This resonated so strongly with what we see in classrooms serving students who carry a lot outside of school. The way you describe “building the floor first” is exactly what helps many of our kids step into hard work without giving up on themselves in the first five minutes. For students whose lives are already full of uncertainty, there’s nothing “old‑fashioned” about a skilled adult explaining, modeling, and walking them into the deep end with real support.
It’s encouraging to hear someone say out loud that direct instruction, done thoughtfully, isn’t the opposite of engagement or rigor — it’s often the thing that makes both possible, especially for children who’ve been told, in a hundred ways, that learning spaces weren’t built with them in mind.
Thank you so much for your kind and supportive words. I feel so strongly about this issue. I truly think it is the key to helping students really feel supported. My students even say it to me… they always say you really explain things to us, while other teachers just say get in a group and go do it. I know that every teacher does not do that, as there are many incredible teachers in the world, but some have been sucked into this idea that students have to be moving and talking all the time in order to show that they are learning. It’s funny because my son who is a high school junior saw the title of my article and said “I much prefer group work. I smiled because I knew exactly why… he said because it’s easier and I can just talk to my friends .” And there is the issue that I have with it. That’s not to say that I don’t do any collaborative work in my class… I do! But it has a very specific purpose and the purpose is not so that they look busy:)) As always, I love reading your beautiful and articulate thoughts. Thank you so much for taking the time to write them
Very grateful you took the time to share this — and to include your son’s reaction, too.
That little exchange with him captures the heart of it — group work can absolutely have its place, but when it’s not anchored in clear teaching, it often just becomes an easier way to pass the time rather than a deeper way to learn. The way your students describe your class — “you really explain things to us” — is exactly what so many young people in our community say they’re longing for… an adult who doesn’t just set them loose, but actually walks them into the hard things so they don’t have to pretend they understand.
We’re really thankful you’re willing to stand against the pressure to always “look busy” and instead stay rooted in what actually helps students feel supported and capable. You are a gift to your students and your profession, and it is a gift to be in conversation with you.
The feeling is mutual. I think I teach the way I would want to be taught. No surprises, clarity, and the feeling that the person teaching wants you to do well.
Your essay is a beautiful snapshot of what YOUR expert teaching looks like, and you offer a POWERFUL insight--you thought you were being criticized when you were actually being praised. Great writing!!
I urge you to develop the habit of documenting the approval and disapproval that you hear in the hallways of your school, and analyze them to understand what is in the water you are drinking.
We KNOW when, where, and how direct instruction became a "dirty word."
We also know that politicians all over the U.S. are currently writing legislation REQUIRING that reading be taught by direct instruction.
History is the biggest eye roll ever.
How can we strengthen the discipline of education to resist irrational social and political forces? I have a lot of ideas about this; what ideas do you and your readers have? Let's talk!
Direct instruction has always earned its bad reputation from people who never tested it against the results. Students learn faster when you teach them first. The data backs explicit teaching. Never have to apologize for what works!
Thank you so much Larry, and I appreciate all the good work you do (did) as a principal. I know direct instruction works and my students are the evidence. I’m hoping we can de stigmatize it in the academic field and get back to what really works. It’s getting frustrating having students come to my class with the greatest skill of making and presenting a group Google slides presentation 🙃
I LOVED your comment, "Good direct instruction requires a hundred decisions before a lesson ever begins." I felt that deeply. Thank you for taking the time to give an excellent treatise on direct instruction with so, so many good examples of what it looks like, what it feels like, and why it works. Supporting students to feel successful is the key, and you are modeling that in your classroom. I have been in the classroom for more that 30 years and have seen all of the trends you mentioned. Students need a body of knowledge and experiences modeled by good teaching (direct instruction) in order to make sense of the world....even poetry! Thanks for showing us that "building the floor first" is really the only way to support all students who want to take those "first steps" into learning.
Thank you so much for your comment Anne! I love to hear from other educators who “get it.” Good teaching is about showing them, teaching them, guiding them… not leaving them to figure it out in their own. That just wastes precious class time that we don’t have enough if. Thank you again for your kind words. I’m so glad the article spoke to you:)🙏
This is so relatable. I, too, was completely socialized into essentially "non-teaching" through my graduate education program and many years in the system. And I have also experienced a similar situation with a poetry "lesson" - disaster - especially for my students who most needed the support with reading. Your note that "education may be the only profession that is uncomfortable with experts acting like experts" hit hard. I think that has been especially true in English Language Arts as the prevailing thinking and practice seems to be to provide space for students to "interpret" text however they like - especially if stations and chart paper are involved. I would love to hear more of your thoughts on turn and talk - I've found it useful in very short chunks as a way for students to consolidate their learning, especially as we work through complex texts.
