A teacher reflects on The Modern Teacher Spring Week, April 2025

I joined the course as a guest, with a ‘scientific’ approach to teaching: When something didn’t work, I’d ask what input variables needed to be changed to get a different outcome. If a lesson didn’t go well, I’d try to work out, very logically, whether explanations were clear enough or if there was sufficient scaffolding and challenge. To try and improve my teaching, I was very focused on what was coming from me, and for some reason this wasn’t working.

I finished the week with a completely different perspective on how to approach teaching, to approach it as an artist, not a scientist. I now think more about what emotions, feelings and experiences I can bring through my teaching that will connect with students at a specific point of their development, so that they really feel connected and therefore interested and engaged in what they’re learning about.

It has now been 3 weeks since Spring Week, and this change in approach in mindset has transformed not just my teaching, but the learning of the students. Where I previously spent hours crafting ‘perfectly’ structured, scaffolded and appropriately challenging lessons, I now spend a lot more time bringing engaging stories, scenarios and creative ideas that aren’t just interesting to me or others, but speak to and resonate with the specific children in class. The lessons I now create are born from an artistic rather than a scientific process. The difference in both my teaching experience and the student’s learning experience is profound. 

Adam Dyson, Norwich Steiner School, UK