Doug Lemov's field notes

Since I’m a parent people often ask me how writing Teach Like a Champion has affected my parenting.  The answer is: immensely.  I’m incredibly grateful to have had the chance to watch master teachers and motivators and inspirers at work for hours and hours and hours so I could try to copy and adapt at least some of their tricks.   Even if no one had read Teach Like a Champion, I’d be grateful to have written it since the process has taught me so much about being a better parent.

So, for example, I try really hard to give my kids What to Do directions when they are confused or when we really need follow through.  When I have to be strict I try to balance with as much love as I can at exactly the same time.  When I explain a consequence it starts with my telling them that I love them… and why I can’t let them behave that way. And I try really hard to give them non-verbal reminders when they forget to do something—for example, we have a non-verbal in our family for “don’t forget to say ‘thank you.’”  When we are leaving somewhere, I can surreptitiously remind my kids about their thank yous if they forget without embarrassing them.

Since writing the book, however, I’ve learned a few more tricks from great teachers that I’ve applied to my parenting. Here are three.

1. Bright Face—Julie Jackson’s North Star schools use the phrase “bright face” to describe how a teacher should greet her kids or how she should look when she interacts with them.  With a bright engaged face, smiling whenever possible, showing caring and happiness and engagement in the world.  I saw them doing bright face at their school and instantly loved it.  It just reminded me that there were so many ways to show my kids how much I love them in tiny moments too small to tell them, or to protect those words from fatigue or because showing them sometimes counts more than telling them.  So I started my own version of bright face whenever my kids come down in the morning. I try to make sure that the very first expression to cross my face when I see them is a real and genuine smile that reminds them that I am so happy to see them, which I am, and that the sight of them makes me smile, which it does.  But it’s nice for them to feel it and so easy for me to be intentional about showing it.
2. Culture of Error—I’m going to start in on an updated version of Teach Like a Champion soon.  It contains 2.0 level guidance on many of the techniques, with the 2.0 indicating situations where we’ve learned so much from watching great teachers use the original ideas in the years since the book was written that we felt like the technique needed a new name.  A big part of Check for Understanding 2.0 is something we call a Culture of Error—building a culture in the classroom where it’s not only ok to be wrong but where it’s normal, natural, good even. Where we embrace that mistakes are fantastic opportunities to learn and that no one learns without them.  As Bob Zimmerli told his kids in a lesson we recently observed: “I’m so glad I saw you guys do that [fail to combine like terms].  It’s going to help me to help you.”   I’ve started to be much more intentional about pointing out to my kids when they benefited from a mistake by learning form it and to encourage them to take risks by, say, trying to answer when they aren’t confident they’re right.  I also try to “manage my tell”—that is, to control my non-verbal expressions that suggest whether I liked an answer or not.  You know, that little flick of the eyebrows that unintentionally says, “Um, no. And you should have known it.”  I’m trying to catch myself doing that.  With some success.
3. Singing directions: I picked this up at Rochester Prep and, ok, it works with my 5 year old better than my 12 year old, but singing a direction makes it go down easy for little ones.  I’ve seen teachers work magic with it so I tried it. Wow!  Yesterday I was tossing a ball to my littlest who was trying to hit it with a racket. It was tough and she was missing a lot.  So I started singing: “Get ready! Get, Get Ready!” before I tossed it to her. She was so excited with a brilliant smile it belied her focus and optimism.  The rhythm of the song drew her in in the same way every time.  And the singing technique works just as well for “Time to brush your teeth” and “Please eat your vegetables” too, not to mention “What letter? What, what letter?” when playing academic games.

Bright face, Culture of error, Julie Jackson, North Star, Parenting, Singing directions, TLAC 2.0