Thank you so much for this comment, Christina. I love the reference to chart paper and stations:) Those are on my list too, as things that I think do very little to help the learning process. Even as an educator, when I walk into a meeting and see chart paper on the walls, I immediately know we are going to do some sort of time-wasting activity…and our students know it too! Most students see those activities as a time to sit back, talk to friends, and let the “smart” kids do the work. In terms of turn-and-talks, can you tell I am not a fan? I just dont think they do anything useful most of the time (yes, maybe there are rare instances where they may work,) but for the most part when an educator says now turn to your partner and tell them what you think of what we just read, the students don’t really care what one another thinks or the balance of capapbilities is so different between students that one of them gets very little out of the conversation. If we want to do an activity where students actually work in partners to figure something out, or identify something, then that could have benefits, but that is different than talking for 45 seconds and then moving on. I think I am going to write a mini article about turn and talk😂 It is going to make some people very upset, but I truly believe it to be true. With all that being said, if you, as an educator, have seen the benefit in your classroom, then you should do it. Every educator has their own style of teaching. As long as it doesn’t happen because “everyone else does it, so it must be good,” then I believe you know what is best for your classroom. Sorry, this is long-winded…When I have a chance, I am going to put this into a mini article:) Thanks again for your comment.
Ok will do! I’m just finishing up a longer article about 10 things that truly make a real classroom successful. And it has everything to do with the educator and almost nothing to do with the curriculum.
"I mean explaining content, modeling thinking, demonstrating skills, checking for understanding, and guiding students through material they could not get through on their own."
Yes! Being direct actually involves a variety of skills the teacher has to negotiate, both on a class-wide level as well as with individual students. Excellent explanations in this article.
Great read. I think all teachers feel this at some level, however they run their classroom. I’m sure a principal notices it in most classrooms they enter. I think teaching is a field where you are constantly having to “prove” yourself and it creates this need to explain. Or maybe that’s just the teacher in us?
I totally agree… it is a profession where we do have to prove that we are doing it the “right” way and I also think it’s in our teacher brains. That’s why I decided to start writing about it. Maybe try to de stigmatize these teaching methods. People always ask me how my class is so successful, how students come out liking subjects they may not otherwise have liked. And the answer is in my articles:) I’d love to share my 3 decades of experience with any educator I can help. Thanks so much for reading!
That’s a harder question to answer than it sounds. Most recently I taught first grade, but I’ve worked across multiple grade levels throughout my career. I left the classroom this year, and in many ways this space is where I’m still making sense of some of the questions, observations, and experiences I carried with me.
It must feel very different to be out of the classroom. Now you can really take the time to reflect on your career and the state of education. Sometimes that can be easier when you are not “in it.”
This resonates SO deeply. I taught in a room with an accordion doors that were often open in the back. I, too, always felt the need to qualify that I wasn't always talking. But the thing was, my best lessons were like that. Students asked questions, could do the work. They told me, "Ms. Brown, you actually TEACH us"-- making me wonder what their other teachers were doing. And teachers that walked by classroom would sometimes stop and listen or ask me later, "Can you tell me more about what I heard in your classroom. It sounded so interesting!"
The only push back I have--and it's a qualification, really, not a pushback-- is that I think turn and talk and stop and jot and the like are excellent for getting students to process what they are learning through direct instruction.
Yes! That’s amazing and it’s really not a secret what you were doing. You were engaging with them, teaching them, modeling for them and that is what a great teacher does. It’s just that simple so it’s so frustrating why there is so much pushback. In terms of the turn and talk etc if you are finding it to be worth while then that’s great and you should do it. I myself have found them to be a waste of time with my 7th graders for so many reasons. I could write a whole article on turn and talk and stop and jot😂 I would rather my students write what I call in my class a discussion post where they can answer a deeper thinking question that has to do with what we had just learned… then I can see it and it has more meaning then jotting down three things… and they never look back at it. The turn and talk… most of them just get through it and there’s always one who is more capable than their partner which creates an imbalance. I also really hate when I myself am asked to do it in a faculty meeting. But again, that’s just me. I can tell that you are making it work in your classroom, so do what you see value in. Thank you so much for reading the article. I’m so glad you enjoyed it and found value in it!
Thank you for writing this. Thirty years of classroom experience distilled into something so clear and so necessary, I am genuinely grateful you put it into words.
Your poetry example stopped me completely. That is not just a teaching story. That is a masterclass in what scaffolding actually means. You did not lower the bar. You built the floor. And then they flew.
