The master teacher mindset is really a disposition toward teaching. It is a way of thinking about instruction, about students, about learning, and about teaching in general that makes teaching fluid, efficient, and effective.
Many of us think that in order to be a good teacher, we need to have all the answers. We focus our time and energy accumulating strategies and skills, hoping that if we have a big enough bag of tricks, we will be prepared to face whatever happens in the classroom. The master teacher mindset means knowing that having all the answers isn’t nearly as important as knowing what questions to ask. It means knowing that if you ask the right question the question itself will lead you to the information that you need to examine in order to find the answer. Good questions reveal what information is relevant, when information is sufficient, and how that information should be used appropriately.
The master teacher mindset also means knowing how to ask students the right questions, the kind of questions that lead to deeper thinking, increased motivation, and more student ownership over their own work. Master teachers spend more time refining their inquiry skills and their own curiosity than they do collecting strategies and skills.
Most of us experience a problem and quickly rush to find a solution. Developing a master teacher mindset means knowing that defining the
problem correctly makes it more likely that you will find the appropriate solution. Master teachers spend more time thinking about why the problem
is occurring than they do trying to find solutions. They examine the problem from all sides. The master teacher mindset means being willing to own your own contribution to the problem but at the same time, being reluctant to cast blame on others because you know that casting blame is not nearly as useful as looking for causes. Master teachers are willing to confront the brutal facts of their reality and account for those facts when developing a solution.
The master teacher mindset means not trying to teach like anyone else. Instead, you teach in ways that fit your own style. At the same time, you look for ways to make your teaching style relevant to your students’ needs. Master teachers understand that there isn’t just one way to teach and that effective teaching can be accomplished in a myriad of ways. They find ways that work for them and their students.
At the end of the day, most of us are so exhausted, we just want to go home, wade through the stack of papers we need to grade, plan for the next
day, and go to bed. We rarely take the time to meaningfully reflect on our teaching. But with a master teacher mindset, you understand that meaningful reflection is critical to honing and refining your teaching craft. Master teachers take the time to reflect on their teaching in order to expose unwarranted or harmful assumptions they may hold, reveal fallacies in their thinking, illuminate problems, and determine directions for new growth. They see reflection as a necessary part of their day.
Ultimately, master teachers don’t just magically develop the master teacher mindset. Teaching requires a vast body of knowledge. We have to
know pedagogy, but also must be experts in our subject area or areas. This huge body of knowledge can be an overwhelming hodgepodge of largely
disconnected facts, unless we have a system for organizing the information. Master teachers learn how to organize their teaching knowledge into meaningful patterns and from these patterns develop a set of key instructional principles. Their entire instructional practice is governed by this small set of core principles and they rigorously select strategies and teaching approaches based on these principles rather than become enamoured with every new strategy or technique that becomes in vogue.
I call these principles the mastery principles and the rest of this book is devoted to helping you learn to apply them to your own teaching practice.