“Taking Risk”

The famed former Dallas Cowboy football great turned bronco bull rider, Walt Garrison once said when asked why, do you ride bulls, “I would rather live with the 6 to 8 seconds of utter terror than living the rest of my life wondering if I could”.  In so many ways I am just not like that.  There is no way I need to take that risk – I sleep just fine at night.

Yet, there are some things that I as well as the collective “we” must risk:  though possibly not a risk at all.

Every day our teachers take risks with instructional strategies.  With the best hopes, intentions of each learner mastering essential skills let alone demonstrating ownership of their learning, our teachers work to stretch, challenge daily each learner. 

They also conscientiously work to reteach, remediate where instruction and learning have not achieved the desired or expected effect. 

Though a very natural step in the teaching and learning cycle, teachers have absolutely nothing to apologize for when re-teaching or remediation is required.  In fact, we expect it!

Believe it or not, to some this is taking a risk, a calculated risk, a planned, intentional risk.  Teachers have unrestricted permission to take this risk.  It is when teachers don’t risk in this way that we are each impacted negatively.

Why do some consider re-teaching a risk?

Each lesson is designed to achieve success.  When the desired or expected result is not achieved there is a sense of failure.  Our society has become more critical, judgmental especially with teaching and learning.  The entire accountability system is not about improving performance but rather to shame, embarrass, and yes, condemn individual students, teachers, principals, classes, grade levels, schools and school systems that do not meet or exceed externally set targets. As if those in a position to make policy believe that each learner, each child, each family, and each community are the same – you get the point – the bane of our existence is sameness.

Too often students get the blame for failing to learn.  Not far behind are the parents for lack of support, caring, or participation.  Of recent, it is the fancy of policy makers to blame teachers, principals, superintendents, Boards of Education, the community or everyone for that matter except themselves. 

Is it possible we have been looking at this through limited lenses?  What if we shifted our thinking to risk-taking through our ability to employ creativity, innovation and imagination? 

Teaching is constant hypothesis testing.  Teachers daily test instructional strategies and with significant success, these strategies are effective.  What we know is that not each learner brings the exact set of skills, knowledge and experiences to a learning episode.  Why would we even consider that one instructional strategy will work perfectly with each learner?  Talk about a set up? 

Of course, there are going to be, just as there has been in the past, variance in learning.  We have asked almost in more of a “super hero” expectation that our teachers perfect their hypothesis testing in every lesson, every day, with every child.  Did I say this is a set up?

In a different time it may have been more reasonable that teachers could test fewer hypotheses given the variance of student skills, knowledge, or experience were less diverse than today.  It can also be argued that in a different time our teachers were more valued, esteemed, and held in higher regard by students, parents, community and policy makers.  The times, however, have changed – did I say set up?

In as much as teachers take risk through testing instructional hypotheses daily, students also take risks through testing learning hypotheses daily.  Each learner, including adult learners, has preferences in the way we like to learn.  When we are asked to learn differently from our preferred way to learn, it is risk-taking. 

Query, both teacher and learner are simultaneously testing hypotheses – one for teaching and one for learning.  Hmm … we may be on to something.

So what is the point - bronco riding, taking risks, or testing hypotheses?

Daily teachers approach their work with the best intentions, best hopes of moving each learner to new content, new tools, new skills, new meaning, and new applications preparing them for the “next”.  They plan for success and when it is not achieved in the allotted time or in the prescribed way they must be risk-takers.

They must become risk-takers, either through the use of time, technology, different strategies, different materials, or through different evidence of learning.  I remain unwavering in my confidence that each of our teachers are up to the task – take a risk and watch our talented educators at work.