This matters enormously for the neurodivergent children I work with. Without direct instruction and explicit scaffolding, they are not struggling productively. They are lost. The gap between what is expected and what they have been given the tools to do becomes another confirmation that they are the problem. They are not. The sequence is.
I think about this often in the context of the IB Primary Years Programme, which I deeply respect in many ways. But the emphasis on inquiry-based learning sometimes skips the step you describe so well here; the floor. Inquiry is a powerful destination. It is not a starting point. And for children who need explicit instruction most, asking them to discover before they have been taught is not liberation. It is abandonment dressed in progressive language.
You should never have to apologise for teaching. Neither should anyone who reads this. 🤍
Thank you so much for your kind and beautiful articulation of my article. It means so much to hear from experts in the field that they understand and agree with my thoughts and methods. I want to help other educators (especially new educators ) to understand how critical the teaching and scaffolding is to learning. To be honest, it’s not only neurodivergent students who benefit from this. It’s all students. They need it, they appreciate it, and most importantly when they understand what they are doing it allows them to actually enjoy the challenge of it. I’m so tired of seeing middle school students form opinions on school based on frustration levels that they have been brought to. They are young, and they need teaching and guidance and nobody should be ashamed to give them that. Thank you again for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts with me. It means more than you know.
Wow! I so much appreciate your validation of explicit/direct instruction. As a sped teacher who has had her direct instruction frowned upon, leading me to change schools, I am relieved to have my own intuition about my students’ needs acknowledged. I look forward to hearing more from you!
Thank you so much Anne! I’m so glad that it made you feel supported in your practice. Especially as a Sped educator, you need to do what you know is right for your students. One of my goals is to write about subjects that many educators don’t feel like they can talk about out loud. I hope to give all educators new and old a glimpse into what I have found works in my real classroom over the last 30 years. Thank you again for reading!
We are being turned into a robotic workforce who will be replaced with AI. What we need is teachers educated on AI and equity access to the tools. The best outcomes come when human expertise and AI complement each other.
Not sure I fully agree. I think it’s my humanness that actually makes me a successful educator. My students feel my genuine care for them and AI can’t replace that. I do think there will be a time and place for AI in education, but it will not replace the human connection between a student and educator. I do appreciate your comment and bringing some new ideas for me to think about.
Perhaps read my full statement on my page and it will become clearer that I believe the same my concern is that we are being led in a certain direction under the guise of evidence based practices. When clearly it is a much more complex set of principles that includes direct teacher instruction.
For me, part of this is that teaching always has an element of luck and randomness. Some of my best lessons have come from “task failed successfully” moments, where something didn’t quite go to plan but the learning was better because we struggled through it together. Maybe that’s one reason teachers don’t always feel comfortable calling themselves experts. It’s not a profession where we’re especially good at celebrating ourselves, even when a lot of expertise is sitting underneath what looks, from the outside, like instinct or improvisation.
I hear that. I too love the unpredictability of teaching a lesson and good educators are able to go with the flow and gently lead it back to the direction it needs to be. And I agree that we are not a profession that pays ourselves on the back but we should be!! I wrote a whole article called “It matters What You Call Us” and I talk all about that. It is not instinct. It is training and experience. And some natural instinct :))
The Real Classroom is so helpful, thought-provoking, and practical. Confession: I am a think, pair, share teacher and I am a recovering chart paper user! I now will need to think differently about how I incorporate direct instruction vs collaborative work in the classroom.
I have a remark. You give an example of inquiry learning by giving your pupils a very complex poem with the assignment: analyze it. (I am Belgian so my English can contain mistakes.) Then you decide: It didn’t work. But you judge a method on a (very) bad execution of it. That does not seem correct to me. It’s like judging direct instruction based on a lesson where it is not done right. That said: it’s very well possible you are correct in dismissing inquiry based learning and favoring direct instruction over it. But this lesson is not an argument for that. (That said I don’t know what a good inquiry based lesson for this particular poem would look like. I teach mathematics not English poetry. However I do believe you can give the same lesson with inquiry based learning. Also: I think it is a mistake to think that pupils need to come up with everything themselves in inquiry based learning. You can do inquiry where pupils really learn and you still GIVE them certain concepts that are NEW to them. I don’t agree this would not be inquiry.)
My comment is based on a row of lessons I made that are entirely based on inquiry learning. Pupils do tasks I created and by doing them they get to know the subject at hand. And there is no direct instruction at all. And no, they do not discover the complete subject. It seems impossible but it is not. And there is no contradiction either.
