Robert A. Cohen

East Stroudsburg University

May 2007

It is ironic that no one considers me a good teacher, considering that almost everyone thought I was a great teacher when I just started teaching. And when I say "everyone," I mean everyone, from the students to the parents and even myself. I knew my students loved my teaching, as quite a few of them would tell me that I was their favorite teacher. During parent-teacher conferences, many parents would tell me how thrilled they were that their son or daughter was not only doing well but enjoying the class as well. And not only did students enjoy the class and think I was a great teacher, but they consistently did well in the course.

So what happened?

First let me tell you a little about my class, as it was when I first started teaching. I was teaching a class called "biology." Everyone knew biology was important but students just didn’t seem excited about it. I knew that students learned in different ways and that most students were bored with the standard lecture format, so I used many different activities. For example, one topic was "the five parts of a plant."

This topic was typically one of the most boring topics in the curriculum. After all, it was just a matter of memorizing the five parts of a plant: leaf, stem, fruit, root and flower.

Not only was it boring, but students had to remember which was which and match the names to a drawing. Many students got frustrated trying to remember all the parts.

Still, I was able to make it exciting by using songs, dances and games. I had students dress up as the various parts of a plant. I wrote songs about the parts of a plant that the students would sing. We played games like "Jeopardy". Not only did the students enjoy the activities, but the students wanted to learn it. Many students decided to study biology in college as a result of my class.

And, lest you think the learning was shallow, exam scores were consistently high. By the end of the unit, students knew the parts of a plant backwards and forwards. I rarely had a student who did poorly. Not only did the students enjoy learning, they were learning. I felt great!

And this feeling of greatness lasted for about five years. It was about that time that I just happened to meet one of my former students on the way to his class reunion. He was excited to see me, and I was excited to meet him. He told me I was his favorite teacher, which by then I was used to hearing.

"Why not come to the reunion?" he asked. "I’m sure everyone else would like to see you again, too."

I had no plans that evening and thought it would be nice to see everyone again, so I agreed. As I accompanied him to the reunion, we got to talking. I asked him what he thought of my class, after so many years.

"Oh!," he exclaimed, "your class was by far the best I have ever had! I learned so much in that class! In college, the courses are so boring - not like yours!"

"Did you study biology, like you thought you would?" I asked.

"Well, I took one course but it was just too difficult - not like your class. I didn’t like it, so I went into another field," he responded.

"What didn’t you like?"

"Well, it was just too confusing. Your course made it sound so simple. These college professors just aren’t as good as you!"

It sounded like a complement, but troubled me just the same. If I was so good a teacher, I thought, shouldn’t my students have found it easier to study the subject in college, despite the poor teachers? We were soon at the reunion, and I was anxious to ask other former students about their experiences. I was confident that other students would provide stories different than this.

And I was right. Sort of. Every former student had a different story, but the end result was the same. No one had gone into a field in which they had to use what they learned in my class. Even worse (to me), no one seemed to have even found the stuff from my class useful.

"At the time, I loved learning all that stuff, but now I don't see any use for it," one student said. "For example, I loved learning about the parts of a plant, but no one has ever asked me about the parts of a plant."

I felt bad that I had wasted their time, but they assured me it wasn’t wasted. After all, they offered, who knew who would need the information then? That wasn’t my fault, they argued.

"Actually," another countered, "I did need to know the parts of a plant once."

"See?" chimed the others.

"...but I had forgotten what they were. I was looking in the fruit section of the market for carrots because I forgot that there was a difference between fruits and roots."

I was devastated. "Doesn’t anyone remember the parts of a plant?" I asked.

To my relief, many students still had it memorized. My relief didn’t last long, however.

"Not only did I memorize it," one student said, "but there was a time last year when I actually needed to know the parts of a plant."

"And so it really was useful, then?" I asked.

