By Derrick Brown (follow on Twitter @dbrowndbrown)
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360-Degree Revolutions (1167 Words)
By Derrick Brown (Join Our Mailing List!)
I gave each geometry class a “communications quiz.”
It looked like a regular quiz to my students, but it carried different weight
for me.
It was designed to measure whether students could demonstrate #SeeSayShow-level
understanding ... not just produce answers, but explain how those answers were
obtained.
I knew before giving it that this would surface more than skill gaps.
It would expose trust, humility, listening, belief, and honesty ... all the
unspoken elements that make learning real.
The Setup
The quiz contained 3 triangle congruence problems that required explanation ("proof").
Each question was structured to force students to start with ... then move beyond ... memorized theorems.
For me, it was an audit of communication ... not memorization.
For them, it may have just been another grade.
That difference in perspective was the first sign of how deep the disconnect
runs.
I gave more guidance than I usually provide … in fact, I articulated and set up each
solution … but did so verbally … which would be useless if not listened to …
nor used to confirm prior knowledge and exploration.
I told students that my guidance provided about forty-nine percent of the
solution.
The rest depended on trust ... that they would actually follow, believe, and apply what they heard.
CAP Mode
When it was time for students to perform, many shifted into what I call CAP
mode ... a cognitive-affective-perceptual overload that mixes hubris, panic, and
confusion.
Instead of slowing down and thinking, they sped up and “BSed”.
The overload revealed more about mindset than about content.
The problem was not geometry … it was the discomfort of having to think and
write clearly … “mind-molding” without “hand-holding”.
This quiz showed me again how little of our classroom work transfers when
pressure removes the scaffolding.
Many students rely on memory, mimicry, or group shortcuts that imitate
collaboration ... but produce no reasoning.
The “answers” arrive ... often correct ... but detached from logic.
It is performance without processing.
Activity without achievement.
The hardest truth is that I am their most consistent collaborator.
I create the very network of supports ... guided notes, sample problems,
live-solved videos ... that allow them to appear fluent … without achieving literacy.
The quiz was meant to check what remains when that system steps aside.
The Results
Out of roughly ninety students, one reproduced the logic I modeled.
She identified the theorem that described the three congruent relationships, and stated how those 3 congruent relationships allowed us to declare all six congruent relationships .
The rest paraphrased the idea into emptiness ... with “circular” reasoning that
lacked coherence and competence.
That outcome was harsh ... but not surprising.
It confirmed that the visible success in my classroom ... correct answers,
occasional engagement, a sense of order ... rests on fragile understanding.
Students know how to repeat steps … not justify them.
What the Quiz Exposed
The quiz made the invisible visible ... a lack of shared language that can communicate patterns of logic.
It also reminded me how much learning depends on belief.
When students do not trust that the teacher’s reasoning matters, they treat
details as "optional."
When they do not trust themselves to make sense of those details, they retreat
into shortcuts.
The cycle sustains itself ... I over-explain to protect them from failure ... and
that protection blocks growth.
There was also a personal recognition embedded in this test.
The “weight” I carried into it was not about grades … but about clarity.
I wanted to see the truth of what we had built together.
The result showed that most of what looks like progress is actually maintenance
... effort spent keeping a system upright … that still resists real
comprehension.
The Meaning of “49 Percent”
That phrase ... forty-nine percent ... has stayed with me.
It marks the line between what can be given … and what must be claimed.
I can provide structure, guidance, and language … but the remaining fifty-one
percent belongs to them ... attention, curiosity, patience, and honesty.
Without that contribution, the circle of understanding never closes.
The quiz measured that gap precisely.
It also made me reconsider the nature of scaffolding.
Too much guidance creates dependency.
Too little breeds frustration.
The right balance may not come from adding more supports but from allowing
space ... distance enough for struggle to occur without collapse.
That is a different kind of teaching ... one that may look passive, but is
intentional.
I am beginning to accept that I may have to fight these classroom habits “from
afar.”
My presence, constant and corrective, has become both solution and problem.
The Last Days of Teaching
I am in my “last days of teaching.”
That sentence is not resignation … it is recognition.
The system I am part of ... the endless rotation of reteaching, correcting, and
repeating ... has reached its limit for me.
What remains is documentation ... recording the guidance, capturing the
process, and studying the patterns that appear.
The quiz, and the recording I plan to make of my explanations, belong to that
archive.
They are evidence of what the classroom looked like when communication was
tested honestly.
The phrase “reaching from afar” captures what this next stage may become.
Teaching, as I have practiced it, depended on proximity ... standing beside,
explaining aloud, filling gaps in real time.
Reaching may require distance, reflection, and written evidence rather than
spoken rescue.
It means continuing the work of understanding … without the constant
performance of instruction.
A Cognitive Vacuum and a Space for Grace
The cognitive vacuum the quiz revealed is real.
It cannot be filled quickly or forced shut.
It requires patience and space.
I can only meet it with a kind of detached grace ... an acceptance that some
lessons must echo long after I stop speaking.
This grace is not indulgence … it is strategy.
It acknowledges that comprehension may develop later, outside my presence.
It also acknowledges that teaching and learning operate on different clocks.
My desire for closure must give way to continuity.
Conclusion
“360-Degree Revolutions” is an accurate name for these days.
The event began and ended in the same classroom, with the same desks, the same
students, and the same problems.
Yet after the full turn, the meaning changed.
The revolution is not dramatic … it is circular.
It returns me to the same place with sharper awareness.
I now see that most of my instruction produces partial solutions ...
forty-nine percent completion ... until students supply the rest through trust
and effort.
I see that scaffolding, while compassionate, can disguise dependency.
And I see that grace may require distance, not density.
The quiz did not improve grades or morale, but it revealed structure.
It showed what happens when the teacher stops filling every silence.
And it reminded me that even in my last days of teaching, there are still
opportunities for reaching ... for seeing what happens when explanation ends
and thinking begins.
Selah.
(The "Follow The Leader (changED - Volume 2)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
(The "changED (Volume 1)" Audio and Video Album / Mixtape is also available at TeachersPayTeachers.com)
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I am a “standup storyteller.”
I fuse rap, spoken word (poetry), oration (traditional public speaking), singing, and teaching into messages of hope, healing, and change that I write, direct, and produce to help people who help people.
Everything must change - and stay changED.
Tradition begins and ends with change.
Change begins with me and the renewing of my mind ... then continues through efforts to effect small-group discipleship (equipping others to equip others) with audiences that respect and embrace mentoring, mediation, and problem solving as tools of change.
I am the product of my mentoring relationships, peacemaking (and peacekeeping), and problem-solving ability.
My education began when I finished school.
After school, I enrolled in a lifelong curriculum that includes classes in ministry, entrepreneurship, stewardship, literacy, numeracy, language, self-identity, self-expression, and analysis / synthesis.
My projects execute a ministry that has evolved from wisdom earned through lessons learned.
I want to share this wisdom to build teams of "triple threat" fellows - mentors, mediators, and problem solvers.
We will collaborate in simple, powerful ways that allow us to help people who help people.
I now know that power is work done efficiently (with wise and skillful use of resources, interests, communication, and expertise).
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