Thanks for your comment. As an English educator I can tell you that the best way to teach the lesson is the second method. I can only use examples that I have experienced in my class, and for poetry the first way is typical for an inquiry based lesson. I would agree that there is a time and place for a well executed inquiry lesson… but it truly should not be with everything. Students need to be taught, they need guidance, or else we will never succeed in getting them to truly care about what they are learning. I don’t think I was arguing against inquiry based learning per se in the article. I was saying how important the direct instruction is before ever getting to the inquiry. I think you are saying a version of that as well. I trust that in math, you are doing something that works for you and I’m in no position to tell you to change what you think is working. I am not against inquiry, but I do think that there needs to be a good amount of direct instruction before ever getting to it. I truly appreciate your comment. I always enjoy hearing about others experiences in the classroom.
You are wrong. There is no direct instruction happening. And no previous lessons where I lean on that were given by direct instruction either. I knew you would say this. But I guarantee you I designed every lesson starting with tasks that don’t explain the concept beforehand. And the way I did that is a lot different from what you did as an inquiry for the poem. So no again the form I follow is not DI first and then inquiry. Of course inquiry is a broad term. You could call it inquiry/discovery learning. Something in that category but totally opposite from DI. That does not mean the teacher isn’t guiding in some way. But also the guiding is not directed towards the concept to learn, so you could call it maybe hidden DI! Nothing like that! The pupils get insight because of what they do and think, never because of what the teacher says or explains.
Regarding the poem. That might be a classic example of inquiry based learning. But then I have to say that “classic” example seems very wrong. If I had to do it, I would do something completely different.
But to explain myself a bit. I understood there were a lot of new words in the poem. Explaining these new words is not DI. Part of the “inquiry “ could be to learn the meaning of these words first, before reading the poem, where the words and there meaning are simply summed up.
I know just a small thing. But it’s just to show that inquiry or discovery doesn’t mean you can’t directly give something to the pupils as part of the assignment. The goal is (as an example, I am not a teacher of poetry): they can produce an analysis of or a poster about the poem and they were able to do this without you having to show them how. One important thing is their prior knowledge. A good inquiry I believe uses and activates prior knowledge heavily.
But to conclude: maybe this method works good (doesn’t mean it’s easy or straightforward!) for maths and not for poetry lessons?
It is very possible that is the case. I can only speak to what I see in my 7th grade English classroom, but I trust as a math educator that what you see and use is working. And I appreciate you sharing that with me. Yes, prior knowledge is very important and that is part of the direct instruction in my class.
The lessons are for the first year after what we call the basic school in Belgium. I think it is also 7th grade. (12-13 year).
I do must admit: I have not yet given the lessons so I have no idea if they are working. But I think think they will. The reason is that there is nothing that is above what they can do (like clearly is the case with the poem inquiry). And yet they DO something new that was not explained yet. I agree it sounds paradoxically. But I managed to realise this in the assignments/inquiry.
Even more. I am translating every lesson into DI. That goes in a very straightforward way. And I can clearly see a big essential difference between them. DI is not bad. It is good. But to me it looks like inquiry the way I do it is even better.
If it’s working for you then I’m truly happy about that. My strategies are working for me too. That’s what it means to be a good educator. We both care about our students and think deeply about what’s best for them. Side note: my mom was born in Antwerp:)
Yes I am not here to convince people of my strategies. But I notice most teachers struggle to find their way in teaching. I know I do. So I share my views in case it can help somebody else too.
And I completely understand your article because it so true! Direct instruction is a dirty word. I know the time when I was in school for becoming a teacher when I wanted to use direct instruction most of the time and they condemned it like I was using witchcraft! That deformed me actually. Since that moment I tried to avoid direct instruction as it was some evil. But then I didn’t know anymore how to design my lessons. I got stuck completely. It was total horror!
That is why I kept searching for a lesson design protocol that would solve my problem . I worked more than ten years on this. And only now I have found it. It was a very long, lonely and difficult journey.
I’m so sorry to hear that! Sounds really rough. I’ve been teaching fur 30 years and I know what works in my classroom, and I think it could be helpful for other educators too. At the very least, perhaps it will make someone think about it more deeply. I appreciate that you are looking out for newer educators… that’s the hope here,.. that we can help some people. But don’t be afraid of direct instruction!! I promise there is a time and place for it, if you do it well:))
This resonated so strongly with what we see in classrooms serving students who carry a lot outside of school. The way you describe “building the floor first” is exactly what helps many of our kids step into hard work without giving up on themselves in the first five minutes. For students whose lives are already full of uncertainty, there’s nothing “old‑fashioned” about a skilled adult explaining, modeling, and walking them into the deep end with real support.
