The lowercase (t) teacher

Welcome to the lowercase t teacher podcast, by Skale Education, where we bring habits that great teachers use to your everyday life. In this episode, we’ll discuss ‘wait time’. Think back to when you were in school. You’re in class, and the teacher asks a question…”what’s the capital of Montana?”... Picture the reaction of the room. There was always one kid, maybe it was you, who raised her hand  so high that one of her buttcheeks was off the seat? [Pause] Others, thought for a bit longer, raising *their* hands after a bit of processing. The rest, either thought about the question or didn’t, but didn’t take an action.  As a teacher, when I was feeling lazy, or needed a confidence boost, I’d always call on that first kid. It’d make me feel like everyone understood...However, when I was at my best, I’d wait. The point of the question wasn’t for me to get an answer...I already knew the answer. The point was to provoke thinking. “Wait time” promotes thinking. In this conversation, I’ll talk with parent “Teel Love” about how she applies wait time to raising her son. We think out-loud about how to build the habit of waiting and concrete impacts of doing it well. We veer away from parenting and formal teaching to explore the impacts of using “wait time” at work and at home, and strategize about how to teach the concept to people *you* want to “wait” better. For Teel, it’s her friends and family. Note, this conversation is “seeding” a longer conversation using the Skale app, where our community discusses other applications of this concept and the nuance that is required to apply it in your own teaching missions. To get access to the extended conversation, email me at: mike@theskale.com.