The Gap Between Understanding & Action

After a buncha blogs dedicated to enhancing our ability to check for student understanding, I think it would be just plain dishonest to forget to mention that chasm between knowledge and application, understanding and action.

Ya know the really annoying people in life that give all kinds of advice but don’t actually take up the tips themselves?  You know, that super out of shape coach or that incredibly sloppy hair stylist or that colleague that forever complains about kids not turning things on time but never follows through with showing up to duties or returning assignments to kids? 

Well sometimes-mostly I’m that kind of person with my Tuesday Teaching Tips. I can expend just enough energy to get the things done, to do the research, to write the intro and complete the citations. But then, bam, it’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m depleted and fall back into my regular programming and not-so-intentional habits.  

I wish I could report something different, but I would be lying.

I find the longer I am in this game, the more entrenched the rhythms of doing what I have always done become.  This is why, I realize, those more veteran teachers appeared so intractable.  It wasn’t so much a superiority complex or closed-mindedness. It’s just that there is only so much time in the day, so much energy to live out that day.  And according to Newton’s First Law of Motion, change takes a whole lot more energy than maintaining what you’ve got going.

But, still, what is the point of knowledge without action, or as James 1:23-24 reminds us, 

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

The problem is THE LEARNING IS SO FUN.  AND THE DOING IS SO HARD.  

Maybe seeing the chasm is the first step to closing that gap, whether it’s in my students and their ability to actually apply the thing they know, or myself in my own practice. 

Hey, a lady can hope.