It’s encouraging to hear someone say out loud that direct instruction, done thoughtfully, isn’t the opposite of engagement or rigor — it’s often the thing that makes both possible, especially for children who’ve been told, in a hundred ways, that learning spaces weren’t built with them in mind.
Thank you so much for your kind and supportive words. I feel so strongly about this issue. I truly think it is the key to helping students really feel supported. My students even say it to me… they always say you really explain things to us, while other teachers just say get in a group and go do it. I know that every teacher does not do that, as there are many incredible teachers in the world, but some have been sucked into this idea that students have to be moving and talking all the time in order to show that they are learning. It’s funny because my son who is a high school junior saw the title of my article and said “I much prefer group work. I smiled because I knew exactly why… he said because it’s easier and I can just talk to my friends .” And there is the issue that I have with it. That’s not to say that I don’t do any collaborative work in my class… I do! But it has a very specific purpose and the purpose is not so that they look busy:)) As always, I love reading your beautiful and articulate thoughts. Thank you so much for taking the time to write them
Very grateful you took the time to share this — and to include your son’s reaction, too.
That little exchange with him captures the heart of it — group work can absolutely have its place, but when it’s not anchored in clear teaching, it often just becomes an easier way to pass the time rather than a deeper way to learn. The way your students describe your class — “you really explain things to us” — is exactly what so many young people in our community say they’re longing for… an adult who doesn’t just set them loose, but actually walks them into the hard things so they don’t have to pretend they understand.
We’re really thankful you’re willing to stand against the pressure to always “look busy” and instead stay rooted in what actually helps students feel supported and capable. You are a gift to your students and your profession, and it is a gift to be in conversation with you.
The feeling is mutual. I think I teach the way I would want to be taught. No surprises, clarity, and the feeling that the person teaching wants you to do well.
Yes, and of course!
Your essay is a beautiful snapshot of what YOUR expert teaching looks like, and you offer a POWERFUL insight--you thought you were being criticized when you were actually being praised. Great writing!!
I urge you to develop the habit of documenting the approval and disapproval that you hear in the hallways of your school, and analyze them to understand what is in the water you are drinking.
We KNOW when, where, and how direct instruction became a "dirty word."
We also know that politicians all over the U.S. are currently writing legislation REQUIRING that reading be taught by direct instruction.
History is the biggest eye roll ever.
How can we strengthen the discipline of education to resist irrational social and political forces? I have a lot of ideas about this; what ideas do you and your readers have? Let's talk!
Direct instruction has always earned its bad reputation from people who never tested it against the results. Students learn faster when you teach them first. The data backs explicit teaching. Never have to apologize for what works!
Thank you so much Larry, and I appreciate all the good work you do (did) as a principal. I know direct instruction works and my students are the evidence. I’m hoping we can de stigmatize it in the academic field and get back to what really works. It’s getting frustrating having students come to my class with the greatest skill of making and presenting a group Google slides presentation 🙃
I appreciate you as well:)
I LOVED your comment, "Good direct instruction requires a hundred decisions before a lesson ever begins." I felt that deeply. Thank you for taking the time to give an excellent treatise on direct instruction with so, so many good examples of what it looks like, what it feels like, and why it works. Supporting students to feel successful is the key, and you are modeling that in your classroom. I have been in the classroom for more that 30 years and have seen all of the trends you mentioned. Students need a body of knowledge and experiences modeled by good teaching (direct instruction) in order to make sense of the world....even poetry! Thanks for showing us that "building the floor first" is really the only way to support all students who want to take those "first steps" into learning.
Thank you so much for your comment Anne! I love to hear from other educators who “get it.” Good teaching is about showing them, teaching them, guiding them… not leaving them to figure it out in their own. That just wastes precious class time that we don’t have enough if. Thank you again for your kind words. I’m so glad the article spoke to you:)🙏
This is so relatable. I, too, was completely socialized into essentially "non-teaching" through my graduate education program and many years in the system. And I have also experienced a similar situation with a poetry "lesson" - disaster - especially for my students who most needed the support with reading. Your note that "education may be the only profession that is uncomfortable with experts acting like experts" hit hard. I think that has been especially true in English Language Arts as the prevailing thinking and practice seems to be to provide space for students to "interpret" text however they like - especially if stations and chart paper are involved. I would love to hear more of your thoughts on turn and talk - I've found it useful in very short chunks as a way for students to consolidate their learning, especially as we work through complex texts.
I really appreciate your posts!
