Teaching to improve the world, not just the individual


On a team, in a school, we are members of something greater. We teach for the good of the world, and we improve the world by doing things right in the classroom. By George Manthey


R


ecently, I had the opportunity to once again attend a session with Stanford Women’s Volleyball Coach John Dunning. (I think my column in which I shared his discovery that in a competitive volleyball


match the winning team makes the most service errors almost 75 percent of the time may have been the most requested column I have written.)


At this session Coach Dunning publicly


thanked Oregon State Coach Terry Liskevych for arranging for his first job as a college head coach and for teaching him what was fundamental in coaching players – to help them play in a way that is good for the team, good for the game and good for the world.


To play in a way that is “good for the world.”


What an awesome opportunity! Letting this bounce around in my mind, it oc-


curred to me that a similar fundamental could apply to learning and teaching. Think about learning and teaching only occurring in ways that are good for the class, good for the school and dis- trict and good for the world.


I am sure you have noticed what is missing in that fundamen-


tal: the individual. We usually think of teaching (or coaching) as directed at individuals – and it may be – but its purpose is to raise the skills of all, not merely individual skills. On a team, in a classroom, we are members of something greater. We teach to improve the world – not just individuals. And we improve the world by doing things right in the classroom.


To be human is to be learning. All students are learning. The


question of concern is, “What are they learning?” My hope and prayer is that students are growing in ways that are good for the class, good for the school and good for the world. As leaders we need to be on the lookout for such classrooms and nourish them. In these classrooms we see and hear:


• Students working in groups, heads together, everyone con-


tributing. • Teachers and students smiling. • Students doing most of the talking about what is being


learned. • Books and magazines, both print and electronic versions, being consulted to seek information in order to solve problems. • Although everyone has a voice, it’s listening


that prevails. • Students and teachers calling each other by


name. • Classrooms looking more like production


plants than libraries or lecture halls. Fundamentally, learning and teaching are so-


cial acts. As the poet David Whyte reminds us in his poem “Working Together”:


We shape our self to fit this world


and by the world are shaped again.


The visible and the invisible


working together in common cause,


to produce the miraculous.


From volleyball courts to classrooms, great teachers are pro-


ducing the miraculous as they teach and coach in ways that are good for the team, good for the sport and good for the world.


George Manthey is assistant executive director, ACSA Educational Services.


January/February 2012 23


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