“You cannot put this into words. You just have to know how it is.”

‘Duke Hwan and the Wheelwright’

 

 

Intuition in teaching

 

 

First, we should ask ourselves a question, ‘How does one become a teacher?’ The answer to it seems easy enough. We are taught about all the rules, we learn from our tutors and books written by authorities in methodology. But, in fact, all of that is not worth much. Why? According to Jim Scrivener, it is all because we are taught in a rather stiff system, in which academic knowledge is overvalued, whereas intuition, despite being an important skill for every teacher, is overvalued. It is not trained, or paid much attention to, even though it is one of the key factors determining the success of a teacher. In Scrivener’s opinion, intuition is a learnable, every day skill, which sadly is neglected in the process of training a teacher, even though it proves to be priceless later on, when those young teachers start teaching on their own.

 

There is also another question we should ask ourselves before we try to determine the real worth of intuition in a teacher’s work, and that is, ‘How do we know that something worked? How do we know that an activity was successful? How do we define the criteria behind it?’ The answer to these questions is connected to intuition and is one of Scrivener’s interest, being also the ground for our further reflections.

 

• Teaching while learning

 

According to Scrivener, the most valuable part of teaching is that during which the teacher is also learning something. Focusing on teaching only, without learning anything, would, in other words, mean death to the routine in the teaching career of such a teacher.

 

We can easily see whether the teacher is learning while teaching or not by observing the way in which he works in the classroom. There are two different approaches to that- one of them is operating the classroom as a machine, and the other is working with the classroom as a living thing.

 

The first approach is characterised by the teacher perceiving the process of teaching in a similar way as a factory, where you take some raw materials, do some processes and then receive a ready product. The teacher bases here on preparation, methods, tricks, techniques, etc. This is quite a popular attitude, unfortunately, and it makes many teachers place a ceiling above their heads which later on makes it impossible for them to be able to advance to the higher level, which is working with the classroom as a living thing.

 

This other approach, working with the classroom as a living thing, is quite challenging for the teacher, but also, it gives him room for professional development. It is based on the teacher reacting actively to what is happening in the classroom at the moment of teaching. The key feature here is flexibility, along with listening to what the students say, using teacher’s own intuition, and getting real feedback from the students.

 

• Examples of intuition present in teaching

 

Even though you are probably not aware of it, if you take a look at the questions below, you will probably be able to identify some of the things happening to you while you are teaching. You should know that they are examples of your intuition trying to steal around your logical thinking and getting to the front of your mind when you become aware of it.

 

1. You suddenly know what to do, without really thinking about it before.
2. You have understanding about something that is not a result of logical reasoning.
3. You are able to connect two aspects of something where you did not see any connection before.
4. Suddenly you are able to see a bigger shape of something, whereas earlier you focused only on small pieces of it.
5. Pieces of information suddenly put themselves into a non- standard way, f.e. forming metaphors or images, etc.
6. You get a sudden insight into the characters of your students.
7. You get a sense of what a student is thinking.

 

• So, this intuition. What is it?

 

According to Scrivener, there are three kinds of intuition:

 

1. learnt intuition- this is the kind of intuition that is drawn from the teacher’s own past experiences.

 

2. emphatic intuition- this kind of intuition is based on the teacher’s own skills at reading and understanding another human being.

 

3. mystical intuition- this kind of intuition is the hardest one to define. Basically, it just draws from the universe and is not at all influenced by the teacher’s own knowledge or experience.

 

Jim Scrivener thinks that the first two kinds of intuition, namely learnt and emphatic intuition, are learnable and we should try to develop them taking every opportunity that we have to do so. The third kind, mystical intuition, is one that you cannot learn. In fact, you cannot even do much about it, since it is just a ‘magic insight,’ not related in any way to what you actually know as a teacher.

 

• Growth of intuition

 

So, by now, you might want to ask where that famous intuition comes from. Do we have it somewhere inside of us, waiting to be activated, or do we just learn it by heart, memorizing a set of rules? The answer to these questions is quite easy, as it can be easily worked out from all that has been said up to this point- intuition comes from previous experiences and understanding.

 

So, first, we do different things. Secondly, those things that we do add themselves to the store of experienced situations, which, in turn, may be processed or unprocessed in our brains. Those processed and unprocessed memories mix, overlap, synthesise, get confused in our minds, etc. And, as a result of the above processes, you get the intuitive insights.

 

This conclusion might bring Skinner’s theory to your mind. He was the one to say that from the very moment that we are born, we are getting a lot of data, even when we are not really aware of it. We have learnt to filter most of it out and focus only on the most important data, since focusing on all of it would not only be impossible, but also, it could lead to serious mental problems. And so, we must be aware that a lot of data stored in our brain is unprocessed and just waiting for it to be brought to the front of our minds in form of the intuitive insights.