Thank you so much for this comment, Christina. I love the reference to chart paper and stations:) Those are on my list too, as things that I think do very little to help the learning process. Even as an educator, when I walk into a meeting and see chart paper on the walls, I immediately know we are going to do some sort of time-wasting activity…and our students know it too! Most students see those activities as a time to sit back, talk to friends, and let the “smart” kids do the work. In terms of turn-and-talks, can you tell I am not a fan? I just dont think they do anything useful most of the time (yes, maybe there are rare instances where they may work,) but for the most part when an educator says now turn to your partner and tell them what you think of what we just read, the students don’t really care what one another thinks or the balance of capapbilities is so different between students that one of them gets very little out of the conversation. If we want to do an activity where students actually work in partners to figure something out, or identify something, then that could have benefits, but that is different than talking for 45 seconds and then moving on. I think I am going to write a mini article about turn and talk😂 It is going to make some people very upset, but I truly believe it to be true. With all that being said, if you, as an educator, have seen the benefit in your classroom, then you should do it. Every educator has their own style of teaching. As long as it doesn’t happen because “everyone else does it, so it must be good,” then I believe you know what is best for your classroom. Sorry, this is long-winded…When I have a chance, I am going to put this into a mini article:) Thanks again for your comment.
Please write that "turn and talk" article. We'll be waiting for you to share...
Ok will do! I’m just finishing up a longer article about 10 things that truly make a real classroom successful. And it has everything to do with the educator and almost nothing to do with the curriculum.
"I mean explaining content, modeling thinking, demonstrating skills, checking for understanding, and guiding students through material they could not get through on their own."
Yes! Being direct actually involves a variety of skills the teacher has to negotiate, both on a class-wide level as well as with individual students. Excellent explanations in this article.
Great read. I think all teachers feel this at some level, however they run their classroom. I’m sure a principal notices it in most classrooms they enter. I think teaching is a field where you are constantly having to “prove” yourself and it creates this need to explain. Or maybe that’s just the teacher in us?
I totally agree… it is a profession where we do have to prove that we are doing it the “right” way and I also think it’s in our teacher brains. That’s why I decided to start writing about it. Maybe try to de stigmatize these teaching methods. People always ask me how my class is so successful, how students come out liking subjects they may not otherwise have liked. And the answer is in my articles:) I’d love to share my 3 decades of experience with any educator I can help. Thanks so much for reading!
What grade do you teach?
I teach 7th grade English. How about you?
That’s a harder question to answer than it sounds. Most recently I taught first grade, but I’ve worked across multiple grade levels throughout my career. I left the classroom this year, and in many ways this space is where I’m still making sense of some of the questions, observations, and experiences I carried with me.
It must feel very different to be out of the classroom. Now you can really take the time to reflect on your career and the state of education. Sometimes that can be easier when you are not “in it.”
This resonates SO deeply. I taught in a room with an accordion doors that were often open in the back. I, too, always felt the need to qualify that I wasn't always talking. But the thing was, my best lessons were like that. Students asked questions, could do the work. They told me, "Ms. Brown, you actually TEACH us"-- making me wonder what their other teachers were doing. And teachers that walked by classroom would sometimes stop and listen or ask me later, "Can you tell me more about what I heard in your classroom. It sounded so interesting!"
The only push back I have--and it's a qualification, really, not a pushback-- is that I think turn and talk and stop and jot and the like are excellent for getting students to process what they are learning through direct instruction.
Yes! That’s amazing and it’s really not a secret what you were doing. You were engaging with them, teaching them, modeling for them and that is what a great teacher does. It’s just that simple so it’s so frustrating why there is so much pushback. In terms of the turn and talk etc if you are finding it to be worth while then that’s great and you should do it. I myself have found them to be a waste of time with my 7th graders for so many reasons. I could write a whole article on turn and talk and stop and jot😂 I would rather my students write what I call in my class a discussion post where they can answer a deeper thinking question that has to do with what we had just learned… then I can see it and it has more meaning then jotting down three things… and they never look back at it. The turn and talk… most of them just get through it and there’s always one who is more capable than their partner which creates an imbalance. I also really hate when I myself am asked to do it in a faculty meeting. But again, that’s just me. I can tell that you are making it work in your classroom, so do what you see value in. Thank you so much for reading the article. I’m so glad you enjoyed it and found value in it!
Thank you for writing this. Thirty years of classroom experience distilled into something so clear and so necessary, I am genuinely grateful you put it into words.
Your poetry example stopped me completely. That is not just a teaching story. That is a masterclass in what scaffolding actually means. You did not lower the bar. You built the floor. And then they flew.
