It is not the teaching, it is the learning.

If administrators hire good learners instead of good teachers, maybe we will begin to see teachers as developers of good learners instead of teachers of good instruction. Let’s think of staff development as assisting teachers with seeing themselves as lifelong learners instead of lifelong teachers. Only then will teachers become sculptors of learners instead of just instructors.

The difference is not subtle. If you think of yourself as just a teacher, then you ignore the responsibility the student has to learn. This responsibility is perhaps greater than yours to teach. Yet, with young, immature children, that responsibility is not always taken to its full extent. Our job is to help them see that responsibility as crucial to survival, to make the issue of learning vital to life, and to help them shape that responsibility through the years.

Because of that immaturity and the differences in all children, we must differentiate the pace and extent of that instruction. Thinking of ourselves as learners, and feeling the empathy for that struggle to learn, assists us with the instruction. Thinking of how we continuously learn helps us with how best to guide the child on their path to lifelong learning.

It is not the teaching, it is the learning.