 

 

• Rules, rules, rules… do we really need them so much?

 

 

As teacher trainees, we are always given hundreds of rules to memorise; a lot of perfect solutions and ready ways of doing things. We are tested on theory, even if we feel weighted down by it, and quite unnecessarily so. Since, we must remember that all the advice we get, and all the rules that we learn, are just guidelines, and are meant for us to be helpful. All of us must understand that we cannot just follow what we are taught in vain hope that everything will be all right, because it will be not. Sooner or later, we will all discover, if we have not yet, that teaching involves a lot of improvising and working on-the-spot.

 

Teaching is a live thing. It is not about blind following of the rules and instructions, which are only meant to be our guidelines. Teaching is not as simple as following a recipe, since each situation is different and only you, who know all the details, can really understand it. Thus, adapting ready solutions worked out by someone else and for different circumstances is a recipe, but for a disaster. Keep that in mind!

 

You must be aware that if you try to follow a rulebook stiffly, you will end up operating the classroom like a machine, which you surely do not want to do. New teachers usually realise quickly that they need to develop their intuition and try to do that, even though it ends up not being very simple. According to Scrivener’s observation, their reading of their intuition is very often wrong, since they, not overly confident themselves, often transfer their fears and worries onto the students, thus leading themselves to misreading things. A lot of care must be taken to prevent that from becoming a habit.

 

·        ‘One needs to constantly challenge and consciously upgrade one’s intuition.’

 

How do we do that? The answer is quite simple- we should just try to assume some things, listening to our intuition, and then asks the students to see if we were right. Though, here it  gets really tricky- how to get that information? We will deal with that question just in a minute, analysing the ways of receiving feedback and taking look at some problems it might cause, but first, let us focus for a moment on ways of upgrading our intuition.

 

Upgrading our intuition involves three stages, none of which can be skipped:

 

1. Teach- in this stage you just have to teach your students something- it’s easy enough.
2. Get feedback- probably the most difficult stage, where you try to receive meaningful feedback from your students.
3. Let the feedback affect your teaching- in other words, make sure that all the conclusions you draw after analysing the feedback you received are used to improve the quality of your teaching.

 

• Feedback

 

Problems with getting feedback arise when teachers:

 

1. Don’t elicit feedback on their opinion
2. Work ‘at right angles’ to the class, completely ignoring students needs
3. Create psychological and physical distance between learners and teacher
4. Don’t deviate from teacher’s own plan/agenda
5. Keep up their own ‘radio babble’
6. Find some time- filling ‘avoidance activities’ (like organising books, cleaning the blackboard, etc.)

 

Getting feedback is a problem, because:

 

1. I want to hear confirmation that I’m doing a good job
2. I want to be praised
3. I hope they don’t say anything horrible. No criticism wanted
4. I hope if they have problems, they are only small ones
5. I will want to explain and defend comments made about me
6. What will I do if they ask for things I can’t provide?

 

Remember!

 

Feedback containing criticism may move you forward if you know how to use it properly. Just remember to listen to your students and do not make excuses for yourself in front of them, otherwise the students will stop talking to you, and you do not want for that to happen.

 

How to get the feedback:

 

1. I want to collect a quantity of useful information
2. I would like students to be honest, even if it’s hard for me to deal with it. I will listen and makes notes.

 

So, when you want to get feedback, make sure to ask an open question, which leaves some choice for the students to decide what they want to say and take notes, not answering their comments on the same lesson. Then, at home, think over all the points made and then, if you need to, you may comment on them that were made in the other lesson.

 

Also, try to remember that you should take your time to get some feedback once in a while. It doesn’t have to be made very often, but, it should be done once in a while. Believe it or not, it makes a real difference in your teaching.

 

• How to become an intuitive teacher?

 

Now, a few ideas on how to improve your chances of becoming an intuitive teacher:

 

1. Don’t only teach planned sequences. React spontaneously, plan your lessons in only about 60% or even less, leaving room for improvisation.
2. Work on your intuitive skills- make guesses and check.
3. Follow the teach- feedback circle.
4. Allow recall- time after every lesson (time for reflection on how it went).
5. Practice solving problems with only little information available.
6. Guess wild answers before logical thinking.

 

• Some ideas on how to practice intuition in your everyday life

 

Here are a few ideas for the end to let you know how you can work a bit on your intuition in your everyday life if you would like to:

 

1. Keep making wild guesses about people you see- and don’t worry they aren’t true.
2. Listen to the little voice inside you- try to see what it’s saying.
3. Don’t do something just because an expert said it’s good. There is a chance he’s wrong.
4. Look around the classroom and allow your intuition bubble up to the surface.

 

Good luck! J

 

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The information on the intuition included in this article is a recount of a lecture given by Jim Scrivener on a methodology conference in Wrocław that took place on 05/04/2006.

 

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Written by:

Izabela Karnas from the English section.