This matters enormously for the neurodivergent children I work with. Without direct instruction and explicit scaffolding, they are not struggling productively. They are lost. The gap between what is expected and what they have been given the tools to do becomes another confirmation that they are the problem. They are not. The sequence is.
I think about this often in the context of the IB Primary Years Programme, which I deeply respect in many ways. But the emphasis on inquiry-based learning sometimes skips the step you describe so well here; the floor. Inquiry is a powerful destination. It is not a starting point. And for children who need explicit instruction most, asking them to discover before they have been taught is not liberation. It is abandonment dressed in progressive language.
You should never have to apologise for teaching. Neither should anyone who reads this. 🤍
Thank you so much for your kind and beautiful articulation of my article. It means so much to hear from experts in the field that they understand and agree with my thoughts and methods. I want to help other educators (especially new educators ) to understand how critical the teaching and scaffolding is to learning. To be honest, it’s not only neurodivergent students who benefit from this. It’s all students. They need it, they appreciate it, and most importantly when they understand what they are doing it allows them to actually enjoy the challenge of it. I’m so tired of seeing middle school students form opinions on school based on frustration levels that they have been brought to. They are young, and they need teaching and guidance and nobody should be ashamed to give them that. Thank you again for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts with me. It means more than you know.
you are right all children do benefit it! thank you for writing this and bringing awareness to (new) educators out there!
Wow! I so much appreciate your validation of explicit/direct instruction. As a sped teacher who has had her direct instruction frowned upon, leading me to change schools, I am relieved to have my own intuition about my students’ needs acknowledged. I look forward to hearing more from you!
Thank you so much Anne! I’m so glad that it made you feel supported in your practice. Especially as a Sped educator, you need to do what you know is right for your students. One of my goals is to write about subjects that many educators don’t feel like they can talk about out loud. I hope to give all educators new and old a glimpse into what I have found works in my real classroom over the last 30 years. Thank you again for reading!
We are being turned into a robotic workforce who will be replaced with AI. What we need is teachers educated on AI and equity access to the tools. The best outcomes come when human expertise and AI complement each other.
Not sure I fully agree. I think it’s my humanness that actually makes me a successful educator. My students feel my genuine care for them and AI can’t replace that. I do think there will be a time and place for AI in education, but it will not replace the human connection between a student and educator. I do appreciate your comment and bringing some new ideas for me to think about.
Perhaps read my full statement on my page and it will become clearer that I believe the same my concern is that we are being led in a certain direction under the guise of evidence based practices. When clearly it is a much more complex set of principles that includes direct teacher instruction.
Thank you for clarifying. I’m going to take a closer look!
For me, part of this is that teaching always has an element of luck and randomness. Some of my best lessons have come from “task failed successfully” moments, where something didn’t quite go to plan but the learning was better because we struggled through it together. Maybe that’s one reason teachers don’t always feel comfortable calling themselves experts. It’s not a profession where we’re especially good at celebrating ourselves, even when a lot of expertise is sitting underneath what looks, from the outside, like instinct or improvisation.
I hear that. I too love the unpredictability of teaching a lesson and good educators are able to go with the flow and gently lead it back to the direction it needs to be. And I agree that we are not a profession that pays ourselves on the back but we should be!! I wrote a whole article called “It matters What You Call Us” and I talk all about that. It is not instinct. It is training and experience. And some natural instinct :))
I’ll give that a read, thank you for sharing.
Thank you Kevin for the restack. I appreciate it.
The Real Classroom is so helpful, thought-provoking, and practical. Confession: I am a think, pair, share teacher and I am a recovering chart paper user! I now will need to think differently about how I incorporate direct instruction vs collaborative work in the classroom.
I have a remark. You give an example of inquiry learning by giving your pupils a very complex poem with the assignment: analyze it. (I am Belgian so my English can contain mistakes.) Then you decide: It didn’t work. But you judge a method on a (very) bad execution of it. That does not seem correct to me. It’s like judging direct instruction based on a lesson where it is not done right. That said: it’s very well possible you are correct in dismissing inquiry based learning and favoring direct instruction over it. But this lesson is not an argument for that. (That said I don’t know what a good inquiry based lesson for this particular poem would look like. I teach mathematics not English poetry. However I do believe you can give the same lesson with inquiry based learning. Also: I think it is a mistake to think that pupils need to come up with everything themselves in inquiry based learning. You can do inquiry where pupils really learn and you still GIVE them certain concepts that are NEW to them. I don’t agree this would not be inquiry.)
