Teaching tip: Build autonomy through meaningful micro-choices.

Instead of dictating and controlling every step of the lesson, “Here’s what we are going to do today.” provide a menu of options for students themselves to choose from.

Even better, don’t even introduce the menu. Have a list of students’ names on the board somewhere and place a magnet next one student’s name.

If students ask you, “What are we doing today?” shrug and point to the list of names. Let them figure out that the student whose name the magnet is next to is the leader.

When the leader looks at you asking what to do, smile, shrug your shoulders and point at the menu of options. Gently hint that the leader ask the rest of the class what they want to do.

Some students will want to work on an essay on their own. Others may want to work together on a group project. Some may be in the mood to catch up on reading today. Let them choose.

Here’s the paradox: by trusting students and daring to relinquish control, we actually reduce the need for control in the long run.

Small choices and steps toward agency give learners a sense ownership over their learning, which, in turn, subtly lets them learn that being responsible is an integral part of the process. They naturally become responsible, not by coercion, but through trust.

Deci’s first pillar is Autonomy. In education, this doesn’t mean letting students run wild. It means fostering a sense of volition. Ideally, we would like students to feel their actions are self-endorsed rather than coerced, turning forced compliance into genuine curiosity. How does this look in the classroom?

Teaching tip: When introducing language targets, a useful technique David Paul recommends is to simply put the language out there. For example, rather than carefully pre-teaching to ensure no mistakes are made, we can look at a child, smile and say [language target]. If she cannot answer, smile again and ask other children. Aim to generate the feeling, “Here is an interesting puzzle to be solved. Trying to solve it could be fun.”

In this way, students, from the very outset, experience dealing with the unknown and making mistakes along the way as an integrated part of learning, rather than something to be avoided.

Creating a playful, supportive classroom atmosphere that encourages curiosity and exploration is an important factor not only in how students approach making “mistakes” but how they feel about learning as a whole. In the English classroom, this starts with how language targets are introduced.

Teaching tip: When a child makes an error, hold off. Pause, then offer a gesture — a raised eyebrow, or counting the words on your fingers, or a hint — that nudges them to find and fix it themselves. The wait time does a surprising amount of the teaching. View mistakes as learning opportunities.

Unlearning the Rescue

The next instinct is to rescue. A child struggles to solve a puzzle, or stumbles, and we step in to fix it — quickly, kindly, almost automatically. But every fast correction quietly tells the child that finding out the answer was our job, not theirs. What’s the alternative strategy? Next post…

Teaching tip: when planning lessons or activities, rather than starting with an explanation, think of ways of introducing the lesson target that encourage exploration. The ISLE approach to teaching physics gives some great examples here: www.islephysics.net/philosoph… I will share some examples for the language classroom in the future posts.

Freedom isn’t permission to do nothing. Dutch educator Hans Wenke reframed Parkhurst’s first principle: freedom is the earned outcome of responsibility. That distinction matters enormously in how you design a school. The balance between freedom and responsibility is a crucial one.

Helen Parkhurst’s insight: give children real responsibility for their learning and they instinctively seek the best way to achieve it. Not a theory. Alongside her mentor, Maria Montessori, she actually watched it happen in her classroom over a century ago. No tests or exams, minimal discipline.