Teacher As Learner

Teacher: educator, family member, community member

Learner: one who uses study, instruction, or experience to gain knowledge, understanding, or skill

“Is it utopian to propose that teachers be permitted and expected to learn too?” Frances Hawkins

Diving into a new, hands-on experience can be intimidating for adults.   Encountering the unknown, and expectations of performance, are uncomfortable for many.  Finding answers on the Internet or in books is easier.  But neither books nor the Internet confer the deep sensorial understanding, and the satisfaction gained from taking-on the challenge of “messing about.”

“If teachers can join us in mapping paths into subject matter, they are on their way to being able to do so for children.”  
                  David Hawkins

Frances and David understood that by experiencing play, teachers could develop the routes not only to the answers, but also to the challenges that arise along the way.  They engaged teachers in hands-on “messing about” activities.  After breaking through the confines of adult reticence in these situations, teachers were better able to understand and support the natural exploratory behaviors and discoveries of their students.

Frances and David were profoundly excited by the continual act of learning and growing- both in themselves and in all around them.  They understood that to truly teach, you must always be learning.

“It is not easy for teachers to provide for a kind of learning they do not know and appreciate themselves from experience. I digress here to make a plea not only for children, who suffer when a teacher does, but for the many teachers I meet who are unhappy, bored, and lost.” Frances Hawkins



Hawkins Centers of Learning supports this essential form of teacher education.  Through workshops and gatherings, we engage participants in “messing about” activities.  To learn more, please contact us at: community@hawkinscenters.org.

To learn more about the teacher as learner, please read the essay, “Getting Into the Subject Matter” in The Roots of Literacy.