Sunday, September 24, 2017

The Power of Paideia Part I: I’m a Believer

-by Alex Schaivone, New Hanover High School

As an AP English teacher and a notorious chatterbox, I like to talk. A lot. I love the exchange of words and ideas and thrive off of debate and civil discourse. I could talk for hours, and I have been guilty of dominating conversations on more than one occasion. Since I was old enough to speak, my mother has always said that I could talk the paint off a wall. To put it simply, my life revolves around words.


Considering my affinity for language, it only makes sense that I have come to rely on conversation as the driving force in my classroom. I prefer to use class discussions as the main mode of transportation to arrive at the “so what?” moments when analyzing writing and literature. I truly believe that conversation should be the foundation of any great English classroom, but unfortunately, this works better in theory than in practice.


In the past, I have tried to structure my classes in a manner that is conducive to interactions amongst peers. My students come into class every day and sit in a circle of desks, facing each other rather than staring at a whiteboard. They are instructed from day one that sitting silently is not an option. But somehow, our conversations always fell flat or turned from productive to chaotic in a matter of seconds. As a teacher, I struggled to maintain a balance between having a lively, energetic classroom full of students who can eloquently convey their thoughts and ideas and having a group of rowdy fast-talkers who could quickly become overzealous and carried away. For some reason, talking about weekend plans or television shows always seemed to be a bit more interesting to them than the poem or essay we were originally discussing.


Although I was frustrated that I hadn’t truly found the perfect balance with class discussions, I consider myself to be quite the persistent person and wasn’t going to give up quite so easily. I was determined to find a solution to the organized chaos of class discussions. As fate would have it or maybe it was divine intervention, the solution I was searching for happened to fall right into my lap. Over the summer, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to attend the Introduction to Paideia Seminar Institute at UNC Wilmington. When asked to attend, I blindly agreed, having never actually heard of Paideia before. However, what started as a two-day conference with a few other teachers from my district turned into a powerhouse of conversation amongst teachers from all over the state. Almost immediately I had that “ah-ha moment” that, as a teacher, I have come to love seeing when something finally clicks for my students. This was what I was looking for.


"However, what started as a two-day conference with a few other teachers from my district turned into a powerhouse of conversation amongst teachers from all over the state."


The Paideia Seminar is “an approach to Socratic seminar that is rooted in the Paideia method of education, which encourages active learning. A Paideia Seminar is a collaborative, intellectual dialogue facilitated with open-ended questions about a text.” It takes the idea of the traditional Socratic seminar a step further, encouraging student-driven discourse with hands-off teacher facilitation. The Paideia School prides itself on taking students beyond simple memorization and into a deeper level of thought, encouraging critical and creative thinking. While the structure of the typical Paideia seminar follows a rather formulaic approach to discussion, the result is both powerful and productive.


During the two-day workshop, teachers were encouraged to become students. The traditional workshop setting (a speaker, teachers frantically note-taking, minimal discussion, etc.)  was quickly rearranged and we found ourselves working with one another, modeling the typical Paideia seminar and diving head first into discussions. While I was skeptical at first, believing that our participant-driven seminars were only successful because we were, in fact, teachers, I was still anxious to try out these ideas in my own classroom. I quickly pulled out my lesson planner and penciled in “Paideia Seminar #1” during my first week of school. If I was going to make the power of conversation work in my classroom, I wasn’t going to waste any time.

Stay tuned for Alex's follow-up blog post The Power of Paideia Part II: Paideia in Practice which will be shared next week.


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