Has anyone else experienced these situations?
-- Colleague learns about Whole Brain Teaching...half-heartedly tries it but essentially 'blows it'...and it turns YOUR students off of WBT or makes them take it less seriously

-- Colleague is excited about WBT, tries hard to implement it, but students continue to 'shoot them down' saying they're "copying" you or that they "stole it from you"


Our middle school is set up in interdisciplinary teams. Our team has the toughest group this year...a group of very negative, broken, and immature students.
One of our teachers half-heartedly tried it but doesn't connect with the students...and ever since she began trying Whole Brain Teaching, I have lost alot of the 'magic' that was happening in my classroom, and I hear the students laugh about how that teacher tries to do Whole Brain Teaching, and how they purposely don't respond.
Another teacher on our team truly wants to use Whole Brain Teaching, and the students continually accuse her of "stealing it" from me, or of "copying" me. She's a first year teacher and it's really beginning to wear her down.

Has anyone encountered either of these problems at their schools, and how do they handle it? It makes me afraid to share it with colleagues.

Jackie,

We had that problem my first year of Whole Brain Teaching a lot, my neighbor teacher who taught ESL started Whole Brain Teaching right after me, and on more than one occasion we had trouble with that. Our problem was more of the copying/he does it this way... telling me that I was doing something wrong.

At first we tried to sit them down and talk to them. Then we just quit - and started hyping up our own classes and just using Rule 5 to combat the rude comments. The more we pushed Rule 5 and them getting less point because of people's rude comments, the less it was happening.

I don't know how much advice I have, but I can sympathize...

Hi Jackie,
If I were the teacher that was being accused of "stealing" whole brain teaching from you, I would tell my students that of course I am "stealing" the idea. I would explain that teachers always share their ideas with each other and good ideas should be shared will all students. I would tell my class that it wouldn't be fair if the other classes got to learn using fun gestures and games and our class had to listen to only my "boring" lectures. I might even be tempted to spend a day showing the class what a "boring" lecture would be (absolute silence... kids who talk go immediately to on-campus detention... a lot of note copying... no student-student and very little student-teacher interaction). Hopefully after a day of that they would be more appreciative of whole brain teaching. I might do the same boring lesson idea with my own students if they felt that they didn't want to do power teaching anymore or were turned off of WBT. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of personal experience to share with you regarding your problem because I teach high school and my students do not have other teachers who are doing WBT. The boring lesson idea is the best that I can think of at the moment. I hope it helps!

You can also use the approach that when you see someone who is really good at a sport, or anything else you copy their technique, and adapt it to your way of doing things. Just like copying the techniques of professional athletes, teachers share effective techniques with one another. Purposefully not responding to another teacher using this technique is really only a sign of immaturity, and a disappointing lack of self discipline. They are not really hurting the other teacher so much as they are sabotaging their own chances to learn effectively. Tell them it is too bad that they cannot see that, you had actually thought they were smarter than that.

Keep it simple: Kids do things differently, with different personalities, and with different effort and style. Teachers are the same. Clap, clap,: Teach!

You know what's crazy, Kristin? This particular group of students "responds well" to BORING LESSONS! I have done that before, where I just wanted to show them what class would be like if we didn't do this (When they start to complain alot about Whole Brain Teaching, or when they're SO 'off' that I can't even get through a MICRO lecture because I keep getting interrupted) and when I give them a bunch of silent note-copying...expecting them to BEG to go back to Power Teaching...but to my dismay...they are all of the sudden hard at work, and behaving!!!
I was shocked, but I realized... they are comfortable with that. They prefer it because no one is calling them out, no one is making them think. It's an awful way to teach, and they don't learn a thing from it....but they are comfortable with it, because they can become invisible and go on 'autopilot'.

Anyways...my big problem is not so much trying to fix it for the other teacher (long story...but I've tried many things to help her..), but trying to repair the damage that has now been done in MY class because the students began taking WBT less seriously.

I'm slowly repairing it, but boy I feel like a one-woman circus sometimes with all the tricks I'm pulling out of my hat!

