the teacher by producing a good assignment and to impress their parents with an A on a report card.  In The Power of Their Ideas, Deborah Meier says, “I knew that human beings are by nature generators of ideas, what I didn’t understand was how it was that some children recognized the power of their ideas while others became alienated from their own genius.  How did schools, in small unconscious ways, silence these persistent playground intellectuals?  Could schools, if organized differently, keep this nascent power alive, extend it, and thus make a difference in what we grow up to be?” ¹

            Somehow school systems must move from the mind of the teacher into the mind of the student.  In a Christian school, listening to the heart and mind of students is paramount to discipling them.  Certainly students need to learn basic skills:  how to read, how to write, how to compute and apply math facts, and how to communicate ideas using a variety of media, to name a few.  However, we must do a better job of fostering an environment where students’ own ideas are flamed into a passion for learning.  

            Several years ago, Bellevue Christian School started a fledgling alternative program, Praxis, for a cadre of seventh and eighth grade students.  The curriculum erupted from the questions students raised about issues important to them.  In a project-based setting, students explored these questions while developing and improving skills for research, problem solving, and communication.  They developed their own project plans with deadlines and ideas for presenting what they had learned.  All throughout the year they had a say in what they were learning.  However, breaking the habit of relying on the teacher to instruct them at every step was difficult for everyone.  During the first year, I remember a very brief but profound conversation between one seventh grade boy and the lead teacher.  They were discussing his next project idea when he said, “Well, do you want me to do what is in your head [mind] or should I do what is in mine?”  I was so thankful that the class culture and the teacher were open enough for the question even to be asked.  In most classrooms I fear the student simply would have been referred back to the assignment or pegged as a slow learner.  It is my experience that many students spend a great deal of time in school figuring out what is in the mind of their teacher and then how to output their findings in a way that is going to get them the best grade on the assignment. 

            One other illustration came up toward the end of last year.  As with many other Christian schools we have weekly chapel gatherings.  On this occasion we had multiple speakers, and students ended up sitting and listening for the better part of an hour.  We ran about ten minutes into their lunch period and everyone was squirming around.  When chapel was finally over, a teacher asked a girl from Praxis how chapel had been for her today.  Her reply was, “Oh it’s not so bad.  We learned to do that [sit still for long periods and be attentive] in elementary school.  I learned that I can keep my mind going on other things that I’m interested in and still be able to look the teacher in the eye and answer her questions.”  Mind you, this is a bright girl comfortable with her self-image and willing to speak her mind.  None-the-less, she clearly gave a picture to her teacher that the ideas in her mind were powerful and robust enough to outlast school-bred distractions. 

            What can schools and teachers do to create a culture where the power inherent in students’ ideas is utilized in the learning process?   First, we could listen more to students.  Teachers talk too much and listen too little.  Meier says later in the book, “Teaching as telling is hard to dislodge.  Even when we’re committed to supporting student-initiated inquiry, helping kids ask and answer their own puzzles, posing alternative possibilities, the desire for closure can overwhelm good sense.” ²  Personalized learning is messy business; we do not often have perfect closure.  In traditionally structured schools, the end of the chapter or unit or quarter or semester begs for closure like a neatly wrapped package of student knowledge.  So, we give an exam to determine what students have learned.  When we put the package on the shelf and return sometime later, we see that the box is mostly empty.  What we hoped they had learned was actually memorized the night before the exam and quickly forgotten.  So as teachers resolve to talk less and create more opportunities in class to listen to students, they create a space for deeper learning where student’s own ideas can be examined.      

            Second, we must shift our thinking from classes to individuals.  We teach individuals.  Hardly any single student is good at everything.  Yet, the structure in most schools is still a one-size-fits-all model.  Dr. Mel Levine in A Mind at a Time says, “Different minds learn differently.  Consistent progress can result when we understand that not every child can do equally well in every type of learning and begin to pay more attention to individual learning patterns.”³  In Praxis, each year students take an online survey based upon Gardner's nine intelligences.⁴ The result is a pie graph listing how they are smart.  Students interpret and use the information throughout the year as they work on their projects.  They gain confidence and see themselves as “smart at something” instead of “dumb at school.”  When individuals work on projects, they are more likely to take risks that, by necessity, shore up weaknesses and at the same time celebrate strengths.

            Finally, teachers need to give students control for important decisions about their work in school.  Dennis Bakke, author of Joy at Work and co-founder of Applied Energy Services, AES, where he was CEO from 1994 – 2002, examined his workforce to determine what gave them joy at work.  His primary thesis is that people will find joy in the workplace if they are given the power and responsibility to make important decisions about their job. “Every decision made at the top was lamented [by management] as a lost chance to delegate responsibility.”⁵ He and his colleague broke apart the traditional corporate structure when they developed AES and reorganized it to “treat every worker with respect and give them unprecedented responsibility.”  I think that American high schools may be one of the few places in the world where eighteen year olds must ask an adult for permission to use the restroom.  That is a simple example, but I am wondering if we can give students important learning decisions and in so doing, keep their minds more engaged in the learning process. 

            Teaching is the toughest job on the planet except for the job of being a student.  School is a very tough place for many students.  Almost all children enter school with wide-eyed wonder and many graduates leave with an apathy towards learning. Some young people do not graduate at all.  Christian schools are somewhat different.  There are fewer dropouts.  However, within the traditional classrooms of Christian schools there are plenty of disengaged students.  The top down approach to teaching adopted during the last century is not by nature a Christian approach.  Yes, Christ taught with authority, as was recognized by the crowd.  Christ said of himself, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  Yet, Paul says in Philippians 2,  “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!”  The incarnate Christ gave up his authority as God and king to become human, a servant.  Our authority in the classroom cannot be any different from this.

¹Meier, Deborah. The Power of Their Ideas. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002. 3.

² 142.

³Levine, Mel. A Mind at a Time. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc. 2002.

⁴http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/
  client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/what.cfm

⁵Bakke, Dennis. Joy at Work. Seattle: PVC. 2005.