Play the Long Game
Steven Covey, author of the highly-acclaimed book The seven habits of highly effective people, advises his readers to start any project or endeavour with the end in mind.
He maintains that a good builder wouldn’t consider putting a hammer to a nail without first knowing what he’s endeavouring to build. If they are any good they’ll have a plan, or at least a firm picture of what they are trying to construct. That way they’ll end up with a solid construction that looks good and won’t fall down in the slightest breeze.
The same principle applies to teaching and parenting. When you know your end game as a teacher or parent then the strategies you use on a daily basis will always reflect that goal.
So what’s your end game?
The end game for teachers is Redundancy. You know your job is finished when you are no longer needed. Great teachers get out of kids’ way so that kids can achieve. In fact, they make it easy for kids to succeed rather than do too much or take kids’ power away.
The same notion applies to leadership. Effective leaders effectively make themselves redundant. They get out of the way so that others can succeed.
Redundancy is a challenging concept for many teachers, particularly those who like to feel needed or in control. Redundancy shouldn’t be confused with irrelevance. No one wants to be irrelevant, but we should want to become redundant.
Here’s how:
1. Facilitate and coach
Teachers who shoot for redundancy generally take on a facilitating and coaching role. They talk kids through difficulties; they suggest solutions; and they walk with kids through those solutions. However, they resist being the doer or problem solver, which can be particularly difficult when they are teaching or raising kids with a disability or special needs. The temptation to relieve the frustration and take over kids’ problems can be too much. The goal posts may be brought in a little to make independence easier when children have special needs – and that’s a good strategy – but that shouldn’t be at the cost of their independence
2. Become comfortable with failure
When you see redundancy as your end game then you need to feel comfortable with failure, mistakes and stuff ups. Failure is a foreign concept for many educators who spend a great deal of their time creating learning conditions that reduce the risk of failure.
However, anything that is challenging and worth learning will have an accompanying performance dip that learners need to work through. Most people give up learning a foreign language/ musical instrument/playing bridge when their first blush of enthusiasm wears off and they meet with real challenges. Mistakes, errors and failed attempts abound. As a teacher, you need to be comfortable with repeated failures on the part of your kids otherwise you’ll find yourself allowing them to take learning shortcuts or creating modified, easier versions of the language/ instrument/game.
3. Reduce your focus on results
It’s your job to teach and it’s a child’s job to learn. Sometimes we over-reach and become too concerned about the learning. We keep ourselves awake at night worrying about something that’s out of our control. The concept of letting go is at the heart of effective teaching. Care about outcomes by all means, but don’t invest too much emotion in outcomes being positive. When we care too much we run the risk of taking the responsibility for learning away from kids.
4. Turn requests into problems for students to solve
Children and young people can easily get used to bringing problems to adults to solve. “Miss, that boy is annoying me.” “I can’t find my locker key.” “Can you ask the coach to pick me for the team?” It’s tempting to simply jump in and help kids out. However, when redundancy is your aim you’ll take a problem-solving approach, guiding kids towards solving their own problems and taking responsibility for their own concerns. “What can you do to make that boy stop annoying you?” “Locker key! Where might it be?” “What’s the best way to frame up a question to the coach?”
And of course, as a teacher you need to show a little faith in kids’ abilities. It’s easy to trip them up with negative expectations or to sabotage their efforts to be independent problem-solvers with comments such as, “Now don’t stuff this one up!” “You’ll be okay … won’t you?” “That’s not one of your strengths, are you?”
A little positivity goes a long way when you’re playing the long game and developing real independence in kids.