{"id":283,"date":"2014-04-28T10:27:22","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T10:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2014\/04\/28\/saying-no-to-the-giant-mound-of-cocaine-for-the-ego\/"},"modified":"2015-08-25T17:13:21","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T17:13:21","slug":"saying-no-to-the-giant-mound-of-cocaine-for-the-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2014\/04\/28\/saying-no-to-the-giant-mound-of-cocaine-for-the-ego\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying No to the &#8220;Giant Mound of Cocaine for the Ego&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>***Breaking Bad SPOILER ALERT***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FaqxAEx46Zk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/FaqxAEx46Zk?t=19s\" data-rel=\"lightbox-video-0\">\u201cI did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. I was really\u2026 I was alive\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\"> \u2013 Walter White.<\/p>\n<p>I could give the same reasons for why I lecture as much as I do. Standing in front of a room full of people ready to hear what you have to say is exhilarating.<a href=\"1\" id=\"fnref:1\" title=\"see footnote\" class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/a> There aren\u2019t too many places left where a person can get a group\u2019s relatively undivided attention. It\u2019s nice to feel heard. It\u2019s fun to tell jokes to a room desperate for a laugh. It\u2019s easy to feel really smart and competent explaining entry level concepts to beginning learners. We all have egos and for some of us, myself included, the classroom is a space to \u201cfill our buckets\u201d as my 6 year old would say.<\/p>\n<p>Despite pulling Walter White into this conversation, I don\u2019t think there is anything wrong with enjoying teaching. And I don\u2019t think there is anything shameful about enjoying feeling competent and proud of the work you are doing, especially if you feel the work you are doing is an important social good.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with lecturing is that it\u2019s not the right tool for every pedagogical task and mono-strategy teaching has limitations. What we\u2019re really talking about here is the \u201csage on the stage\u201d vs. \u201cguide on the side\u201d divide. The research on learning finds that getting your students writing, discussing, or otherwise actively involved during class time increases how much they learn (Ambrose et al. 2010) or as the saying goes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sociologysource.org\/home\/2013\/9\/4\/theres-time-for-anything-but-not-time-for-everything.html\">\u201cthe one doing the work, is the one doing the learning.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many teachers struggle to develop alternatives to lecturing. But this can easily be overcome by reading books like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Classroom-Assessment-Techniques-Handbook-Teachers\/dp\/1555425003\">Classroom Assessment Techniques<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Student-Engagement-Techniques-Handbook-College\/dp\/047028191X\">Student Engagement Techniques<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Active-Learning-Strategies-Teach-Subject\/dp\/0205178669\">Active Learning<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Collaborative-Learning-Techniques-Handbook-College\/dp\/0787955183\">Collaborative Learning Techniques<\/a> that are full of ready-made student driven learning activities.<\/p>\n<p>Even if you removed every barrier and made switching to a student-centered teaching style as easy as possible, many of us still wouldn\u2019t do it. Because we like lecturing. We are good at it. It makes us feel alive.<\/p>\n<p>I once heard Annie Lamott, a successful author, say that reading the positive reviews of her books was like \u201ca giant mound of cocaine for the ego\u201d. She went on to say that to become a good writer you have to deny yourself these mounds of cocaine and simply focus on the work of writing. Maybe the exact same thing could be said about forgoing the \u201cgiant mound of cocaine for the ego\u201d that is lecturing and being the \u201csage on the stage\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"footnotes\">\n<hr \/>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p>It can also be terrifying, but after you\u2019ve taught for a handful of years, you start to feel competent and centered. <a href=\"1\" title=\"return to article\" class=\"reversefootnote\">&#160;\u21a9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>***Breaking Bad SPOILER ALERT*** \u201cI did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. I was really\u2026 I was alive\u201d \u2013 Walter White. I could give the same reasons for why I lecture as much as I do. Standing in front of a room full of people ready to hear what you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1982,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30649],"tags":[30705],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-thoughts","tag-lecturing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}