"Sure. But apparently scientists have since changed their mind because I got in a big argument with someone about how to grow potatoes. I said that you can't grow a new potato plant from the root because it is the seed that is used for reproduction. I guess I had confused roots and seeds because this person was able to grow a new potato plant from what I had been mistakenly been calling a root all this time! Boy was I embarrassed."

"Not only that", said another. "Now there are only four parts of a plant!"

"No -- three!"

"Ten!"

"No, there are more! I had such a terrible time in my biology class. Why can't these scientists just agree on a certain number and stick with it?"

I was very depressed by the time I left. Even though my former students were arguing it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help but think I had failed them in some way. I resolved to do something about it. I needed help.

The next day, I went to see one of the education professors at a nearby university. I told him my situation. "Just tell me what I can do," I pleaded.

To my surprise, the professor didn’t offer any suggestions. Instead, he just asked me questions. The first question was "What is it you want your students to know and be able to do?"

I wondered what this had to do with anything, but I answered anyway.

"Why, know the parts of a plant, of course."

"Why do you think they need to know the parts of a plant?"

I still couldn’t see what this had to do with my request and I was growing impatient. "What does that have to do with it?" I countered. "It is part of the curriculum. I have no say about it at all."

"Do you think it would be part of the curriculum if it had no use?" he asked.

"I didn’t say it had no use. After all, everything has some use. If you go into biology you will need to know the parts of a plant. So, of course, there is some use." I was beginning to think this professor was pretty stupid. I still didn’t understand what this had to do with my problem.

"If only a few of your students actually end up having to use the information, do you feel you failed them?"

"Of course I do! I said that when I first got here. That is why I am here in the first place!" I was getting more and more impatient.

"Well, it looks like you have two choices. You can either continue to teach things that few students will find useful and then be disappointed when most of them don’t find it useful, or you can start teaching things that most of your students really need to learn."

"Are you saying that there are more important things to learn than the five parts of a plant?" I asked.

"I’m not saying that - you are. You said that you feel you fail because the information that you taught them wasn’t found to be useful. Apparently, you feel there is something more important."

I was getting very frustrated with this discussion. "Look," I said. "Are you going to tell me what I should do, or am I just going to have to figure it out for myself?" I asked sarcastically.

To my surprise, the professor said "You’ll have to figure it out for yourself."

With that, I stormed out of his office. No wonder everyone thinks education courses are useless. The professors don’t know anything themselves!

I was so upset with that professor. His question "Why did you teach them the five parts of a plant?" seemed so condescending. "Why teach anything?" I thought. Everything might have some use someday, I answered back to myself. Who knows what someone might find useful? Can anyone identify anything that most students will find useful? The purpose of teaching something is to enrich the students’ horizons, to identify areas of future study, to get them more well-rounded, I argued to myself. Why does everything have to be useful to everyone?

The more I said the reasons, the less I believed them. If all that was true, why did I feel I failed? Are there things my students really need to know and be able to do?

Over the next several days, I went back and forth in my answer to this one. "There must be something all my students need to know and be able to do," I’d tell myself one day. "How can anyone say something is useful - no one knows what the future will bring," I’d think the next day.

I decided to ask other teachers, but it didn’t help. I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t already known. For the most part, I was told the same things I had told myself, i.e., "why teach anything?"

Finally, one teacher told me that if I was so interested in finding out why we teach what we do, I should go to the people who created the curriculum in the first place. The teacher gave me the name and number of a fellow teacher who was on the curriculum review committee for the state.

When I finally tracked down the teacher, I found her to be very approachable. She had been teaching for many years and was very successful at it. Surely, she could give me the answers I sought.

"So, what is your concern?" she asked me.

"I’ve been teaching biology for several years now and doing what I thought was a pretty good job. Then someone asked me why I’m asking students to learn what I’m teaching and I didn’t have a good answer. Why does the curriculum include knowing the five parts of a plant?"

"Well," she said, "plants are all around us, aren't they? Don’t you think that our students should know something about plants, seeing how plants are all around us?"

