Welcome to My College Classroom

I hear a few of you coaches/teachers saying, “That’s a nice set of philosophical beliefs but how can we do those things in our situation?”  This week I will give you a college example that I experienced with Dr. Margaret Carroll, Professor, Northern Illinois University, and give you my elementary/junior high, college, coaching examples next week.

Dr. Carroll was my mentor and chairman of my doctoral committee at Northern Illinois University. I’m not sure I would have achieved my degree without her support. She was the perfect example of the “iron hand in the velvet glove.”

At one time, I was needing help in preparing for my two-day writing test so I asked her if I could sit in on her evening course on Curriculum Development. The class was for masters level teachers preparing to become Curriculum Directors. She thought that would be a good idea so she agreed. She had already met with the group for the introductory meeting. She had shared the general course requirements including the philosophy and content information. She had given them the assignment to read the first chapter of the textbook for discussion this week.

About a dozen students, Dr.Carroll, and I were seated around a large table. Dr. Carroll checked the enrollment and then said, “You were assigned to read Chapter One of the text and we will now discuss what was presented.” She stopped there and sat waiting for the discussion to start. It didn’t start.

Let’s stop here and define the situation. These students were probably full time teachers. Maybe all of them had bought the textbook and some may have even read Chapter One but they were all veteran college students with the notebooks and pens ready to take notes on the wisdom that would be presented to them by this learned professor. That was not Dr. Carroll’s idea of what her role was or what activity was to take place. I was an observer of this situation so I didn’t start the discussion.

She sat there in silence for 40 minutes! - and then said, “It’s time for our break and we will continue our discussion when we return.” She got up and left the room.

There was a lot of wonderment and questioning by the students during the break - some of them who had the book checked with Chapter One.

The group re-assembled and there was a fairly good discussion.  She assigned Chapter Two for the next week and class ended.

The message was clear to the students. They were not given permission to ask questions, they were not given permission to make comments - they were expected and even required to speak up. This was a group at work and everyone, including the professor, was involved. Actually, the teacher or professor or coach in this learning concept is a co-learner. The process is Learning.

Of course, the students in Dr. Carroll’s college class came prepared to have the discussion on Chapter Two and on all of the rest of the chapters.  The room became a social/psychological entity - learning together, getting to know and care about one another. Dr. Carroll was the leader, a member of the group, and a co-learner.  

It was joyful that at the end of the semester the students shared their good thoughts and feelings about the course with Dr. Carroll,  their Co-learner.

You can go through My Philosophy of Education that I gave you last week and note how many more of the “beliefs” such as “There is infinitely more wisdom and intelligence in the total group of learners than there is in any ‘Teacher’.” were realized during this learning experience. 

I was fully aware of what she was doing since I had been teaching my fourth graders, junior high math students, college students, and basketball players using the same concept with some of my own additional learning activities. I will share some of them with you next week.