How your students learn more when you teach less

Roel Röhner

Howactual is Dalton? This was the title of an article I wrote six years ago.Surprisingly the same question came into my mind two times.

Thefirst time was last summer.

Frommy collection of historical Dalton publications I started to read again the brochureHelen Parkhurst wrote in 1926. The title is “An explanation of The DaltonLaboratory Plan”[1]

Thevision of Helen Parkhurst is sometimes surprisingly modern.

“To begin with, we mustdiscard the delusion, so long cherished, that children do not like learning. Inthe past we have concentrated on the teaching of learning. It was assumed thatthe teacher’s duty was to do the work and consequently the whole business ofeducation was regarded from the teacher’s standpoint. Then it never occurred toanyone to look, as it were, under the machine, to drag out the young mechanicor to discover that he was actually equipped with a mind of his own which notonly craved exercise, but which could, if given the opportunity, solve theproblem of his education far better than we could solve it for him”.

Thesecond time I was thinking of the actuality of the Dalton Plan was at themoment I’ve found the book “The lazy teacher’s handbook”. The subtitle I’vestolen to use as the title of this article.[2]

WhenI work with teams of teachers during their Dalton training, I stimulate them todo a step back, to change their role from leader of the educational process tocoach of the process. The role of the teacher should be that of a facilitator.And in this new founded book the author proclaims:

“The combination ofindependent learners and lazy teachers is the outstanding combination thatevery school should be striving for”.

Itcould have been written by Helen Parkhurst if she had lived now.

HelenParkhurst was as provocative in her opinion about education. In 1926 she wrote:

“Under the Dalton Planthe teacher’s principal job is to instruct or teach by answering the questionsasked by individual children or by groups of children”.

Shepromoted a child – centred education and not the old fashioned whole-classinstruction,

Idon’t believe in reincarnation, but isn’t it a coincidence that Ian Gilbertwrites:

“Maybe if we spent alittle less time teaching and gave students a little more time to learn, thingswould be different. Or, to put it another way, what if we worked less and theyworked more?”

Inher time Helen Parkhurst formulated the similar point of view:

·        “Thecurriculum is dead without the live motive power of the child, it must work byboy and girl power. So we suggest that the curriculum, whatever its content,shall be offered to the pupil in the form of a job”.

·        “I drawattention to the word ‘LABORATORY’, for it is significant of a place where apupil research- worker experiments with and on his job”.

·        “Pupils,they seek the teachers when they need them, so that the teacher no longer findit necessary to seek them”.

AndIan Gilbert:

“Schools are full ofdedicated and passionate teachers who see their job as doing all that isnecessary to bring out the best in their students. But if teachers does ALLthat is necessary, what’s left for the students to do?”

MostlyI advice teachers not to give the kind of instruction in which they explaindetailed a problem or a new topic, but to teach the strategy how pupils cansolve it themselves.

Andif we take into account that not even 20% of the pupils in your classroom havethe verbal-linguistic intelligence, it must be a clear advice to behave morelike a lazy teacher.

Inthis context Helen Parkhurst explained:

“The teacher does notattempt to throw information into their minds as one shovels coal into afurnace, but rather studies their needs to discover what she[3]can do and what she should know in order to help their own research. She mightindeed be described as a hostess who attends to the wants of her pupil guests,living with them in a joyous, dignified way”.

Inother words, they learn more when we teach less. This is the historical view onDalton and a modern educator like Ian Gilbert formulates the same in otherwords.

Dalton,like all kinds of educational reform, has to be the strategy of the whole teamof teachers in order to create together another pupils’ attitude and aconsistent pedagogical structure in the school.

Duringour seminars and school visits in other countries we often are confronted witha kind of Dalton organization restricted to some ‘Dalton Hours’.  

“The Dalton Plan ismore a sociological than an academic venture. It should inspire a bettercurriculum and indeed create a demand for it. Its aim is to transform, not afragment, but the whole of the school day and the entire school as well”.

Daltonhours can be a good start of an experiment, but has to be seen in a widerperspective of school development. Only a strong educational management -structure can assure a consistent pursuing of developmental objectives

FinallyIan Gilbert who affirms the value of the Dalton Plan:

”It saves you energybut also involves them in the process of learning in a way that is bothmotivational and effective when it comes to their own achievement. So be aprofessional teacher, be a committed teacher but, in everybody’s interest, be alazy one too and remember, as the Eskimo proverb says, If you sweat, you die ”.

[1] An explanation of The DaltonLaboratory Plan by its originator Helen Parkhurst,  Educational Director of the Children’s University School, New  York,U.S.A.

Published 1926 by: DaltonAssociation, 35 Cornwall Gardens, LondonS.W.7

[2] The Lazy Teacher’s Handbook,Ian Gilbert , 2010 Crown House Publishing Ltd

[3] Helen Parkhurst only uses‘she’ in her text, but it is obvious that the male form is meant too.