Norman Eng: “Think of yourself less as a teacher and more as a designer of meaningful experiences.”
In our own teaching, in student work, in administration, and at the macro-level, imagine if we embraced beta, if every attempt at something new were treated as the first in a series of iterations — repetitions of a process with the goal of making improvements each time around.
Teaching in Beta: The Cult of Pedagogy
As an educator, we are a designers. A developer. We design and develop spaces, materials, systems and experiences. It’s time we start thinking of ourselves that way.
Figuratively and actually, maybe we need more screen time (more of a reflective, open, and osmotic filter of active and deliberate assessment of ourselves, our families, our jobs, our community, and our world). Less subtraction and more addition. Less division and more multiplication.
Dennis-Tiwary, a professor of psychology at New York’s Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City of New York, expressed a similar sentiment about the study as a whole. It’s not about guilt-tripping parents but about reminding them of what’s important, she said.
“Face-to-face time we have with our children is not just the icing on the cake, it is the cake,” she said. “It is the place that children learn the most about the world — and about themselves.”