What Are We Looking For?

Today, I had the opportunity to speak at Hyde Leadership's High School faculty meeting. In search of teachers to help with program implementation, I was able to make a short presentation about the work Reach will be doing at Hyde this year. It's always a wonderful experience to see how some people really get excited about our program model - even tired teachers at the end of a long day.

In preparing to make this presentation, I was forced to consider an important question regarding the teachers we will hire: What exactly are we looking for?

One of the beautiful aspects of our teaching framework is that it can be executed by those with expertise in areas other than reading. By focusing on very specific learning activities, we create the context for our tutors to do the "heavy lifting." More than anything, we need teachers that can ask good questions, encourage effort, and earn the respect of our students.

For example, a tutor might ask, "What does this word mean?" We would expect our teachers to respond by saying, "What strategies do you know for figuring out the meaning of words?" And, once our tutor figured out the definition, we would ask, "So, since that was a challenge for you, we can assume your student might need some help with that word. How will you help them to figure out what that means?" At no time would the teacher simply provide the definition.

While, traditionally, we think of teachers as the ones with the right answers, we're asking our teachers to take on a different role - we want them to be the ones with the right questions.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark