Where's the Teacher?! How Educators Can Decenter Ourselves and Why We Should Want To
Part 2 in the "Choreographer to Coach" series
I remember my first few days observing in a traditional elementary school. Students worked silently. They did as they were told. They stood is long, straight lines and walked down the hall silently.
Yet, something about this environment felt off. There were cracks in the system.
In order to maintain this system of control, teachers would often scream at children to the point of emotional overload, leaving many students collapsed in corners balling their eyes out. It struck me that this system, and those perpetuating it, did not care about or value children. The central value was compliance above all else.
In these environments based on compliance there is no room for human flourishing or to meet students individual or developmental needs. Education is seen as a transaction; the teacher, who is centered in the traditional paradigm as the sole “knower” of knowledge, dispenses information and the students regurgitate it. This type of schooling is not beneficial for our children, our adults, or our collective humanity. It breeds a scarcity mindset where children learn that they have to put down others to be the best version of themselves.
And yet, even today, we are still having conversations about the merits of traditional education because we have not rejected the cultural idea that the teacher can be effective if they “stand and deliver.” Take the recent book, In Search of Deeper Learning, by Jal Metha and Sarah Fine, which came out in 2019. While the book is a fascinating study of high schools which allow for deeper learning, there is an equivalence given between progressive schools who allow for deep learning, and no-excuses schools, whose students also learn vast amounts of deep information. The authors admit that for many, even considering these no-excuses charter schools to be places of learning is out of the question. However, they found that students, based on their criteria, were able to engage in deep learning, therefore these schools should not be written off.
I intent to write an entire post on this topic because I fundamentally disagree with this premise presented in In Search of Deeper Learning. The reason is simple.
If education is not an aid to life, if it doesn’t support human flourishing for all involved, if it is based on a system of compliance and control, the amount of “learning” does not matter because the end result will not be positive human development. Learning is merely the means, whereas human development is the end goal of education.
A key first step in building education systems which foster human flourishing and allow for positive human development is meaningfully decentering the teacher, literally and figuratively. This idea has massive implications for deeper learning, human flourishing, and human development. It is a journey that I am still on myself.
In order to decenter the teacher, they must stop being a choreographer
My journey to decenter myself in the classroom began when I realized that I was getting in the way of my students growth and development. In my early teaching days, I had a plan for my students and I was going to guide them to get to where I wanted them to go.
Do you see the problem? These plans were about me- not about my students.
I began to realize my mistake while working with a student at my desk. At the time, I was given a big, old desk which took up a decent chunk of my classroom. I was thrilled when it was originally given to me because, subconsciously, it was a symbol of my authority over the classroom. The student and I were working through a draft of his essay when he said, “this is a really inconvenient place to work together.”
Suddenly, my perspective changed. The purpose of the desk was not to create an environment where students could work together with me. The purpose was to separate me from the classroom; to create a space where only I could go; to feel the “power” I had as an educator.
For the next school year, I asked that my desk be removed from my classroom. My colleagues were shocked. “How will you possibly do your work?” they asked. I told them I would work in the environment alongside my students. The space that my desk occupied made room for a small sitting area for students to gather and collaborate. That year, I worked alongside students, sharing our space equitably. There were no “teacher” designated spaces, because we all worked together. I had decentered myself from the physical environment which gave students more opportunities to work together and greater authentic connections with me. My co-colleague at the time did not get rid of her desk- in fact, she often “hid” behind it when she did not want students to come over to her. That physical and social separation behind the “teacher’s desk” led to fractured or transactional relationships with students. It was a fascinating experiment of how a simple decision, to remove my desk, had such implications for the relationship, trust, and level of collaboration I could foster with my students.
Some practical thoughts about decentering the teacher
Decentering the teacher is more than just getting rid of a teacher’s desk. It means purposely positioning ourselves at the margins, both literally and figuratively.
In my current classroom, students all meet around an oval table. Rather than taking a position at the head, like many teachers, I always try to sit at the margins of the table, such as the corners. I do this because I don’t want students constantly looking at me as they work and dialogue; I want them to be looking to each other. This is easier if they have a hard time finding me as we sit together.
The classrooms and prepared environments I have designed are also non-hierarchical in nature, meaning there is no “front” or “back,” but rather multiple places for students to work individually or collaboratively. This recognizes that there is a variety of work that students may be engaged in, which can happen simultaneously without my explicit direction.
In my pedagogy, I live by the phrase “minimally invasive teaching” which was coined by Peter Grey in his book Free to Learn. Grey highlights research which shows that too much teaching leads to student disinterest in any subject, even if they were previously passionate about it. Not enough teaching and students get lost, too much and they’re bored and never want to see the subject again. Using minimally invasive teaching as a frame, I let students self-direct their learning within broad structures that I create. This means that in any given time I can work with the whole group, with students one on one, observe the class, walk out of the room, or go on vacation for two weeks (true story), and none of the deep work stops, because it’s not dependent on me. This also leads to significantly deeper learning that I have ever seen in a traditional classroom.
If students have their developmental needs met and are in an environment that promotes self-directed learning, the teacher can recede to the margins, stepping in only to give the “minimally invasive” spark required for students to get their momentum back. This practice is incredibly freeing for me as an educator because my role is flexible. Since the class does not rely on my direction, I can meet the needs of individuals while the rest of the class is uninterrupted.
Friere and Montessori on decentering ourselves
Paolo Friere, the father of Critical Pedagogy, is famous for using the term “teacher-students” and “student-teachers.” By this he meant that teachers and students needed to learn meaningfully from each other; that the teacher was not the sole arbiter of knowledge, but that young people had much to teach as well. Similarly, Maria Montessori wrote that “this is the secret: we must walk with the child, and not the child with us.”
When we center ourselves, the educators in the classroom, we decenter the needs of our students and what they may bring to the work. We may be incredibly well intentioned or have the best possible plans for our class. We may have years of experience and degrees. Yet when we fail to leave room for our students, when we don’t walk with them, when we don’t embody the role of “teacher-student,” we do not provide students to space they truly need to develop, to flourish, and to grow.
Only one question remains: How will you decenter yourself in your classroom?