Published: November 6, 2006

The Kid Who's Sleeping in Row 3, Desk 2

As part of a new partnership, teachermagazine.org is publishing this regular column by members of the Teacher Leaders Network , a professional community of accomplished educators dedicated to sharing ideas and expanding the influence of teachers.

I think teachers can often fall into the trap of teaching content instead of children. Howard Gardner says, "When students cannot learn the way we teach them, we must teach them the way they learn." That's a powerful statement. But even if we know, in theory, that differentiating our instruction to match the needs of each student is an important key to success, it's still challenging in practice.

Many of us have the attitude that "we will put the information out there, and if they don't get it, it's on them." We tend to be resistant to the whole idea of differentiation. I believe it starts with the teacher's attitude and expectations. We've got to be willing to entertain the idea that not all students will learn the same way or at the same rate, nor will every student respond every time. We've got to be willing to keep trying...