On Monday, I begin to teach Grade 6 for the first time. I have spent the last 5 days observing the students and how they move as a class. Getting to know them on a personal level, learning about their interests, habits, needs and learning styles. Today was the last day to take it all in with “future teacher” eyes. To watch from the wings and get a handle on who I was going to be teaching and learning with. All my anxieties were allayed at the end of today, because today was, simply put, the best day!
It all started with my associate’s brother, an electrical engineer who does super top-secret work designing tracking cameras for military aviation, came in to consolidate their unit on Air and Flight. I witnessed a miracle. 19 faces sat in rapture and while he spoke, they didn’t say a word. The normally chatty bunch sat utterly attentive and engaged. It helps that this engineer was extremely hilarious and wonderful with kids, but I digress. The students discussed in detail what drag, lift, thrust and all sorts of other wonderful airplane parts were. They then applied concepts of air, current, force, wind, pressure systems, compression, speed, temperature to all sorts of other airborne objects. One student, a particularly introverted sort, eagerly raised her hand to ask if what he was describing was the Bernouli principle at work. This question, from this student, sent shivers down my spine and sent a huge smile to my face. This goes to show you that if you get at what the student’s are really into, and have a great way to deliver the content, and enact student’s “expertise” - the learning experience will be amazing!
But the miracles didn’t stop there. The students were in such a good mood that they asked me to join them in a game of four-square on the black top at nutrition break. I felt truly in with the in-crowd!
In Literacy block we worked together to create a persuasive speech on why dog owner’s and dog walkers should scoop the poop. I quickly learned that Grade 6 students love to discuss the intricacies of “bowel excretion” and “intestinal waste” and “fecal matter” - their favourite persuasive writing minilesson was undoubtedly on doublespeak. Using the gradual release of responsibility we prepared them to start work on their own persuasive speech on a topic of their choice that they would eventually be presenting at a school-wide, and then district-wide speech competition. One student diligently wrote an entire informational speech on the box jellyfish, Asia and Australia’s most venomous creature. When I complimented his knowledge on the subject, interesting topic and use of detail, but provided the feedback that he should choose a topic that he can “persuade” someone one way or the other about, he retorted with a surprising response. He explained that he is uncomfortable with public speaking and that he purposely chose an informational speech instead of persuasive speech because he didn’t want to be chosen to compete beyond the class in front of a large audience. In an attempt to encourage him, I told him that if his speech was powerful enough, he may get chosen anyway. To which he uttered under his breath, “in that case, I will have to go to Asia, go swimming, and get stung by a box jellyfish, won’t I?” I told him to write about why students should not be forced to take part in speech competitions. He then came up with a myriad of reasons including differentiated instruction, choice assignments and the fact that “true” Tribes schools offer the “right to pass”. Persuasive.
Later in math, during the getting started group huddle, we were discussing what we knew already about transformational geometry. As my associate described primary vocabulary versus junior vocabulary (turn/rotation, flip/reflection, etc.) another rather shy female student raised her hand and earnestly asked, “what is the practical, everyday application to knowing this?” Her tone was not bored or frustrated that we were “forcing” her to learn, but rather very serious, in mathematician mode, searching for a relevant and meaningful connection to her world. I was impressed, to say the least, that she knew it was okay to ask this question and that she felt comfortable enough to ask for clarity to help the concept gel for her. That is the sign of a great math community of learners. The analogy that my associate chose to help enlighten the student, was the frustration many face when trying to assemble something likely called Iktorp from IKEA and how wonderful geometry and spatial sense really can be in that situation. This opened the floodgates to a variety of student’s own hilarious anecdotes of how their parents had had near meltdowns during such attempts. Laughing about geometry on a Friday afternoon, how glorious is that?
And finally, when filling out agendas and discussing weekend plans with the class at the end of the day, one student exclaimed, “I feel like I wasn’t even at school today! Like my brain was at gymnastics all day!” I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face on my drive home.
Image by Courtney Carmody via Flickr
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