Put Down the Pencil

Something one of my professors in college told me, and something I read again in someone’s tweet or blog post recently (cannot remember where…) is that the teacher should never be the one holding the pen(cil) when helping a student with independent work.

When helping a student, the STUDENT should be the one doing all the writing. It’s so tempting to grab their pencil, or unclip my own pen from my lanyard, or grab the dry erase marker at their table, and write for them as I walk them through the problem. But what do they get from this? They’ll be at the same point they probably were before: “It makes sense when you do it at the board, I just can’t do it myself!”

I’ve been trying so hard in the last week to put down the pencil. To instruct them what to write, point to where they should write it, but NOT WRITE IT MYSELF. It’s hard. Students move SO SLOWLY sometimes and you just want to finish up so you can go help the other 3 students raising their hands. Yes, it would be easier to write it myself, even upside down. NO, that is not what is best for my student’s learning.

I have not been 100% successful here. It’s especially hard for me when I literally point to the exact spot where a student should write a number and then they inexplicably DON’T PUT THE NUMBER IN THAT SPOT.

My strategy for when I absolutely cannot make myself leave the pencil down is to grab the dry erase marker and write them out a SIMILAR example, but still make them write the one we were working on themselves.

I can tell this is going to be a long process. But I think it’s worthwhile, and I’m going to work hard at it. I’ve found myself with my pen in hand this week, halfway through writing something on a student’s paper and thought “shoot! I’m holding the pen!”

Students holding pencils. Students writing math. That’s my goal. I’m working on it.