I didn't teach today, just observed Ms. Wanda teach the other two classes that I will be teaching for the rest of the quarter-- Freshman Bible and Senior Speech.
This woman is one amazing teacher. Watching her today reminded me of everything I loved about being her student. Having now had the experience of teaching a class (at OHA) I recognize the genius of her management and techniques with new eyes. Let me tell you about what she does.
Meeting Disruptions
You know the kid I mentioned in my last entry who I labeled a "helpless handraiser?" (It's a good thing he doesn't know I called him that, lol, he'd really say I was racist. Everything, and I mean everything, from his test scores to his rumbling stomach was termed racist.) He's in this class too, and he's a double handful of gunpowder. I'm going to call him Firecracker for the blog.
Ms. Wanda returned a graded test to them at the beginning of the period and Firecracker immediately started waving his hand. "Hey, Ms. Wanda!" he blurted before she had a chance to call on him, "How come I got a 50/85 on my memory verse?"
With characteristic deliberation, she allowed a slow smile to spread across her face before she responded good-naturedly, "You know."
He made no further comment.
In this class, Ms. Wanda has been having the students keep an Interactive Notebook. This is genius. (You can check out this site for info and examples.) Basically it is a notebook where the students complete both left and right brained activities for each lesson. The left side is the input side, where they take notes, write research, etc. The right side is for output, where they complete some sort of right brained activity expressing their understanding of the concepts learned. (She showed me some of the right-brain stuff they had done last semester. For the lesson on Noah she had them work in groups to create a radio ad as though they were a modern day Noah warning the world of the coming judgment. Absolute ingenuity!! They did an incredible job too, with scary music in the background and everything.)
This semester, she is switching from having them do their interactive notebooks in a spiral-bound journal to a 3-ring binder so they can easily organize and add pages, etc. Office Depot didn't have enough black notebooks, so she was forced to get two white ones. And wouldn't you know it, EVERYBODY wanted a white notebook.
Kids. Lol.
It didn't phase Ms. Wanda for a minute. "All right, everybody that wants a white notebook put your hand up. Pick a number between one and ten."
Hands shot up and they began shouting out their numbers. As soon as somebody said Ms. Wanda's magic number, she unceremoniously handed over the white notebook and went on calmly passing out black notebooks to everyone else.
I gotta remember that one.
Wait Time and Eliciting Real Thinking
Ms. Wanda is also the master of asking thought-provoking questions and allowing wait time. She asks a question that gets little wheels turning, and then simply shuts her mouth and waits however long it takes until someone answers. She wants to know what they're thinking, and that's the only way to get it out of them. They are accustomed to this, and they know that she's not going to just ask a question, pause a moment, and then hurry on with the answer. So they listen to the question! And they formulate incredibly thoughtful answers.
A good example of this was in the beginning moments of Senior Speech.
"Why do you think we spend a semester teaching you speech?" she asked.
Awkward silence hung for several moments, while some students looked at her blankly, one ran his finger back and forth across the front edge of his desk, and a third carefully emptied a package of powdered energy drink into her water bottle. Teachers hate awkward silence, but she refused to rush on.
"You all are still the un-talkingest bunch in the school," she smiled. "Haven't changed a bit!"
They grinned and acknowledged the truth of her words. She repeated the question, waited another minute (Yes. Minute. An unbelievably agonizing amount of wait time for a teacher!) and they started shooting answers. Good answers.
Today in Freshman Bible she was establishing a framework for studying Exodus, and she wanted to make sure they understood what "Type" and "Antitype" were. Rather than slapping it into her powerpoint and just telling them, she split them into groups and asked them to write her a definition of the two words. They gave her blank stares, but got right to work figuring it out. (Firecracker bounced all the way across the room to beg for my iPhone so he could look it up. This kid!) Of course, she floated between the groups and ended up giving most of them the definition herself, but the genius of it is that they were eager to hear it from her because she had caused them to need to know it. I bet they're going to be a whole lot more likely to remember it too.
Making the Best Use of Class Time
Ms. Wanda spends very little time in class telling the students things or giving lectures. She believes in drawing the students to think for themselves, and recognizes that they will not if she is merely telling them what she wants them to know. She has been studying a technique called the "Inverted Classroom" which theorizes that if kids came to class already familiar with the topic/content of the lesson, the class time could be spent in activities which help them get beyond just the mere knowledge level and into actually assimilating that knowledge practically. To accomplish this she is assigning them a reading assignment for homework along with an analytical activity which will get them into the content before they even get to class.
Today, since we will be talking about Moses next class period, she assigned them to read a chapter about him in Patriarchs and Prophets and create a T chart on the left side of their interactive notebook comparing Moses before herding sheep with Moses after herding sheep. Then when they come to class on Wednesday, we'll start with a discussion of their T-charts, and the whole "lecture" part of the class will already have been taught, after the discussion we can start right in with some of those good thought-provoking questions and take it right to the next level-- application.
Affirmation
But my very favorite thing about Ms. Wanda is her compliments. Genuine. Heartfelt. Specific. Frequent. They always made me want to build the moon, stand on my head, or just do anything for her, and I can see they have the same effect on these students. A couple examples:
After she passed back the test: "It was obvious that you all learned quite a few things!”
After they struggled through the discussion about what "type" and "antitype" mean: “Good job! You guys wrestled through that really well.”
There is nothing demeaning or belittling in her tone when she says "Good job." Her tone is warm and encouraging and she smiles like she is just delighted in them.
I want to learn how to do that.
Flexibility
As we walked out the door, side by side, I felt a sense of awe that was almost discouraging. She's so good!! So with it. So prepared. Always has a thought-provoking response. I thought of my own experience teaching last semester when I never felt truly prepared for a class period. I would do my best to wing something each day, often making up the homework assignment on the fly at the end of class. I didn't have a neat assignment schedule like other teachers. My spontaneous personality just doesn't seem to fit the organization side of teaching at all. Would that doom me to fail as a teacher?
She turned to me with a chuckle, almost as though she was reading my thoughts. "Well, Beth, you just saw me wing Senior Speech."
"You? Winged a class?"
She smiled her cute little slow smile. "Yeah, I just figured out what I was going to do for the homework assignment as you all were discussing the Gettysburg address."
A surge of hope shot through me.
"I never try to make an assignment schedule the first year I teach a class," she told me. Her classes evolve with her students. She is constantly assessing where they are at, how well they are comprehending, and what will best meet their current needs. She works the core standards in just fine.
Maybe I will do okay at this after all...
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