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I went to a conference recently. The first speaker was from the state department of education and I was ready to listen; in fact, I did listen, but I could not follow her remarks. Why? I simply could not understand what she was saying.

In her first sentence, she used two unfamiliar acronyms. While I paused to decode the first one, I missed several words which followed. The second acronym was completely new to me, so when she said it, I could not understand it all. Thus, in spite of a wide vocabulary, I could not grasp the meaning of her sentence.

The same problem continued throughout her remarks. I spent more time wondering if I had decoded the acronyms than I did absorbing her advice and information. As you can imagine, I was annoyed and frustrated. But suddenly I saw it as a learning experience: I was feeling the same sensations that students feel when they don’t understand the vocabulary or references that I use in the classroom.

In a related incident, I was the speaker at a staff meeting. After I presented an involved list of steps for meeting the goals in the school improvement plan, one of the teachers said, “I would really appreciate a list, so I could keep track of all these things.”

“She already told us we would get one!” said one of his colleagues impatiently, at the very moment that I held up the checklists I was ready to hand out. I paused to talk about his knowledge gap.

“You know, Justin’s comment brings up a common issue,” I said. “He has been here, and he looked pretty attentive, but he still missed, or didn’t remember, that detail. Everyone misses things. It’s human to miss things. Whenever our attention wanders for just a second, we lose a detail or an idea. It’s important to remember that when we talk to the young people in our classes. They will have the same gaps and not because of bad intentions.”

In both cases it was as if the listener was looking at a scene through a window with stickers all over it. He/she missed meaning because parts of the whole picture were obscured by blockages, whether of understanding or attention.

Add these two issues together and you get what I call the Swiss Cheese Syndrome.

Listeners are highly likely to have holes—big and small—in their comprehension of our words, just as Swiss cheese is normally full of holes. We are wise to expect gaps and do what we can to fix them, rather than let the situation make us angry or discouraged.

What can we do?

First, be aware. We have to stop assuming that if we know a given word ourselves, then everyone knows it. We can plan in advance to include simple words in explanations and descriptions. Generally, the more syllables the word has, the more likely for it to be unknown to someone. In addition, content vocabulary and scientific words must be explicitly taught, and then reviewed and used–up to a dozen times for full comprehension by all students.

Second, check constantly. Ask for a student to restate a point. Be sure to call on those average learners, not just those whose hands are usually waving. It is too easy to assume that if one person in the class knows something, then the whole class knows it. Direct your learners to summarize for an “elbow partner.”
Have each student write a summary as a “ticket out the door.” The methods are numerous once we recognize the importance of using them.

Most of all, remember that when you feel like moaning “but I TOLD them that,” it is pretty likely that some of the students are thinking, “I never heard her say THAT.” Just take a deep breath, know that it is the Swiss Cheese Syndrome in action, and try again.

Three times in the last three weeks, I have asked this question: “So, how did you decide to go into this line of work?” All three times, I got essentially the same answer. “I spent time with someone who was doing it and I realized right then that it was what I wanted to do with my life.” All three stuck to the plan for all the years it took to get there.

What better career planning and motivation could there be than giving a young person a short exposure to something that has attracted their attention? The drive of a student with an inner desire in unmatchable. I am suggesting that each of us dedicate an hour or two of summer into either taking a young person to a job shadow or planning a process that would involve all our future students in such an experience.

Book signing: I’ll be at Barnes & Noble in Holland, Michigan on April 8th from 6:00-8:00pm. If you have graduating teachers in your family, a copy of The Inspired Teacher makes a great gift! If you’re a teacher yourself, please come by to say hi.

If you’re interested in learning about the important role communication plays in education at any level, join me for a two part discussion on “Communication and Education” at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 18th and 25th from 9:45am to 10:45am.  The church is located at the intersection of Fountain and Division streets in downtown Grand Rapids.

I’m also offering a course based on The Inspired Teacher this fall through Spring Arbor College, 1500 East Beltline SE in Grand Rapids. The course meeting dates are September 25, October 8 & 9, and October 22 & 23. Contact me at carol@carolsteele.net for more information or to register.

Resolutions again. We make them; we break them. Does any good come of this? Annual attempts reveal, perhaps, that we all sense we are in need of improvement, while February reports of failed resolutions suggest that quick fixes rarely cause permanent improvement.