Jackie - just out of curiousity is your resistant class naturally higher achieving than the other classes? (In other words would they probably be an okay class without Whole Brain Teaching?)

A couple of us have really started to notice that our higher level students (like in honors or AP classes) are the students who are very resistant to WBT...I guess because it takes them out of their comfort zone.

I have seen some of the same tendency. When I point out to them that, by actively making memories with as many senses as possible, they get to do less work, they usually by in pretty well.

My most resistant kids are the ones who are only playing the game, and not really learning. The kids who skate by, trying to answer questions, turn in just enough work to hit C level and be happy with that. This takes them out of the autopilot zone and they actually have to learn to be successful. They do not like actually having to work.

Sara, no, I teach all at-risk students. I wouldn't call them 'resistant to Whole Brain Teaching'... they loved it (and deep down still do) but they have started to get on a power-trip...the more they torture and mock that other teacher, the more they decide that they are the ones in control, and the more they think they should be evaluating teachers.... hence, the less 'into' WBT they were becoming. I'm getting them past it, it was just alot of damage.

Also, as Jeff mentioned, it's the ones who are 'playing the game' and not really learning. But I can't 'brush those students off'...because they are basically HALF MY CLASS each period. That's why many of them are in my class in the first place. Half of my job is turning these students into learners and not just existers.

However, I think people are misunderstanding my reason for posting. My main issue in this post was not to find out what to do about my students, but wondering how other teachers have dealt with it when colleagues 'sort of' try Whole Brain Teaching, but don't really follow through with it, or don't 'get' some of the key things in it, and end up making it a negative experience to the kids. I want to spread Whole Brain Teaching, but I also tend to get 'selfish' with it because, frankly, I don't want others to mess it up and then send the kids my way! If they are coachable and really want to learn it, that's one thing, but so far two different teachers on my team have 'tried it'...one just never followed through, and the other has turned it into a war and not a game. I just don't know how to approach this problem in the future. I won't be at this school next year (RIFs ... AGAIN), but when I move on, I want to find ways to support teachers when they begin Whole Brain Teaching, and I want to find a way to safeguard against people shredding it when they half-do it.

It seems that we are talking about the students a lot in this thread and that is important...but the kids respond to the teacher. Back to the original post..when we have both ends of the spectrum we need to sit down with our team and discuss how we're going to do this. I think that kids will buy in at different levels, but the teacher needs to sell it all the way or not at all. So...when a teacher doesn't do it all the way, they're doing Whole Brain Teaching a disservice. The hard part is talking to them about it, and asking them to committ or ...stop doing it. Of course we want every teacher to use this method on some level so our conversation would be mostly positive and "How can I help you"... but they may just decide to stop. Anyway, we need to do Whole BrainTeaching well however we do it.

Chris, you nailed what the problem is... I just wonder how to go about the solution...I think many people don't realize what a commitment Whole Brain Teaching has to be. I know I didn't. I had no idea how much thought, planning, and committing to consistency it would require. It is completely worth it, but I do know that many teachers (most, probably) go into it not realizing this. I am our 7th grade team leader, and I think it comes down to simply knowing how to open up this kind of dialogue.

When I started Whole Brain Teaching - I had some really great teachers show interest and jump right in. Right or wrong, none of us really had a clue what we were doing, we only had the e-books and videos to work from. We started meeting once or twice a week to discuss what was going on in our rooms, and tried to help each other. At first our conversations weren't getting anywhere - like they wanted to talk about everything, but things were so new, they did not want to look silly for messing it up. So I jumped right in and started asking them for advice, I was having trouble with the scoreboard and manipulating it correctly - so asked for their help.

Even now, if things are getting boring, or I am having trouble with something I still email those teachers and even though they may not have a solution, it opens up the conversation for them to feel like they can ask me things. No matter how open we are, and how helpful we try to be, I think some people feel like they are being "trouble" if they ask too many questions, or ask for help.

So I guess my suggestion would be come up with a question, heck make up a Whole Brain Teaching question... ask for their input/advice. Hopefully you putting yourself out there will make them feel comfortable enough to ask for your help - which is when you can really interject all of the important things you want to say, like the importance of doing WBT all the way...not just partly.