"Sure," I said.

"And how can you learn about plants if you don't know their parts?"

"Well, I don’t know. I never thought about that." I felt happy to finally see a reason for teaching them the content and was anxious to get back to the college professor and prove him wrong. After all, who could argue that our students shouldn’t know about plants?

I thanked her and immediately went about getting an appointment with that obnoxious college professor. When I got to see him again, I re-introduced myself and my dilemma. I told him that he had asked me why I teach what I do. I told him about the need for students to know about plants.

To my surprise, the college professor didn’t seem enlightened at all. Instead, he asked me another question.

"If it is so important that students need to know about plants, why didn't your students find that information so useful?"

These questions were making my blood boil. I spitted back "the parts of a plant are just an example of how organisms are structured -- it isn't valuable in and of itself! Plants share a particular structure that allows them to carry out particular functions." I hadn’t given any thought to the response but it just seemed so obvious. How could the professor not see it?

The professor was silent. "Aha!" I thought. I’ve finally reached him.

"So it isn’t ‘the five parts of a plant’ that is important but ‘distinguishing between different organisms and recognizing why plants share a particular structure that allows them to carry out particular functions’?" the professor asked.

I would’ve been annoyed by him asking yet another question but was happy to see that I was finally getting through to the professor.

"Yes! Yes!"

"Then why aren’t you teaching them that rather than the five parts of a plant?" he asked.

Who’s teaching who, I thought.

"I’m only teaching them the five parts as an example of what makes plants special."

I was thinking on my feet. I hadn’t thought about this question either, but the answer was so obvious. I could feel that I was finally getting somewhere with this professor. I may still be disappointed with my teaching, but that concern was now secondary to putting this professor in his place. Victory was within my grasp.

To my surprise, he responded not with a question but with a statement.

"Well, obviously you are failing to teach them both - they can’t remember the parts of a plant and they can't relate the structure of the plant with particular functions."

I was floored. Here he was, telling me what I already knew.

"Not only did they not learn the relationship between the structure and function within a plant but they don't even see the value of that knowledge."

I would’ve walked out but was too shocked.

"Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think I came here in the first place?" I cried.

"If you knew that," he responded, "then why are you teaching them the five parts of a plant instead of the relationship between structure and function?"

"Well, I can’t teach them every possible structure in a plant, can I?"

"No, you can’t."

"Then we’ve just gone in circles, haven’t we?"

He was silent again. I felt very uneasy. I hadn’t meant to insult him, but I couldn’t help but feel that he was just wasting my time. I really wanted to do better as a teacher. I came here hoping to be taught some new techniques and I felt like I was the one doing the teaching!

"Let’s start again," he said, after a long pause. "What is it you want your students to know and be able to do?"

"We already went through this!" I yelled. "To know the five parts of a plant!"

He was silent again. I wasn’t sure which was more annoying - the questions or the long pauses.

"Do you really want them to know the five parts of a plant, or are you using the five parts as an example of something you really want them to be able to do?"

"Look," I said, "if you don’t like my answers, why don’t you just come out and tell me what the answer is?" I was getting pretty annoyed.

To my surprise, the professor said "You’ll have to figure it out for yourself."

"Well," I responded indignantly, "I think the answer is that they need to know the five parts of a plant!"

At that point, the professor calmly got up from his chair, thanked me for coming and started to show me out. All through the conversation, he never got annoyed or even raised his voice. I was extremely confused.

"Think about it. I look forward to seeing you again soon."

I shook his hand and left, too disoriented to know what else to do.

What did the professor mean by "I look forward to seeing you again." He hadn’t helped me so far, so why would I want to come back?

I tried to get on with my life, but I was troubled by the conversation. Why is the professor so unsatisfied with my answer to his question "What is it I want my students to know and be able to do?" Didn’t I already give him the answer? In fact, I gave it at least twice!

I spoke with my colleagues and friends. "Forget it," they said. "That college professor isn’t worth your time."

