There’s a slogan that purports to capture the essence of student-centric learning: teachers should be a “guide on the side” rather than the “sage on the stage.”
But that shouldn’t mean they’re not teaching: they still need to teach, but what they need to teach has shifted somewhat. Instead of teaching “things,” they need to teach how to learn well–assuming we teachers believe there are any shortcuts to trial and error, which process students already know by the time they get to high school.
But a second response to the slogan comes to mind as a result of an interaction a few minutes ago. I stopped by a class, and the teacher had a question on the projector quoting Miss Bingley (from Pride and Prejudice) as talking about Elizabeth’s “abominable independence.” The teacher asked the kids to discuss and then someone to answer. I pointed out that that same sort of attitude was what the Nazis had had toward women: “Church, kitchen, and children” were their only appropriate spheres. Everyone sort of looked at me stunned. On my way back past the classroom again a few minutes later, while the kids were busy discussing another prompt, I stopped in again and asked the teacher if she’d pointed out to the class the irony that it was a *woman* who had so bought into the male power structure that she was putting down a fellow woman. I was told that it was the kids’ discussion.
I agree that it’s important for the kids to come to some of their own answers, but when a teacher has something important to point out that applies to the kids’ own lives about the literature, I don’t think she should just avoid saying anything because “it’s the kids’ discussion.”
Teachers do have insight and guidance to offer. There should be a balance, and I don’t think, for instance, that lectures do much other than convey information efficiently. But if we’re dethroning “the sage on the stage,” we need to remember that the “guide on the side” still needs to give periodic advice and context about the path the kids choose as well as the implications of what they choose/say/discuss.