Universal Principles for Learning?

There are so many things we, as educators, can agree on. Here is my go at that list: kids need to do to learn; doing things with care means those things get done well, and this supports deep learning; it's hard to learn in a classroom that is chaotic; feeling comfortable, and even liking, those in the class helps learning; teachers, and the teaching they do, matters.

When I think about my own practice, these are the guiding principles. But, and this is important, even within them there is scope for a variety of approaches and strategies to bring them to life. For those to work well, they must reflect who that teacher is.

I remember a piece of advice I was given when I was first starting out as a teacher: go and observe as wide a range of teaching styles as possible, and then next lesson try and teach that way. Of course, this was back when there was less existential hyperbole about teaching approaches, and so it was accepted that variety was good and all had their pluses and minuses. It is such a shame this has been, to a large degree, lost. Because here is what that did to me: it helped me find out who I was in a classroom. Some felt right, some didn't. The slow, experimental process that advice made me go through helped to make me a teacher who thought about my own presence in the room because I had direct experience of noticing the different kinds of learning different approaches elicited in learners. And, crucially, which of those (in reality, which mix) is the one that helped me make those guiding principles present in the room: kids doing, with care, in a room that fosters focus and a sense of belonging, and where what I have to offer can be passed on effectively.