Not At All What iT Seems: Three Paradoxes In My Thinking classroom

I'm just a few days out from the start of my second year of Building A Thinking Classroom In Mathematics.  I've been focusing my writing lately on "getting started" with Building A Thinking Classroom, and in doing some research for my next few posts on that topic, I came across the idea of paradox.

I'm going to be writing quite a bit in the upcoming year about how the techniques in Teach Like A Champion 3.0 have helped me build an even better Thinking Classroom, and in doing some preparation for the first few posts in that series, I came across the two following examples of paradoxes that really got me thinking:

1. "Paradoxically, the autonomy and self-management that are so much a part of the student experience [in a great classroom] are the products of structure and planning... it is this very structure and planning, ironically, that allows for greater autonomy."
2. "The sort of behavior [that] looks like self-discipline... [is] self-discipline made easy.  Productive habits make it easy to be self-disciplined." (pp. 386-387).

This passage really hit home.  A Thinking Classroom hardly resembles what we're used to calling "school" or "class" in so many ways.  When my colleagues or administrators visit, they hardly know what to make of it.  Just think of all the things you see in a Thinking Classroom that you don't see anywhere else:

• Students standing, clustered in the middle of the room for a task launch.  I mean, truly, if you saw someone teaching kids like this without knowing about Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, what would you think? 

          I literally had rules against standing up in my prior classrooms.  Now, it's required!

• Students collaborating a whiteboards, figuring out curricular content without being taught.

            Surely, it looks like, they're just practicing what they've been already taught in an engaging way.                       Right?  NOPE.  They're literally teaching themselves.

• Students making notes instead of taking notes.

And I could go on and on.

It looks like nothing teachers and administrators have never seen before.

And it looks so easy.  Kids learning on their own.  Making notes on their own.  Checking their understanding on their own.  And they look so happy doing it!

It looks like magic. 

Like I must have opened some door to another dimension with kids from some other dimension.

Of course it isn't magic, but it is - this passage from Teach Like A Champion 3.0 reminded me - a paradox.

​Three paradoxes, in fact.
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Paradox #1 - What Appears to Be Freedom is Actually Extreme STructure

To the untrained eye, what you see below appears to be a very free and open learning environment.

"You must get the best of the best students," I hear from my colleagues all the time.  "My students could never handle this level of independence and freedom."

The reality is a paradox - the freedom and independence you see here was actually born from extreme structure.  What you don't see is that...

• We practiced focusing on the task launch dozens of times.
• We practiced transitioning from the task launch to the thinking groups dozens of times.
• We went over the exact how and why of how to operate in the thinking groups dozens of times. 
• I corrected off-procedure behavior hundreds of times.

None of what you see in any of these videos is an accident.  None of it is me somehow getting a roster full of eleven year-olds who all, by some miracle, know how to operate and learn on their own.

It looks open.  It looks like freedom.  It even, at this point, feels like freedom to the kids.  But they're actually boxed into an extreme structure that keeps them thinking from start to finish.
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Paradox #2 - What appears to be self-disciplined is actually habitual

Just look at this incredible group of kids.

Their self discipline must be through the roof, right?

How would I know?

Believe it or not, I'm not asking this group of students to exercise self-discipline at all.

All I'm asking them to do is to act out of habit.

We learn like this every day.  Every single day.  We learned how to do it, we practiced it over and over again, and I manage behavior and attention carefully.  At this point, they're just doing what they always do.

If we ask students in our classroom - any type of classroom - to exercise self-discipline moment after moment, decision after decision, we're sure to be disappointed much of the time.  Even most adults who have strong self-discipline have actually just engineered their lives in ways where they rarely have to exercise it.

"This is just what I do" is what you'll usually hear an apparently self-disciplined person say.  "I don't even really think about it."

Most of the time, when we see what we assume to be self-discipline, we're actually just seeing people carry out habits.  A Thinking Classroom is no different.  What appears to be a class full of extraordinarily self-disciplined kids is usually just a class full of students with well developed classroom habits.
​
"This is just what we do"  is what you'd usually hear most of my apparently self-disciplined students say.  "We don't even really think about it."
​ 

Paradox #3 - What appears to be Student-Led Is Actually Meticulously Teacher-Planned

"All you're doing is giving students a bunch of problems to figure out for themselves?  That must make your life so easy!"

Not. At. All.

Personally, I spend about twice as long planning each day's Thinking Classroom experience as I did planning my traditional, mimicking lessons.

What appears to be students learning on their own and me just helping out here and there is born of extreme planning.

Thin-slicing is incredible, but boy is it time intensive.  As I've written several times before, I can't even use other people's lessons, I haven't been impressed with AI, and I don't have a curriculum.  If I want a thin-sliced problem set to work, I need just the right starting place with just the right scaffolding with just the right vocabulary after just the right task launch with just the right slicing on just the right day for my exact style and students... it has to be just so.  Unfortunately, that means a lot of careful planning.

Sure, in the moment, it looks like I'm hardly doing anything at all.  And often, in the moment, I'm not.  But when I'm not teaching, the task is working double time, and that only works if I plan it extremely well.  
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Embrace the paradoxical!

As I look to Re-Build A Thinking Classroom for the upcoming year, I plan to keep these paradoxes in the front of my mind now that I've realized they're happening.

• Do I want my students to experience the freedom that comes from figuring out rigorous mathematics on their own?  Better make sure I provide the extreme structure for them to do so.
• Do I want another group of extraordinarily self-disciplined students that can lead and participate in groups doing novel thinking?  Better make all the processes that go into doing so into habits.
• Do I want lessons that deliver with minimal involvement from me?  Better plan them with extreme care.

A well-Built Thinking Classroom is not what it appears to be.
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