How to hide that you're a mean ol' nasty supporter of direct and explicit instruction: A Thread.

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1. Tell everyone how you ask your students lots of questions - Rosenshine suggested it, afterall. Since they confuse di with one-way lecturing you'll immediately throw them off the scent.

2. Talk about how you tell stories. Stories are psychologically privileged, says Willingham, and everyone can appreciate a good story.

3. Instead of saying "knowledge" say "understandings," as in, "My students are developing powerful understandings in History right now." For whatever reason the difference between these two words means a whole lot to people.

4. Instead of mentioning explicit instruction or di, talk about guidance. You don't actually mean "guide on the side" but they'll never know.

5. Talk a lot about feedback. You know that a whole group approach to feedback can be extremely efficient and creates a sense of teamwork as everyone works together towards a common goal, but... best leave that part out.

6. Swap the word "teaching" for "facilitating learning." Or, better yet, talk a lot about you're learning with them.

Repeat after me: "Today I facilitated the co-construction of learning experiences with my students"

7. Talk about projects. You don't mind a well-structured application task at the end of a unit once students have gained sufficient expertise, so when that day comes be sure to take lots of pictures of kids hunched over tables gluing things!

8. Certain words conjure up different meanings to different people. Saying "active learning" could mean cognitively active or behaviorally active. Just be super vague and they'll think you're all about hands-on discovery learning.

9. Another is "multiple modalities," which they'll take to mean "learning styles" even though you just mean combining words with visuals. Yet another is "desirable difficulties" which they'll conflate with "productive failure."

10. Use the metaphor of scaffolding as much as possible. Explicit instruction is all about erecting supports and gradually fading them away, and for whatever reason the word "scaffolding" isn't taboo in education. Yet.

11. Modeling. Making thinking visible. Activating prior knowledge. Think-alouds. Deep-dives. These are all preferable to saying teaching.

God help you if you're ever caught delivering a clear and succinct explanation at the front of the room /end