At the start of any new venture, it’s a good idea to set some goals. I suggest one overriding goal for every teacher for the 2012- 2013 school year is to inspire students as well as teach them. 

In an NCLB-crazed world, this sounds almost quaint. 95% of the discussion about education revolves around curriculum—what to teach, how to teach, and how to test the impact of curriculum delivery. A generation of teachers has grown up on a daily diet of one message: If information can just be packaged properly and turned into a list of standards, and then relayed to students in the proper dosage, test scores will rise and all will be well.  

I’m a fan of standards as general guidelines and organizing tools that help us form a consensus on what an educated person ought to know—or, at least, what we currently think that person should know. So teaching facts, concepts, and academic skills are very much part of the job.  

But life has its tidal flows. Arguably, it was necessary for the accountability movement, NCLB, and high stakes testing to rush in to fill the gaps left from the 1990s, when too little attention was paid to outcomes and all students were not taught and supported equally. With the advent of Common Core Standards, project based learning, and a renewed emphasis on inquiry, creativity, whole child education, and 21^st century skills, however, the tide is moving the opposite direction. The packaged curriculum will no longer work—and neither will teaching that lacks inspiration.

I say this for two reasons. First, education has moved swiftly in direction of expecting students to practice and master skillful behaviors related to life management and workplace requirements. Teaching behavior and peak performance rather than facts and concepts requires the services of a skillful coach who can motivate and inspire. Many educators, including top leadership, cling to the notion that skills can be boxed up and taught like the causes of the Civil War or the elements of the photosynthesis cycle. Nothing is further from reality, as companies (which spend millions of dollars trying to get employees to talk successfully with one another) or marriage therapists (who patiently guide spouses through repeated attempts to ‘actively listen’ to one another) will attest. In fact, so-called ‘soft’ skills are really the ‘hard’ skills in life—much harder, as most people know, than preparing for multiple choice tests or writing a short essay.

To succeed in teaching skills, teachers now need to address issues such as personal values, attitude, and intrinsic elements of students’ personalities. For example, teaching students to collaborate in teams sounds easy—until one realizes that it’s difficult to succeed in groups unless one has a healthy attitude toward diversity. That’s called empathy, and it’s not something we ordinarily teach. Similarly, effective interpersonal communication is rooted in self confidence, assertiveness, and self-awareness. 

This is doubly important because education persists in mislabeling personal strengths—or ‘dispositions’, as psychologists define them—as ‘skills’ or ‘habits of mind.’ Resiliency, curiosity, and perserverance are commonly included in this category. These truly are the internal assets necessary to sail through an increasingly non-linear, surprising world. But they originate deep within a person, a product of genes, experience, and willpower. None are easily accessible—and they do not respond to direct instruction. 

So how do you, as a teacher, adjust to the new goal of tapping the inner strengths of your students? The good news is that the ‘how-to’ on inspiring students is not really a mystery. An expansive literature on positive psychology, human performance, and organizational effectiveness has shown us the factors that liberate top performance and encourage purposeful engagement.  

The more sobering news is that education is not yet prepared to fully support your efforts. But here are four steps that will aim you in the right direction as the 2012 – 2013 school year opens up:

• Redefine your professional obligations as a 21^st century teacher. Keep in mind the meaning of inspiration: To fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence; to inspire confidence in others; to influence or impel in a positive way; and to generate a positive view of the future. Mix the information with the vision. Teach the person, not the stuff. Make it your priority to leave your students next June with a better sense of self, values that matter, a can-do attitude, and the certainty that they can handle the future.

• Examine your model of teaching and learning. The original root of education—educare, ‘to draw from within’—lies buried under the accumulated mass of education’s infatuation with behaviorism, neuroscience, all manner of educational ‘sciences’, and the tendency of our current society to believe in the supremacy of the input-output model of life. This behaviorist model works perfectly for standardized curriculum; but it does not tap the entrepreneurial core that elicits the creativity, commitment, and resourcefulness we want from students.

• Pay close attention to classroom culture. Plants bloom best under the right conditions; so do human beings. Set up norms, not rules. Remember that care, in the form of a positive mentor relationship, respect for individual student aspirations, and a belief in each student’s desire to learn, is your foremost teaching strategy. Be an active, empathetic listener. Model curiosity. Know that you broadcast your feelings to students—and be aware of what you are feeling each day.

• Use the tools of inquiry—and trust the result. Starting with questions, using inquiry, or designing a project around a compelling challenge are great tools. This is the coming mantra of education. But the tools must be accompanied by your belief that valuable learning will come out of the experience that may not fit the standards or address the end of course tests. Yes, prepare students for the tests; that’s your job and your paycheck may depend on it. But plenty of opportunities exist to turn students loose on learning, with good, supportive guidelines that aim them in the direction of the aha! and the revelation. The more you trust your students, the more your students will access their deeper selves and the ultimate source of their success.

Thom Markham is the author of the Project Based Learning Design and Coaching Guide: Expert tools for inquiry and innovation for K-12 educators, and the principal author of the Handbook for Project Based Learning, published by the Buck Institute for Education. Download Tools for PBL on his website, www.thommarkham.com or contact him at thom@thommarkham.com.