What does it mean to “empower our learners”?

I believe that to empower my students means to give them a voice in decision-making, the autonomy to make decisions freely, and the expectation to think for themselves. I believe that students can be empowered in dozens of more ways, but these are at the core of an empowered learner in our 4th or 5th grade classroom. 

In Learn Like a PIRATE, I wrote about empowering my students in 16 additional ways, including choice, community, disagreement, excitement, expertise, impact, leadership, passion, positive self-worth, reflection, relevance, resilience, self-assessment, success, voice, and wonder. I’m certain there are dozens of additional ways that students can be empowered that I didn’t identify. I believe in empowering my students in all of these ways, but I also understand that it may look different from child to child. For example, leadership may look different for introverts and extroverts. That’s why in our classroom we praise leaders who set a good example, persevere despite setbacks, and stay positive even when things get tough. Not all of my leaders are comfortable redirecting the class or making public announcements!

Because of this, I don’t believe that all of my students will ever be empowered in every way possible, but I do aspire to improve everyone’s skills in each area. By this I mean, making good choices, disagreeing with others politely, self-assessing, using evidence, etc. When students know that they have the power to make decisions freely and are entrusted to guide and direct their peers, I believe they mature faster, learn meaningful lessons from the mistakes they make, and build skills that are transferable to their future. I hope everyone will work hard to empower their students in the classroom!

How do we empower our learners?

Empowering our students doesn’t happen overnight. It requires the teacher to clarify their beliefs that students are capable of much more than they’ve traditionally been expected to do. It requires “front-loading” expectations and providing students with permission to make mistakes and take risks in the classroom. Consequences are for students whose intentions were not good, not for students who tried something that backfired. 

When a student makes a mistake while trying to lead their peers or help out in the classroom, it’s important to reassure the student that you’re not mad at them. In our classroom, everything is a learning experience, so students receive feedback from me on their behaviors just as much as on their academics. This isn’t to control them or to keep them quiet. This is to help them with interpersonal and social-emotional skills. I’ve found great success with saying, “I’m not mad at you, but in the future, I’d prefer you try to say that nicer to him.” or “I’m not mad at you, but I think you ought to try saying that a different way.” I have a serious look on my face to begin, but then a smile once it’s connected with the child. Some might say this is condescending, but I’ve never had a student react negatively to it. This short phrase immediately takes away students’ worries or thoughts that you "don't like them anymore.” The emotional aspect of the correction becomes non-emotional and the student realizes that it's just feedback in an attempt to help them improve!

Mini-lessons and classroom meetings are the main way that I teach my students about some of the unique ways they’re empowered in our classroom each year. We start the year with several classroom meetings where we all sit together on the floor, and I share with them how we don’t have grades or homework and why. I share that we are an “improvement-focused classroom” which means that I don’t care what you know at the beginning of the learning, but I do care that you learn as much as you can, including going above and beyond expectations when possible. I do the “Marble Theory” meeting where I tell them my belief about intelligence and growth mindset and how we all have the same potential, but that we fulfill that potential differently.

What are the potential pitfalls and how can we handle them?

Giving students a “long leash” can definitely lead to some new problems that you might not have ever had to deal with in the past! For example, I’ve had students “repair” torn books with glue and tape in a way that made the book unusable! I’ve had students teach mini-lessons to their peers that were completely wrong and led them ALL down the wrong path! I’ve had students interrupt a different classroom and announce that it was our classroom’s turn to have the computer cart, have all the kids shut down, close out and move on to a different lesson, only to discover that they were in the wrong classroom and we had a different cart. 

