Teaching Independence

Becoming a facilitator of learning has been an eye opening experience. I did not realize how dependent students can become through a traditional approach to teaching. Students quickly learn that conforming to the expectations of their teachers and jumping through specified educational hoops that rely, for the most part, on the regurgitation of facts, results in being labelled a successful student. Carol Ann Tomlinson in her book, "Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom" suggests that "so long as we teach as though 'the students' were one student, we can get by with enabling student dependence." (p. 47) Students were understandably taken aback when I invited them to take charge of their own learning and to delve into tasks and topics at their own rate and capability. At first, many students were intimidated by the process and were unwilling to try a path that was outside of their comfort zones. It became apparent, very quickly, that independence needed to be taught. Students also needed to be convinced, through the scaffolding of tasks, that this new approach actually created more windows of learning and could help students become deeper thinkers and curious lifelong learners. Tomlinson also suggests "that students should develop autonomy as learners ought to be a primary goal of all classrooms from preschool onward. Failure to ensure that students become progressively more independent learners constitutes educational malpractice. (p.47) That statement really hit home and convinced me that I was on the right path in my hunt to become an increasingly effective teacher. Teaching independence is not an easy journey; it is a necessary one.