Reflections on Teaching thought

I've been thinking a lot about what it might look like to remove the pedagogical training wheels from my classroom.  To not only move my students but my practice to a place of deeper learning.  My college of ed put a lot of emphasis on constructivist and democratic classrooms.  Classrooms where the students are vested stakeholders and take ownership of their learning.  I have come to appreciate the assumptions undergirding this approach. At the core of constructivism is the belief that our students are geniuses, fully capable of creating their own learning.  There is not a teacher in the world that would take issue with the above statements. It is precisely this reason that every college of ed uses constructivism proper to anchor the ways in which they instruct teachers.  However the challenge lies within identifying tangeble methodologies to create constructivist classroom .  Clues of which methodology may be embedded somewhere within the practice of teaching thought.

Classical constructivism challenges the sage on stage model which seems to be at the core  of teaching methodologies such as teach like a champion.  Constructivism seems to displace the teacher from the middle of the classroom, requiring the students to become the epicenter of the learning.  Teaching habits of thought is intriguing pathway towards constructivism.  If our students are to be the leaders of our classroom, than the teachers energies may be most effectively spent teaching students how to lead, as apposed to simply instructing them to follow better.   There are various approaches within the school of teaching thought, the website teaching thought.com lays out  16 habits of thought:

1. Persisting

2. Managing Impulsivity

3. Listening with Understanding and Empathy

4. Thinking Flexibly

5. Thinking about Thinking

6. Striving for Accuracy

7. Questioning and Posing Problems

8. Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations

9. Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision

10. Gathering Data Through All Senses

11. Creating, Imagining, Innovating

12. Responding with Wonderment and Awe

13. Taking Responsible Risks

14. Finding Humor

15. Thinking Interdependently

16. Remaining Open to Continuous Learning

These  habits are indicative of successful pathologies across cultures and institutions. Mastery of these skills could lead  scholars to being able to critically engage with a wide array of content. Ideally a perfect pedagogue makes these habits the foundation of their classroom, seamlessly weaving these habits throughout the course of their instruction. In a vaccum I believe such an approach has the potential to dramatically improve learning as well empower historically disadvantage populations.

However we know that there is no teaching that takes place in a vaccum.  And perhaps the most powerful act that a teacher can take is to reflect and think upon how their identity impacts their practice. When  the same reflective process is done upon the whole of the teaching profession we find that 80% of all teachers are white, and 76% of them being female.  Such demographics beg the question, whose thought are we teaching our black and latino children?  There is likely no ill will meant on the parts of organizations like teaching thought.  Teaching thought like many other organizations and teachers recognized that providing students with metcogonitve tools can result in improved learning.  Yet it is my fear that in a field that is only recently having mainstream discussions about cultural responsiveness and the effects of euro centrism, placing the pathologies of our children of color under critical eyes may be a dangerous proposition.  

Teaching thought may indeed be a means to creating a constructivist classroom, however educators must first do the tenuous work of unpacking the Eurocentrism that has riddled much the practice, less we find ourselves not only failing to empower our students but  further oppressing them.