Teaching in this model unleashes a teacher’s limitations about what education should be and instead forces the teacher to come to terms with what education ought to be. If the passionate and empowered teacher truly wanted to revolutionize the opportunity students have to engage in their own education, what does she have to believe about what students should be able to do and become?
To this end, the teachers of Idea Tree must have a common belief system about what learning can look like and how students can engage in that learning.
The Idea Tree Teacher:
To this end, the teachers of Idea Tree must have a common belief system about what learning can look like and how students can engage in that learning.
The Idea Tree Teacher:
- Believes that students deserve to be the drivers of their own education
- Believes in the gradual release of responsibility to the student in order to achieve this end
- Believes that engaged students are more likely to delve deeper and push themselves further to answer questions
- Believes that engagement comes when a student’s education is centered around his or her own diverse interests
- Believes in individualized learning plans for all students
- Believes that education goes beyond the acquisition of facts and figures, that education is the application of gained knowledge to a variety of contexts and purposes
- Believes in the power of collaborative teams of teachers
- Believes that students can learn best on their own, can learn best from one another, and that students should be empowered to seek out the sort of learning that best suits a given context or situation
- Believes that through empowering students to seek their own understanding, to grapple with complex questions, to discover answers through a variety of models, we empower them to become resilient, confident and thoughtful contributors to their communities.
