The Hole in Our Conversation and the Space on Our Wall
Chapter 1:
Three years into my teaching career, I was struck by an awkward realization — a slow bolt of lightning. I realized that there was a profound question I had never posed to my students. The question was probably one of the most relevant and important questions I could ask in the midst of a learning community, yet I had completely overlooked it. The truth was that it hadn’t even occurred to me.
And then the realization struck me.
In a moment of revelation, it occurred to me that the one thing we seldom talked about — in the midst of our learning community — was learning itself.
We were a classroom community where learning was taking place. In fact, the purpose of the classroom was to be a place of learning. Yet we had never dared to ask the questions: What is learning? How can we learn about learning itself?
I had always expected my students to learn. I provided them with strategies to learn. However, I had not taught them what it meant to learn. I had been relying on an assumption that learning was what happened at school, and since we all knew that, there was no need to learn about learning itself. After all, we had all been learning our entire lives.
As the teacher, standing in the middle of a learning community, this was a stunning realization.
The conditions had become ripe, and I was struck by the first of many slow bolts of lightning. It had taken nearly three years to develop.
I immediately began wrestling with the question, “What is learning?” I found the question to be simultaneously very simple and quite complex. It is also highly personal. Perhaps the complexity of the question is why it is rarely approached. However, we were a learning community, so it seemed to be very important to address this question.
So that is what I set out to do.
I began an unexpected journey, one that I was utterly unprepared to comprehend.
As I pursued the question of how to frame the concept of learning for my students, it quickly became apparent to me that learning is nearly always rooted in ideas or contexts that are either existing or in formation. On one hand, this made the concept simple. On the other hand, due to the wide variety of contexts, personal experiences, and their ongoing fluctuating development, the idea of learning was also very complex.
After deeply wrestling with how to begin approaching the subject with my students, I arrived at a simple statement that I had heard several times before, one that I now saw in a new light.
I wrote it down and posted it on the wall.
I had no idea how powerful this statement truly was, but it was succinct and seemed to encompass the wide variety of contexts and paradigms that we all brought into the classroom.
The next day, I shared the idea with the students and explained to them what it meant. I detailed that much of our learning is about connecting ideas. Sometimes we compare, but other times we contrast. I did my best to reach to a student level to explain that we root new ideas within a context, or a framework, or a paradigm that already exists, and in doing so we grow that context so that it can accommodate even more learning.
Sometimes we find ideas that conflict with each other. Recognizing those conflicts is another way of making a connection. Not all connections fit together smoothly. Sometimes the connections don’t seem to make sense.
If three is less than four, why isn’t one-third less than one-fourth?
Why do we fight for peace?
How can we describe a reaction as both opposite and equal?
When we struggle to make connections that do not seem to make sense, we are on the brink of powerful learning. Those moments of dissonance are especially important because they call us to deeper questions and stronger learning. So instead of rejecting connections that don’t seem to make sense, let’s prize those connections. Instead of deciding that points of confusion conflict with learning, let’s understand that those points of confusion actually provide some of the richest opportunities to learn.
Sometimes we find several correct options, and so we find vantage points, and we find perspective. That can give us choices and allow us to see things through the eyes of other learners in our community. We can connect those vantage points to discover greater perspectives. When we begin to look through the eyes of others, we can value their ideas and also begin to understand that our own ideas can impact those around us. When we recognize that our ideas have the potential to contribute to the lives of others, we are called upon to articulate our ideas clearly so they can meaningfully become part of the connections made by others.
We learn that the nature of learning itself is complex and that making connections is not always easy. Sometimes the connections are very apparent. Sometimes the teacher illuminates the connections for us. Yet it is so much more powerful if we actively search for and make our own connections. We are learners. We are connectors. Learning is about making connections and that is something that we do, not something that someone else does for us.
The concept was immediately powerful. I had no idea what I had just started.
The simple concept of making connections established a common paradigm for us to communicate within. While my thoughts around learning itself were becoming clearer, I was also learning from the students who quickly offered examples of making connections, using ideas that were relevant to them, using examples that made it more real to our classroom community, using examples that truly connected our classroom community.
And then the Big Idea on the wall stunned me with an additional meaning. The deeper truth. The one that I should have recognized all along. While it was entirely true that learning is about making content connections in the very way that I had intended, a much more profound truth was emerging from those five simple words. It had been staring at me for many months before it finally occurred to me.
Learning is about making connections. While this describes the nature of learning, it also points toward a fundamental, primary truth of classroom life. The most important connections that can be made in any classroom are the relationships.
Building relationships is essential.
Teachers who invest in relationships empower students.
The reason that our learning was able to travel into the territory of taking risks, sharing ideas, and seeking connections was not simply because we had discussed the concept of learning. It was something much greater. The reason our classroom community was traveling with momentum was that we were building powerful relationships.
It was clear that building relationships with students was absolutely foundational to all of the learning that followed. Rapport with students is critical. A teacher who never connects with students will never build a powerful classroom culture.
The truth had been staring at me from the wall for months before I was ever struck with the deeper meaning. Learning is about making connections — with students.
Building relationships with students is one of the most critical and most powerful attributes of effective teaching.
Taking the time to build relationships with students comes in the form of listening carefully and striving to understand. It comes in the form of sharing who you are and being transparent about your own learning journey and experiences, which is a powerful point of connection.
Powerful learning rests on powerful relationships. Learning is about making connections.