My comment is based on a row of lessons I made that are entirely based on inquiry learning. Pupils do tasks I created and by doing them they get to know the subject at hand. And there is no direct instruction at all. And no, they do not discover the complete subject. It seems impossible but it is not. And there is no contradiction either.
Thanks for your comment. As an English educator I can tell you that the best way to teach the lesson is the second method. I can only use examples that I have experienced in my class, and for poetry the first way is typical for an inquiry based lesson. I would agree that there is a time and place for a well executed inquiry lesson… but it truly should not be with everything. Students need to be taught, they need guidance, or else we will never succeed in getting them to truly care about what they are learning. I don’t think I was arguing against inquiry based learning per se in the article. I was saying how important the direct instruction is before ever getting to the inquiry. I think you are saying a version of that as well. I trust that in math, you are doing something that works for you and I’m in no position to tell you to change what you think is working. I am not against inquiry, but I do think that there needs to be a good amount of direct instruction before ever getting to it. I truly appreciate your comment. I always enjoy hearing about others experiences in the classroom.
You are wrong. There is no direct instruction happening. And no previous lessons where I lean on that were given by direct instruction either. I knew you would say this. But I guarantee you I designed every lesson starting with tasks that don’t explain the concept beforehand. And the way I did that is a lot different from what you did as an inquiry for the poem. So no again the form I follow is not DI first and then inquiry. Of course inquiry is a broad term. You could call it inquiry/discovery learning. Something in that category but totally opposite from DI. That does not mean the teacher isn’t guiding in some way. But also the guiding is not directed towards the concept to learn, so you could call it maybe hidden DI! Nothing like that! The pupils get insight because of what they do and think, never because of what the teacher says or explains.
Regarding the poem. That might be a classic example of inquiry based learning. But then I have to say that “classic” example seems very wrong. If I had to do it, I would do something completely different.
But to explain myself a bit. I understood there were a lot of new words in the poem. Explaining these new words is not DI. Part of the “inquiry “ could be to learn the meaning of these words first, before reading the poem, where the words and there meaning are simply summed up.
I know just a small thing. But it’s just to show that inquiry or discovery doesn’t mean you can’t directly give something to the pupils as part of the assignment. The goal is (as an example, I am not a teacher of poetry): they can produce an analysis of or a poster about the poem and they were able to do this without you having to show them how. One important thing is their prior knowledge. A good inquiry I believe uses and activates prior knowledge heavily.
But to conclude: maybe this method works good (doesn’t mean it’s easy or straightforward!) for maths and not for poetry lessons?
It is very possible that is the case. I can only speak to what I see in my 7th grade English classroom, but I trust as a math educator that what you see and use is working. And I appreciate you sharing that with me. Yes, prior knowledge is very important and that is part of the direct instruction in my class.
The lessons are for the first year after what we call the basic school in Belgium. I think it is also 7th grade. (12-13 year).
I do must admit: I have not yet given the lessons so I have no idea if they are working. But I think think they will. The reason is that there is nothing that is above what they can do (like clearly is the case with the poem inquiry). And yet they DO something new that was not explained yet. I agree it sounds paradoxically. But I managed to realise this in the assignments/inquiry.
Even more. I am translating every lesson into DI. That goes in a very straightforward way. And I can clearly see a big essential difference between them. DI is not bad. It is good. But to me it looks like inquiry the way I do it is even better.
If it’s working for you then I’m truly happy about that. My strategies are working for me too. That’s what it means to be a good educator. We both care about our students and think deeply about what’s best for them. Side note: my mom was born in Antwerp:)
Lovely. You have Belgian roots!
Yes I am not here to convince people of my strategies. But I notice most teachers struggle to find their way in teaching. I know I do. So I share my views in case it can help somebody else too.
And I completely understand your article because it so true! Direct instruction is a dirty word. I know the time when I was in school for becoming a teacher when I wanted to use direct instruction most of the time and they condemned it like I was using witchcraft! That deformed me actually. Since that moment I tried to avoid direct instruction as it was some evil. But then I didn’t know anymore how to design my lessons. I got stuck completely. It was total horror!
That is why I kept searching for a lesson design protocol that would solve my problem . I worked more than ten years on this. And only now I have found it. It was a very long, lonely and difficult journey.
I’m so sorry to hear that! Sounds really rough. I’ve been teaching fur 30 years and I know what works in my classroom, and I think it could be helpful for other educators too. At the very least, perhaps it will make someone think about it more deeply. I appreciate that you are looking out for newer educators… that’s the hope here,.. that we can help some people. But don’t be afraid of direct instruction!! I promise there is a time and place for it, if you do it well:))