Teach Like Yoda

   It was July 21st, 1999. My wife and I stood in the Eastern Michigan University Bookstore. I was nervously wasting time waiting to defend my dissertation later that afternoon and I purchased a poster that still sits behind my desk. This poster has guided me as much or more as the work I did on the dissertation. It is a poster of the Wisdom of Yoda. Now, I enjoyed the original Star Wars trilogy as a kid. I truly have a hard time watching any of the prequels and for some odd reason I am excited about the new movie coming in December. In real life, however I am not a fanboy. I do watch it once a year or every other year with my boys, but I watch a lot of movies annually with my kids. Often it's better than what's out in the theater or on television. I can quote Star Wars, but I can also quote Star Trek IV, Forest Gump, Field of Dreams, Armageddon, and many other films I haven't seen in a decade. The Wisdom of Yoda has guided me far more than any class, any book, or any professor.
   In the original movies, Yoda rarely did anything. He was funny. He was odd. He gimped around slowly. He didn't actually do anything because he was a Muppet. Instead, he made Luke do almost everything. Yoda setup problems for Luke to solve. He was a companion, supporter, and cheerleader as Luke explored the Force. He reminds us that there are times we need to commit, to "do or do not, there is no try." He creates opportunities for Luke to learn and provides minimal guidance as he explores. When  Luke senses something in the cave, he asks Yoda what is in there and Yoda vaguely reveals "only what you bring with you." It is only when the student quits, that Yoda disappointedly demonstrates that the work is possible.
   Teaching like Yoda is about facilitating learning. So often in our world, teaching means "I do. We do. You do." We perseverate on modeling as opposed to discovery. This is great if we are teaching safety features on a device. It's far less effective for inspiring problem solving, new solutions, and innovative results. In the modeling based education world, we get reproducible results. In Yoda's innovative world we get new solutions because the learner must create them. If we want to teach like Yoda, we need to realize that we already graduated from school. We have already learned it. This is their time. We must pass the mantle of learning to the younger generation and let them figure out the problem.
   Last night, I sat at dinner next to a 13 year-old student. The child is bright, articulate, and a hard worker. The child hates math. For her math experience is often one of simply repeating problems that have been modeled on the board. She can follow the rules and do the algorithms, but math has no applicable meaning in her world. For eight years it has been drilled into her. Teachers have stood in front of her, "I do. We do. You do." She is simply at "who cares?" I wish for her to have a teacher like Jon Heldmann at Downers North or Paul Stevenson at Downers South. A teacher who will occasionally put a single problem up on the board for a day or two and ask the students to figure it out. A teacher that realizes it's not simply the number of problems that we can reproduce but how we approach a situation, use our resources, access our colleagues, discover new routes, and find the solutions. A teacher who answers our questions not with "the answer" but with guidance to find the answer ourselves. This is what it means to teach like Yoda. It is to facilitate practice and learning so that when the time comes, the student is able to take this mantle and run with it. That is the goal, for them to become Jedi, because we already have had our time.

Feel the Force