Developing a Teaching Mindset
Three very short stories
On Continuing Education
My paternal grandmother celebrated her 81st birthday this week.
But in reality she just turned 80.
“When I started teaching I was 16 years old. I didn’t think I’d be taken seriously at that age, so I told everyone I was 17.”
My grandmother was born in China during World War II. Growing up in an upper-class household, she was on track to become high school valedictorian, attend university and then pursue medicine, law or finance.
But WWII and the ensuing Chinese Civil War inverted her family’s social class.
With her ailing parents unable to provide for her and her four younger siblings, she dropped out of high school, lied about her age and took a part-time job as a night school lecturer. Her students were factory workers. Some of them were twice her age.
She eventually stopped teaching to pursue a career as an industrial draftswomen, working above the factory floor alongside university-educated engineers and managers.
Her own education never plateaued. Later in life she enrolled in college classes, learned the piano and took up English. To this day, she speaks with less of an accent than my father does, a fact that fills her with pride.
On Peer Teaching & Co-Teaching
I started teaching when I was a seventh grader at Mount Olive Middle School, near Morristown, New Jersey.
I’m not sure what compelled me to sign up as a math tutor, especially since tutoring meant staying after school twice a week. I’d be missing out on prime videogaming and AOL Instant Messenger time.
My first student was classmate Anthony Monte, a scrawny blond kid who had a hard time sitting still. I don’t remember what we worked on, and I don’t remember whether his grades improved over time. But we had fun learning together. I remember thinking: “This is kind of cool.”
This first, positive experience with peer teaching taught me a great deal.
Now, whenever I see two NHL players staying out after practice to share information and to rehearse certain details of the game, I know that both co-teachers are part of something immensely valuable.
On Self-Teaching
When conversing with hockey parents about their players’ off-season training, the following theme emerges:
Everyone want to train with older kids, but few tolerate training with younger kids.
The book Belfry Hockey provides a sensible solution to this catch-22.
In the book, Darryl Belfry relates his experiences with Nathan Horton and Patrick Kane, two early clients.
As teenagers Horton and Kane were both completely indifferent to who they skated with, as long as Darryl was on the ice with them. They would show up early mornings to skate with younger kids, stay on with their age peers, then test themselves against the oldest group later on.
Horton had an especially effective training routine.
He would park himself in the back of the line, wait for everyone else to get going, then weave his way through traffic and see how many players he could pass before the end of the drill.
It took a while for Darryl to catch on to what was happening.
In the end, the best players are the best learners.
The best learners teach themselves.
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