If you’d like to think about resolutions in a new way, look at Benjamin Franklin’s steady approach to self-development. While still in his twenties, Franklin chose 13 virtues that he thought were essential for a good life. He wrote each on a page of his notebook and concentrated on each for a week at a time. Every thirteen weeks he began again, rotating through his list four times each year for most of his life, concentrating on improving one area at a time.

Do not assume Franklin was wholly successful. A quick look at his life shows areas where he did not reach the lofty ideals he aimed for. Nonetheless, I believe he was a better man for trying.

I invite teachers to take Ben Franklin’s long-term approach, forgiving our own shortcomings yet still pushing on toward our ideals.

During a recent conference, a teacher-in-training identified eleven things he wanted to improve about his teaching next semester. The list was worthy, but humans are not designed to do eleven things all at once. I reminded him of this fact, pointing out that overwhelming himself with eleven all at once would be a quick route to discouragement or despair. To manage his long list, we agreed that he would concentrate on only one each week. That would allow him time for experimenting and becoming somewhat comfortable with each one in turn, so they could all, eventually, become part of his repertoire.

How about you? What are the two– or twelve or six or ten– things that you want to do better? The choice is yours. But once you do choose, truly adopt your goals for the long term. Re-examine one of your goals each week and take some concrete step in that area. Like Franklin, you will need to actually write your list down and go back to look at it repeatedly, so you can form the self-improvement habit.

You might decide to choose some of your strengths and magnify them further. Or select some weaknesses and find compensatory behaviors. Perhaps you would rather identify a major annoyance or problem and form new habits or procedures to get you past the issue. All are good approaches. Which will you choose? And what will you be doing about those goals months and years from today?

I recently spent time in the company of a new arrival—a month old baby named Galen. He didn’t know the culture or the language of this place yet, but looked around often, as if a bit bemused. My desire, of course, was to make eye contact, perhaps see a fleeting smile of recognition, but that didn’t happen. It couldn’t really, because he had not yet developed that skill.

Because of those days of face-to-face contact, I began to wonder what Galen was actually taking in as we spent time together.  He had no words for anything, not even in his mind. I knew that. Then I began to wonder what I would notice if I had no names for anything and no experience with the items in my environment.

The longer I thought, the more it seemed that he doesn’t even know yet that there are items in his environment. I’m sure it’s a kaleidoscope of colors before his eyes, or maybe just shades of gray, but how could he know that the foreground is separate from the background or that some parts of what he sees are distinct from other parts? He couldn’t—he has not yet touched or tasted various parts of the scene before him, nor has he moved between the parts or manipulated them. He needs to investigate and experiment before he can draw conclusions like that.

Trying to put myself his situation, I attempted to find analogies for what he is probably experiencing. I remembered going to the movies and arriving before the previews. On the screen was a swirl of color blobs, merging and separating in random ways that meant nothing to me but were hypnotic enough to keep me staring.  Perhaps Galen sees things that way—movement without meaning.

Until he names things—a process of separating the whole into parts and using random, yet agreed-upon sounds to stand for each slice of reality, he won’t be able to converse about his world with others. And as soon as he does that, he won’t see things as a total experience any more. He is more likely to pay greater attention to named things and pass over the unnamed sections of his world. Now that I think about it, maybe I do the same.

All that time spent watching Galen led me to consider how much adults have in common with a baby learning about his environment. I taught for a dozen years before an Effective Instruction class gave me words for great numbers of teaching techniques—some of which I had accidentally used, but not replicated in other classes, because I didn’t even know they were each a separate part of my teaching environment. After I named them, I could apply them at will, in any appropriate setting.

And every day, I keep wondering what are the things that I don’t see, don’t name and don’t use, things that are there, but outside my awareness. Reading history books, I shake my head at the blindness of former generations to things that seem so obvious to me. I can feel superior because I know the names of those formerly unknown facts and theories, things that are a part of my reality.

But my sense of superiority is short-lived. I look around and wonder what my blind spots are, what they keep me and my culture from seeing. In fifty years, or five hundred, what will be known that I cannot even see yet?  This question keeps me searching and asking what movements, behaviors and sights around me are significant, yet unnamed, and therefore unnoticed. It makes me seek feedback, new data and theories to broaden my ability to see what is just outside my awareness.

On May 14, 2009 I was interviewed by Shelly Irwin at WGVU, the NPR station in Grand Rapids, Michigan, regarding The Inspired Teacher. Click here to listen to the 10-minute interview online.