I started my teaching and coaching career as a capital L Leader, with very clear ideas on how things should be done and who should do them. Maybe that was a result of the challenges in Detroit- crazy public schools plus an equally crazy boat club for a total of eight or nine hours a day of weird.
But, this year I've made a few resolutions. One is that I will do my best never to reword a student's statement in class. Another is that I am trying never to tell a student he or she is wrong, but find a way for that realization to happen independently.
I stumbled across this NPR blog entry on Facebook this morning (NPR's blog is the absolute best about Facebook by the way). It details a student run classroom, similar to but different than Harkness. It's very thought-provoking:
Subverting the System: Student and Teacher as Equals
Combine that with Greenleaf's classic The Servant as Leader and you have a fundamentally different kind of education.
The Servant as Leader
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