How do I create a culture of learning?
What you don鈥檛 do is as important as what you do. Here鈥檚 something I wrote about the topic for as a :
If I had a plan for doing well in 7th grade, it was this: Memorize and regurgitate.
But my English teacher, Mr. Gibbons, wasn鈥檛 very cooperative. He would assign an Emily Dickinson poem and ask the class, 鈥淲hat does it mean?鈥� I didn鈥檛 know the answer, and he wouldn鈥檛 feed it to us. He would wrinkle his brow and say, 鈥淗mmm,鈥� like he was wondering what the poem meant, too.
After a while, my classmates and I began asking questions. Over time, we got to practice figuring things out rather than just reciting what we had been told.
shows that creating a learning culture, like Mr. Gibbons did for my class, can help middle schoolers grapple with what they don鈥檛 understand and grow as a result.
What are the hallmarks of learning cultures? They value intellectual humility and curiosity. They put understanding above getting a top grade, feeling comfortable, or looking smart.
In the research study, teachers who created learning cultures were more likely to have students who, at the end of the school year, could admit what they didn鈥檛 know鈥攖hey grew in intellectual humility. And the effects lasted beyond that year and into the next. This means that learning cultures didn鈥檛 just change students in the moment鈥攖hey changed them in the long run.
Why is it important to have intellectual humility? Students who are unembarrassed to reveal when they鈥檙e confused tend to be and show more resilience. They鈥檙e also more tolerant of people with views that differ from their own and resist either/or thinking鈥攕omething most of us are trying to work on and practice.
顿辞苍鈥檛 ask only easy questions or rush to give answers.
Do create a learning culture in your family or classroom. At dinner, talk about something new you learned today. At school, encourage students to show what they don鈥檛 know (yet). After all, you can鈥檛 learn what you already know.
