This week I was fortunate to spend four days working with teachers in a school district in California.  These teachers are focused, and man, do they know how to get things done.

What I love most is that they don’t call themselves teachers; they call themselves learning facilitators.  They flipped their identification over, and rather than identify with what they do (I teach) they identify with what they facilitate (I assist learning).  I think this is just pure genius.  I started playing with this idea of flipping the focus.  While my students are not elementary or high schoolers (my students are graduate students), I think this works.   I don’t teach; I assist students in changing their lives. I don’t teach; I ensure learning. I don’t teach; I help dreams come true.

This isn’t flipping the classroom; this is flipping the mission.  So, we can think, I facilitate. We can breathe, I assist.  We can shout out, I incite!  Before this week I have never consciously thought about how I incite students to believe in themselves, or how I incite the love of reading and writing and learning.  But, truly, this is what I live to do.

Incite is not a word that I usually think of related to something good.  But, why can’t it be? I don’t strive to teach and not worry about what, or how much, students learn. I strive to fan the flame of inquiry. I want students to feel the burn of needing to read. 

Maybe that’s been my problem for too long – I focus on what’s hard, and not what’s empowering.  I teach is a phrase I identify with; its who I am. But sometimes the phase makes me feel less than empowered.  That usually happens when I am in some public place and I get asked, “What do you do?”  This happened today, in fact, in an airplane.  I am settling into my seat, with my magazine spread between my hands, wide and up close to my face in order to send a signal to the man sitting next to me: I am in no mood to talk. But, it didn’t work. He started up the chatter, telling me about how he is an engineer and how his company designed some super important thing that I cannot remember. He asked me, “So, what do you do?” I answered, “I teach.” Then, came that look. You know the one. He started to tell me how easy teaching was and how he taught for two years in high school before giving it up to move on to engineering.  I hate that look. I always want to ask, “If its so easy, why did you give it up?!” Anyway, the next time I am faced with a nosy stranger who asks me, “What do you do,” I am going to answer: I fan the flame of learning for the betterment of posterity!

Join me.  Pick a word or phrase, any word or phrase (for example: incite, fan the flame, facilitate, enable, assist, abet, etc.) and try it on for size.  How does it feel?  How will our instruction change if we incite, or facilitate, or enable, or assist?

I know how mine will change. I will stop worrying so much about the perfect Powerpoint and get on with my inquiry and collaboration strategies.  Students, watch out!  No more anemic note taking in my class.

My mind is racing with how I can flip the focus in my classroom. Thankfully, its summer so I can try my new identity out on my husband (I hope he thinks this will be fun too!).  When I am trying to get my point across – usually about something as important as how the coffee turned out this morning – I will focus on facilitating the best way to make coffee, and not teach my way only.  Who knows, flipping my focus could help me out in the relationship department too. 

I will let you know how it goes.

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