I’m going to go ahead and say it.
I think there needs to be more disorder in our classrooms.
By disorder, I don’t mean kids throwing chairs and running amok. Instead, I’m thinking about those instances when teachers give students largely unstructured time and space to land on their own ways of thinking the content. Those instances when the teacher, by design, fails to impose a rigid learning structure on student learning.
This is not a popular idea. It goes against pretty much everything teachers are told must happen in their classrooms every minute of every day. We must have structures, routines, and systems. We need tidiness. Students need to learn concepts linearly, there must be an obvious beginning, middle, and end to everything. It is our job to provide managed, predictable spaces for our students to work together and exchange ideas. For if we don’t do these things, our students’ will be distracted. They won’t learn. Unless its art, a mess is not welcome in the classroom.
Now I’m not saying that there’s no value in structured pedagogy. There is. I have lots of structure in what I do with kids. This includes approaches that range from “traditional” teacher-directed lessons to instructional routines to Desmos Activities to debate-oriented strategies like Talking Points. These are great and serve a purpose. They work to establish outlets for students to explore concepts in safe and dependable ways.
Yet with all the value of structured time, I would argue that messy, unpredictable time is equally important to our lessons and student learning.
By consuming ourselves with algorithmic structures, we teachers sometimes take away opportunities for our students to face problems openly. At times neutralize their brilliance and rob them of their natural inclinations — both intellectually and socially. By giving my students pedagogically less and expecting more individually and collectively, I’ve realized the importance of allowing my students to own their learning — to own our classroom.
For example, it’s now a regular thing for me to give my students a set of carefully constructed problems, whiteboards, and random groups as a means to learn new concepts. They are free to do whatever to understand the problems, including each other and the internet. If it was up to me, I’d even let them leave the classroom. Nonetheless, they are out of their seats for the entire period. I will aid with the math, but I indirectly encourage struggle. I’m there to help, but mainly around to support them to summarize and reflect on their work. It is their energy will make or break the room. It’s on them.
The result is often an untidy and confusing classroom. The uncoordinated, ambiguous, and disoriented learning environment it creates relies heavily on the cognitive diversity in the room. It’s an intentionally unpredictable and flawed approach, but something I’m learning to be good with. For me, it’s worth the tradeoffs.
Rarely does it end in rainbows and butterflies. But that’s kind of the point, though. Often times the kids walk out more confused than when they walked in. We might not get to an answer, let alone a correct one. This usually means that they don’t like me for a while (sometimes all year), that I won’t be on their list of favorite teachers. But in long run, it’s my belief that their discomfort will not only help my them understand the responsibility they have to themselves and their classmates when it comes to learning, but also the responsibility they have to make our classroom go.
Formal schooling sucks the instincts out of our kids. I teach high school and by the time my students get to me, they’ve internalized the classroom as a place where the teacher is supposed to direct their every action. They lose their ability to sense-make because they’re only concerned with “doing school.” They would probably stop breathing if I told them to (and then run to the principal’s office).
So while we thoughtfully select safe and comfortable approaches to student learning this school year, let’s make sure we don’t deprive our students of something they desperately need, which to experience disorder and be pushed out of their comfort zone. This means that they’ll be more tension, messy interactions, and awkward moments in our classrooms. And this will most likely require us to be pushed out of our comfort zones. And that’s a good thing.
bp