Five Things I Learned in the Classroom

Jean-Claude “J-C” Couture, ’93 MEd , ’99 PhD, knows the classroom from multiple perspectives. He taught high school social studies in Hinton, Alta., for 20 years, followed by 20 more at the Alberta Teachers’ Association working in professional development, research and strategic planning. He’s now an adjunct lecturer in the Faculty of Education, teaching secondary social studies practicum courses. His recent research has contributed to the development of the Education Futures graduate certificate, which prepares teachers and school leaders for the challenges of their profession in an increasingly volatile world. Couture’s experience in and around the classroom has taught him a thing or two. He shares lessons from a life spent learning. 

1: Public education makes the public

Couture is passionate about the “public” in public education. He quotes Lois Hole, ’00 LLD (Honorary), the former lieutenant governor of Alberta: “The staggering truth is that almost everything that we’ve accomplished in the 20th century can be attributed to our public education system.” 

Social studies teachers often see themselves as responsible for imparting public awareness and a sense of civic duty to students. In the 1980s, Couture was among 20 Canadian teachers selected to tour the NATO headquarters, where he was shown a map of potential targets for Soviet missile strikes. When he later raised the subject with his class, students were shocked to learn their community’s pulp mill and nearby Columbia Icefield were possible targets. The students successfully petitioned the town council to declare Hinton a nuclear-free zone. Though the gesture was symbolic, it offered the students important insight about their role and impact in democratic governance and citizenship.

2: Desk time doesn’t boost learning time

Couture draws on his research partnerships in Finland, which, like Alberta, has some of the highest rates of student achievement in reading, math and science in the world. Yet Finnish students spend far less time in the classroom than their Alberta counterparts, since they don’t start formal instruction until age seven. The school day is shorter, there is less homework and, at the elementary level, students take a 15-minute break every hour. As Couture’s friend and colleague Pasi Sahlberg reminds us in Finnish Lessons, while Finland isn’t a utopia, we should consider that the stress and burnout we see in Canadian schools may be the result of trying to do the wrong things better and faster. 

3: Often, innovation means applying what we already know

Couture briefly describes a phenomenon called “undone innovation” — a term borrowed from medicine. It refers to those ideas and practices, proven effective, that get discarded or replaced by unproven innovations. “Lots of good things we used to do have been forgotten because we’re preoccupied with the bright, shiny object,” Couture says. One such undone innovation is for teachers to spend more time with students and less time on ancillary tasks. A 2015 Alberta government study about how teachers spent their time found only half the hours were direct instructional time — the rest went to administrative duties, including the collection and reporting of student data.

4: Few things are more complex than a classroom

“Educational research is often more complex than medical research,” says Couture, citing a paper by David Berliner called “Educational Research: The Hardest Science of All.” Berliner argues that anyone venturing a theory about effective classroom interventions will have difficulty replicating the success of any given one due to the number of variables between classrooms. “One of the learnings of the pandemic was a growing public appreciation for that,” Couture says. “Parents developed a real appreciation for the complexities around what it means to teach.”

5: Ignorance is not bliss

“Teaching is about consistently showing up and being present — this is demanding work to sustain on a daily basis,” Couture says. He heeds the lessons of psychoanalysis: whatever a teacher ignores in the classroom, intentionally or not, can have consequences for a student. “We’re all implicated in this project of navigating our ignorance. We’re driven by what philosopher Renata Salecl calls ‘a passion for ignorance.’󠀠󠀠 ” Couture says there’s more to it than wilfully ignoring unpleasant knowledge: it’s a defensive psychological response to being overwhelmed by the flood of available information and entertainment. “Teaching is often about unpacking the ways that individuals and societies ignore or deny what they don’t want to know.”