STOP TALKING....START DOING!

At the METC Conference this month, one of the presenters uttered four words that delivered a powerful punch. He simply said, “stop talking….start doing”. The presenter was Lee Crocket and the presentation was “Literacy is NOT Enough: Aligning Outcomes with Intentions”. Crocket was discussing the need for changes in public education in order to meet the needs of 21st Century learners. He was talking about what motivates students and teachers and how to make this the center of our classrooms.

Over the past 5 years or so, I’ve heard teachers lament, “We don’t have time to do this or that anymore.” There’s a lot of talking about what’s wrong with the direction of public education or Park Hill or Renner. But talking alone doesn’t make the difference. Action makes things happen. Have you ever watched the Biggest Loser while eating pizza or munched on a snack while watching an infomercial about the latest exercise equipment? This is the equivalent of complaining about public education and not doing anything. You won’t get healthier by watching Biggest Loser or infomercials…getting healthier takes action. Your students won’t achieve more if all you do is talk and wish things were different. They’ll only achieve more if you do something.

According to Crocket’s research, our efforts to prepare students for “the test” are not preparing them for life. Check out the comparison between results for two classrooms. One used direct instruction and told students “this will be on the test”. The other used project based teaching. When tested, both classrooms scored the same. However, one year later, the students taught through direct instruction recalled only 15% of the material. The project-based classroom recalled 70%.

You see, Lee Crocket has two messages with his four powerful words: 1) As educators we need to stop talking about what’s wrong with kids these days and start doing things differently and 2) as educators in the classroom we need to stop talking (direct instruction) and get kids doing (project based teaching).

No matter what you need to be motivated to do the solution is easy:
Stop Talking….Start Doing!