Master your classroom

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In his  sociological studies book the Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell states we have to do something for 10 000 hours before we master it. For arguments sake, if you teach 30 1 hour lessons a week that will be1230 hours of lessons in a 41 week year. It would take you 8.13 years to clock up the 10 000 hours. Do teachers who have taught for less than ten years feel as though they have mastered their classroom? Depends on the school, depends on the classes and depends on what you are teaching. What about 30 students with 30 laptops or 30 iPads? Would you master that in 8.13 years? Distractions are then everywhere and part of mastering the technology classroom is mastering the art of harnessing the students AND their distractions. That is really complex. It becomes a matter of teaching them how to be selective about the media they consume so that it doesn’t swamp them and take over their cognition and time. The same applies to them: 10 000 hours of doing before they can master something. According to the findings  :

“The psychologists found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.”

It’s a matter of falling in love with practice. Being there and doing whatever it is you want to master. This is where the skills and knowledge of a teacher come into play. You have to know  clearly what you want to achieve and you have to have the time to do it. You have to know how to co ordinate 30 students and 30  devices for an hour or more at a time. You cannot do that without a plan nor without a mapped out curriculum and standards. If you want to be good at something it really is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.