Then one day, a colleague asked me why the college professor would be unhappy with my answer.

"I don’t know," I said. "We had just been discussing the rationale for the curriculum. You would think he would’ve remembered what we said."

"What was it that you said?"

My colleague was starting to sound like the professor with all these questions.

"We had said that we needed to teach them that plants share a particular structure that has some value in terms of the function of those structures and that teaching them the five parts was just an example of that."

"Then why didn’t you say that?"

"I thought I did."

I mean, I did, didn’t I? And, if I did, why wasn’t that good enough for him?

I didn’t want to go back to see him, but the teacher in me made me go back, to find out what the problem really was.

Back in the professor’s office, I explained that I had thought about his question and wanted to know why my answer wasn’t satisfactory.

"Okay," he stated. "Let’s start again. What is it you want your students to know and be able to do?"

I tried to remember my answer.

"Recognize that plants share a particular structure that functions in a particular useful way."

I would’ve added the bit about how teaching them the five parts of a plant was just an example of that, but by this point it didn’t seem important.

"It isn’t to know the five parts of a plant?"

"No. That is only serves to illustrate the common structure of plants."

"Good," he said.

"Good," I responded. I was so thankful to receive at least some kind of opinion from him that I didn’t know what else to say.

"And why isn’t knowing the five parts of a plant adequate?"

"Because very few of my students need to know the five parts of a plant and those that do never seem to remember the all the parts anyway or there is a different number of parts based upon the particular need, and just because they know the five parts of a plant doesn’t mean they know why plants share that particular structure or what value that structure might have." The reasons just ran out of my mouth - I didn’t even have to think about them anymore. I felt too exhausted to complain about how we had gone through this before.

It seemed so obvious to me now. I was teaching the students the parts of a plant but that, in itself, was not what I really wanted them to know and be able to do. Rather, I wanted them to be able to recognize that organisms share certain traits and that these traits have particular benefits that are related to their structure. Yet, by focusing only on five parts of a plant, the students never learned about the underlying value of investigating structure and function in organisms. And, since the students never needed to know the five parts of a plant, they forgot even that. Even those that did need it found that other people focused on different parts for different reasons and since they were never taught the value of classifying the parts, they were lost.

It was so obvious. Surely, the professor must’ve figured it out by now.

"Does this make sense?" I asked him.

"One thing still bothers me," he responded. "If it isn’t adequate to just know the five parts of a plant, why is that part of the curriculum?"

"Gee," I mumbled, "I don’t know."

When I least expected it, the professor offered an answer:

"Back when they created the curriculum, the committee in charge of the curriculum had a difficult time pinpointing the assessment and unit where students were to study the relationship between structure and function. They needed something that could be easily measured, some kind of descriptor or anchor that teachers could look toward to know if they had met the standard. The five parts of a plant was smiply an obvious example of something everybody would need to know, familiar to teachers and was easy to test."

"Wait a second," I stammered. "Do you mean to tell me that you already knew about all this?"

"Yes," he responded matter-of-factly.

I was amazed. Here I was trying to teach him the rationale behind the curriculum and what I really needed to teach the students, and he had known the answer all along!

"If you knew about this all along, why didn’t you just tell me!" I cried.

"Well, when you first came to see me, you weren’t asking me for the rationale behind the curriculum or what you really needed to teach the students."

"No, but at least you could’ve told me."

"Actually, I could’ve, but it wouldn’t have done any good. You didn’t think this was the problem. I would’ve been providing an answer to a question you hadn’t asked. Chances are you wouldn’t have even listened, and even if you did you wouldn’t have thought it was important enough to really think about it. Now you know that you are just using the five parts of a plant as an example of what you really want them to know and be able to do."

"Okay," I interrupted, "I admit that I didn’t really know any of that before I spoke with you. But I’m still back where I started from. We may have better defined the question, but I still don’t know what I can do to improve my teaching and my students’ learning."

