Images of Authenticity

What does an ancient Greek saying, Ms. Frizzle, and a line from The Royal Tennenbaums have to do with one another?  They all touch on aspects of what it might mean to be an authentic teacher, both in face-to-face teaching and online teaching.

γνῶθι σεαυτόν - “know thyself”

Patricia Cranton (2001) states that “being an authentic teacher means involving your full Self in your work” (p. 48).  Who is the Self that teaches?  Who am I as a person?  I seek to be a teacher who presents myself as human, with strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes.  So, I share details about my autobiography.  I read poems that move me or speak to the world in which we live.  When I Zoom from home, I choose not to use a virtual background, but instead invite learners to see the state of my workspace.  I want my personal and professional lives to be intertwined, so that I am not playing a role when I teach.  To do that, I need to know myself. 

Nobody beats the Frizz!

 As we begin to understand our Self, we can explore ways in which our Self and the cultural concept of “Good Teacher” are in harmony.  Cranton (2001) calls this process discovering the teacher within.  Equally important is identifying the teacher without, or the teacher we are not.  We do not need to strive to become a copy of a teacher we admire; instead, we are authentic teachers when we teach from our sense of Self and can say with confidence how we differ from other teachers.  Online teachers can do this by how they structure their synchronous sessions, or how they organize their courses on their LMS.  If you are a star lecturer, embrace it!  If you like to use problem-based learning, lean into that.  If you enjoy co-creating content for the classroom with students, utilize online collaborative tools like Padlet.  And if you own a magic school bus, definitely use it.  Be you, a teacher like no one else can be. 

Learning is about communication; learning happens in relationship.  When the teacher is authentic, they create an environment that encourages learners to reciprocate. Teacher and learner can then be their “true blue” selves as they journey side by side.  The stronger the relationship grows between the teacher and the learner, the more likely the communication between the teacher and learner will be meaningful.  As an online teacher, this means I seek ways to build relationships with the learners that go beyond knowing their names or reviewing their work.  I use synchronous protocols that foster listening and discussion topics that encourage sharing from personal experiences.  I deliberately schedule time to make connections with individuals during our time together, and take an interest in their lives. 

Authentic teaching depends on knowing ourselves deeply, trusting who we are as teachers, and relating to others.  This is possible no matter how/what/who/where we teach! 

References:

Cranton, P. (2001). Becoming an authentic teacher in higher education. Malabar: Krieger.

Getting to Lake Ohrid

Monastery of Saint Naum, Lake Ohrid, Macedonia

I married an art historian who studies architecture from the Byzantine Empire.  I had the opportunity to travel with my husband for two summers while he did fieldwork in Greece, Cyprus, and Italy.  Our days were filled with visits to ancient sites, where I walked around cavernous churches adorned with brilliantly-colored mosaics and compact, sacred spaces with softly-lit frescoes stretching from floor to ceiling.  I learned about these places in a visceral, embodied manner, comparing one space to another based on how I experienced each one.  In doing so, I created my own body of knowledge about these spaces.  But, there were times when my husband traveled and I couldn’t join him, like when he visited sites near Lake Ohrid, Macedonia.  Even though I was supremely disappointed not to be experiencing these sites myself, I was still able to learn—by connecting to another learner, my husband.   

These two examples demonstrate how a learner may create knowledge via experiential learning or connectivist learning.  David Kolb (1984) theorized that adults use their own lived experiences to generate knowledge by completing a four-stage learning cycle.  Once an adult has a concrete experience, like visiting an ancient historical site, they create knowledge by reflecting on the experience, building an abstract concept of the experience, and then actively using that concept to make decisions.  In my story above, I started to build a body of knowledge about Byzantine architecture through my concrete experiences.  Individual doing, then, leads to knowing.           

