“Sage on the Stage” vs. “Guide on the Side” Education Philosophy

I expect most educators are familiar with this concept: You can be a “sage on the stage” in your classroom, using your expertise to share knowledge with your students through lectures and presentations. Or you can be a “guide on the side,” using your skills to engage your students in first-hand learning through projects and experiences.
I also get the sense that teachers can be sensitive when discussing this dichotomy or even thinking about how they fit into it. It makes perfect sense that it could be a touchy issue: Most teachers are very proud of what they do, and we can react quickly if we feel people are judging how we choose to teach and manage our classrooms. (That’s certainly true for me.) Nevertheless, I think it’s worthwhile to take a stab at outlining my own thoughts on the sage vs. guide dichotomy—and maybe it might even spark productive discussion!


The best path we can all follow as educators is to actively question how we interact with our students and what methods will serve them best in any given situation. The “sage on the stage” and “guide on the side” ideas may be clichés, but I think they’re still useful concepts to help us consider how we act in the classroom and how we can choose the appropriate approach in different circumstances. I plan to keep striving to be the best sage I can be and the best guide I can be—whether I’m on the stage, off to the side, or deep in the trenches with my students.

In the world of education, sage on the stage is a phrase that’s sometimes used to describe the all-too-familiar scene of the knowledgable teacher delivering lectures to passive students who memorize information for the sake of spitting it back out again on testing day.  This method of teaching assumes that the child is an empty vessel, waiting to be filled with information, and doesn’t give the child much opportunity to think for themselves.  As you can probably imagine, the problem with this type of instruction is that while the learner may appear to “know” information, he or she doesn’t really learn all that much.
In order to really understand something, humans need the motivation to generate knowledge and meaning through their own experiences, rather than regurgitate information that’s been fed to them.  Back to the world of education, this active form of learning is often referred to as constructivism, a learning theory supported by instructors (or parents) who act as facilitators rather than teachers.  You’ll know a constructivist environment when you see discussion, analysis, prediction, problem solving and posing, active learners, and facilitators who ask open-ended questions.

Huh?  But I’m a parent, not a teacher!

Right!  But there’s a world of research on how constructivist learning environments can foster creative thinking skills, skills that are critical for children to embody in order to thrive in this ever-changing world, and we have the perfect opportunity to steal some good ideas from the world of education and put them to work in our own homes.

Putting it into action

• Take a step back. If you find yourself on the “teaching soapbox,” find opportunities to be the guide on the side, rather than the sage on the stage.
  
• Be an active listener. Listen to your child, and respond to what they’re interested in.  If they aren’t yet talking, follow their gaze and respond with descriptive dialogue about the object/s they’re looking at.  For example, “I see you’re looking at the big, red ball.  Would you like me to bring it to you?  What do you think about it?  Oh, you’re feeling it.  It’s soft, isn’t it?”
  
• Ask open-ended questions such as “tell me about this picture,” “what do you think will happen now?” or “I wonder what we could make with this play dough?”  This will empower your child to think independently, come up with novel conclusions, and express his or her ideas.
  
• Follow their lead. If your child takes an interest in the birds outside the window, paint a birdhouse together, watch videos of different kinds of birds singing on YouTube, buy a bag of birdseed to feed some birds, make bird noises together, find books about birds at the library, etc.