"Well, the first step is identifying the question. As you have found, it is very difficult to identify the real objective, particularly if we haven’t really thought about it. Such a task should not be taken lightly. We have come far."

I was starting to think that perhaps this professor really did know what he was talking about. Perhaps.

"Okay," I said," we have identified the objective. We We want students to recognize that plants share a particular structure that allows them to function in a particularly useful way. How am I supposed to do this? We can’t teach them every possible structure found in plants, can we?"

"No, we cannot. Even if we could teach it, the students would never remember it all, and they would end up hating the subject!"

"So, are we doomed to failure?" I was getting impatient for an answer.

"Well, be careful. Certainly, there must be a way to reach the objective. After all, there are many people who recognize that plants share a particular structure that allows them to function in a particularly useful way. Do you?" he asked.

Ugh, not another question, I thought. "Of course."

"Do you know every possible structure in a plant?"

"No, of course not."

"So, how do you recognize that plants share a particular structure that is valuable?"

"Well, I've seen lots of plants and was able to see that they share certain components. Then I was able to investigate the structure of those components and why those components had some value to the survival of the plant by comparing the plant with other organisms."

The professor was silent. I was getting used to the periods of silence and was beginning to recognize that these pauses were designed to get me to think about what I had just said.

"I suppose, then, this is what I need to teach my students, huh?" I asked.

"Precisely."

"But how do I do that?"

Again, the professor was silent.

"I suppose I’ll have to figure it out for myself, huh?"

"Yep."

"Why can’t you just tell me the answer? After all, I’ve defined the question, haven’t I?"

"The problem is that I’m not sure how to teach it myself. All I know is that you must keep in mind that you want your students to go beyond memorizing the five parts of a plant. You want them to be able to use certain skills to solve a problem. First, they have to recognize that there is a problem to be solved. Just identifying the problem can be difficult, as you have found yourself."

"Can’t I just tell the student what the problem is."

"You can tell them what the problem is, but they will only see it as a task until they themselves have identified it as a problem. For example, I could’ve told you that your problem was in your objective, but you needed to see it for yourself."

For once, I was starting to see the method in his madness.

"What is the next step?" I asked.

"Once the student recognizes the problem, the student must be given the opportunity to solve the problem. For example, if the problem is recognizing that plants share particular components, the students must be provided with a task where such a skill is necessary. Only by trying and testing our knowledge do we learn. Our job as teachers is to provide guidance and feedback to keep the students on task and on track."

"So, how do I rewrite my lesson plans for my unit? What methodologies do I use for this?"

"That is a good question. It won’t be easy. But it is a question that you are better prepared to answer than I."

I thanked him for the engaging discussion and left. I hadn’t learned much, but at least I knew the direction I needed to go. I was still a bit annoyed that he didn’t just come out and tell me the answer in the first place. For a college professor, he wasn’t even that good of a teacher, I thought. After all, I was the one who solved the problem. I was the one who taught myself the answer.

1. Why was it so important for the teacher to recognize the problem before attempting a solution?
   
2. Do you think the professor should’ve just told the teacher what the problem was in the beginning? Why or why not?
3. Do you think the professor was a good teacher?
   
4. Are there any topics in your subject area that you think all students should know and be able to? If not, why not? If so, how might you go about teaching it?

Since my conversation with the college professor, I have revamped my lessons. I spend less time on memorizing examples. Instead, I place more emphasis on the real objectives, like recognizing the link between structure and function, and that some organisms share particular structures. And my students spend more time on thinking through problems, testing solutions, and revising their skills and knowledge. My graduates perform better in college.

But while they are in class, they get annoyed that I am not satisfied with just memorizing specific examples, they get frustrated with their inability to figure out the problems, and they by and large don’t think I am a good teacher. Even now, five years after taking my class, they still don’t think I was that good of a teacher. After all, they reason, they were the ones who solved the problems. They were the ones who taught themselves the answer.