Gary Siemens’ theory of connectivism (2005) shares many similarities with Kolb’s theory.  Both of these paradigms view learning as holistic and forever cyclical, where knowledge is something to be created by, not consumed by, the learner.  But whereas Kolb might say that the learner needs concrete experiences in order to create knowledge, Siemens would place higher priority on the learner’s ability to nurture and maintain connections that allow them to build knowledge.  Learning is networked, not individualized.  By drawing on these networks, personal and professional, we can interpret existing patterns and generate new ideas.  When my husband traveled to Macedonia and I couldn’t join him, I did not have concrete experiences of the churches there.  I learned instead by relying on the connection between another learner and myself.

How would Kolb and Siemens use technology to facilitate learning?  I imagine that Kolb would design a concrete experience for the learner, which could be to try using a new tech tool or platform online.  He would then ask the learner to spend some time reflecting on the experience, drawing conclusions, and planning for future engagements with the technology.  What would Siemens’ approach look like? Students would be encouraged to learn from one another in informal learning networks.  Class sessions might be designed to provide opportunities for learning in front of all class members through online collaborative tools.  Teachers may curate resources that expose learners to new territories and invite them to make connections between ideas.  These two theoretical approaches to learning could be  easily combined by designing active experiences for learning communities which require the individuals to generate new ideas together with others, or by sharing the reflective experience through collaborative tools such as Padlet. 

Returning to my own story, I recognize that I am fortunate to have direct experiences of places like Athens and Venice.  But I am also grateful that my learning isn’t confined to what I experience alone.  By “nurturing and maintaining connections” (Siemens, 2005, p. 5), I have opportunities to learn beyond myself.  In fact, I can almost see myself standing by Lake Ohrid. 

Lake Ohrid, Macedonia

Dear Robin (a letter to my past self)

I’m you, and I’m writing to you from the future (I can’t remember the last time I actually sit and handwrote a letter to communicate with someone…). I’m sure I’m breaking some rules of time travel to send this to you, so let’s just keep what I tell you here between us. If I’ve timed my letter just right, Mom and Dad just bought our family a computer, and you’re having the time of your life creating stories and pictures in the word processor – and then printing it out on paper like this.

Soon, computers will allow people to talk to one another in new ways and share information through the Internet. It will change how you learn, what you learn, who learns with you, and when you learn. How? Let’s see.

You’re going to learn more about people you already know, sending messages back and forth online. You’ll have online conversations with people you NEVER would speak to in the hallways of your high school (Frank, I’m looking at you), and you become more sensitive to others through what they reveal about themselves in this new, vulnerable space. You’ll use messaging like this when you have a trans-Atlantic relationship in college (spoiler alert: it’s a happy ending).

You’ll belong to groups that exist online, and people you’ve never met before in person are going to challenge you with new perspectives. These online communities will give you new ideas, which you are constantly filing away, not in a physical filing cabinet, but in cloud-based programs like Evernote and Dropbox that you can check on the fly. Through social media, you’ll connect with other music teachers around the world who are committed to antiracist practices in their classrooms. The ideas they share with you make you a more compassionate, more ethical, more engaged adult.

You’ll also use the Internet for the many questions you—and your two kids—have each day. You’ll Google things such as “what is the best curriculum for homeschooling during a pandemic” and get instant answers (yes, I said pandemic). You consult the Internet for answers to health questions, for recommendations on moving trucks, for how you know when meat has spoiled, for news about the world. You can do it pretty much any time of the day. And the funny thing is that this act of going online for answers has become so integrated in your daily life that it won’t even be something you think about.

I know you are hungry to experience everything the world and this life has to offer. The Internet is going to make it possible for you to learn languages on your own in order to travel. You’ll live in one state while working for a non-profit arts organization in another, learning new professional skills and how to work as a virtual team. You’ll join online fitness communities and learn things like barre and yoga. You’re even going to teach yourself how to play the ukulele, using resources you find online!

I know I make it sound like the Internet is going to solve all your future problems. It won’t. But it will impact your personal, professional, spiritual, and social life. So enjoy that computer now, and practice your keyboarding skills. You’re going to need them (except for when touchscreens are invented, and there’s also Siri…I’ve said too much).

Yours,

Robin