All of these mistakes though are actually amazing opportunities to learn! The child who ruined my torn book felt terrible when she discovered the book wouldn’t open anymore and offered to buy me a new one! When I told her how proud I was of her for handling it all on her own and that it was just a mistake on how it was done, she felt so relieved and rebuilt her confidence in making decisions. The student who taught the mini-lesson wrong was embarrassed, but he saw how proud I was that he was teaching the mini-lesson without my permission or guidance and saw that we can always “undo” our learning and make it right. The students who interrupted the wrong classroom for the computer cart learned the importance of reading the online schedule carefully, and double-checking before interrupting a classroom in the middle of using the computers! And all of these skills are transferable to different situations in their future. You should see how much the students in our class mature over the course of a school year. They’re confident, thoughtful, focused students who’ve gained more than just content knowledge—they’ve gained essential, enduring life skills.

What shifts need to be made to empower learners?

Some teacher behaviors that I’ve had to ditch over the years are overreacting to mistakes, talking too long, giving too many explicit directions (when the learning benefits from trial and error), helping too much, confusing “feedback” with giving them the answer, moving quickly from one learning experience to another without time for reflection or self-assessment, etc. By making subtle (and sometimes massive) changes in my teaching, I’ve been able to help my students grow into highly-capable students who are empowered to make decisions and learn from their mistakes. 

When I first started teaching, I told my students what they needed to know. I called that teaching. When I wanted to have them “discover” it for themselves, I assigned a worksheet or a packet. Over time, I discovered that the longer I talked, the less attention my students paid, and the more behavior problems I had. That wasn’t enough to have me change my ways though. It wasn’t until I discovered just how much of a positive impact I could have on my students if I let them have more control of the learning, more opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them, and more time to work with EVERYONE in the classroom (not just their friends). THAT made me want to change, and that’s why today, my students have so much power to make decisions and work together on projects and simulations and debates and…

The impact that reflection and self-assessment have had on my students has been tremendous, especially since I required students to “Tell me more” after each statement. This digs deeply into their understanding of their learning or the process they used to learn. This is my way of trying to make their learning more permanent. Reviewing can have a similar effect. 

By making these changes to my teaching, I maximized the time I got with each child. Instead of just learning the content, my students also learned valuable skills that could transfer to future situations!

How can assessment empower my learners?

We are a grades-free classroom and have been for many years. We still have report cards, and only recently switched over to standards-based reporting. Educators have tons of questions about how this is done in our classroom and how parents and administrators feel about it, so I’ll tell you that it’s been extremely well-received.

Since I don’t give students grades on assignments and have a limited number of summative assessments, feedback is VERY important in order to ensure that each child grows from their Personal Point A to their Personal Point B. Feedback is done in several different ways in our classroom including one-to-one in person, one-to-one online, aloud within small groups, aloud to the whole classroom, etc. Feedback in our classroom is constant and never intended to bring students down, but rather to provide the skills necessary to build them up. Students learn how to give and receive feedback from their peers, as well increasing the number of people trying to help everyone grow. By empowering students to give each other (and myself) feedback in positive, improvement-focused ways, they feel more part of the learning process. By teaching students to embrace feedback as opportunities to grow, students learn that criticism isn’t normally intended to be something negative, but rather someone is taking the time to help you improve!

When students participate in an improvement-focused classroom (rather than a grades-focused classroom), it empowers them to take chances and be creative. They know you’re not looking for the one correct answer, but open to other ways of thinking and doing. When the focus is on learning as a community, students take time out of their learning to help each other and help their peers reach the top of the mountain with them! Our world needs more people willing to lend a hand and support others in our shared goals. Let’s “grow” them in our classrooms!

Paul Solarz has taught 4th and 5th grade for the past twenty years in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He advocates for student-centered teaching practices and a focus on twenty-first century skills attainment. Paul’s students spend time each week pursuing personal interests during Passion Time (a.k.a. Genius Hour) and maintain personal ePortfolios of their work in class. Paul’s book, Learn Like a PIRATE, gives teachers ideas for empowering students to collaborate and become stronger leaders while effectively leading the classroom. In addition, Paul was named one of 50 Qudwa Fellows in 2016, a Top 50 Finalist for the Varkey GEMS Global Teacher Prize in 2015, and the 2014 Educator of the Year by Illinois Computing Educators.