I once was asked (no option, really) to spend my prep hour emergency-substituting for an absent teacher. I know this happens quite frequently these days, but it was less common at the time so of course I had a lot of tasks planned for my prep. Teaching five sections with three different lab science courses all at full capacity (~35 students each) will make those daily prep hours seem like lifelines.
Anyway, I was especially not thrilled because this particular class of freshmen had a sort of laissez faire teacher who didn’t bother much with classroom management; the students were used to pretty much doing whatever they wanted and things could get wild in there. Of course, I could find no seating chart at the teacher’s station and the lesson plan for the day was a well-worn video with fill-in worksheet.
I knew my normal chill vibe was not going to cut it here. I had no relationship with these students, and they were anticipating even more freedom than usual with a sub in the room. I needed to channel an alter ego to make any progress with this group, like maybe the love child cross of Mary Poppins and Clint Eastwood.
Nope, no bathroom passes. No, you can’t move from your seat. Wake up, find a pencil, hush up, get your worksheet ready, here we go with this riveting film!
I am no expert on the film’s topic, but happily I know more than the 9th graders. And I can see what information they need for the worksheet, so I do my usual thing and hit the pause button regularly to start asking questions, or checking in on their understanding, or pretending to get confused and talking through the problem. We make sure everyone has heard the critical information they need to answer each question on the worksheet before proceeding with the video. Pretty soon, students are participating! They are answering my questions, helping each other, and paying attention to the assignment.
I have been the grumpiest, sternest version of myself with these students, but I have not abandoned them. At the end of class, everyone turns in their work and they don’t seem to resent having a calm, productive day. Several of them ask if I can come back and be their teacher!
It has gone better than I expected. I think about this. Students don’t want an out-of-control classroom, no matter how hard they seem to work to have one. They would actually rather have a grumpy strict teacher than one who lets everyone just goof off all day. They want to learn. They want teachers who show them that the material they are learning is worth their time.
If we – subject-area experts, at the secondary level – don’t seem interested in what we are asking students to do, how can we expect them to be? I know that if I had popped the video into the machine, handed out the worksheets, and let it run while I tried to grade papers, the class would have had an entirely different reaction and the student experience would have been completely different, even given the same exact assignment. Our enthusiasm and how we design each class day’s interactions makes a world of difference.
Sometimes it can be hard to maintain that energy as a teacher. One year, I was assigned only one course so I taught the same lesson five times in a row each day. It was like a year of performance acting, keeping that spark of enthusiasm still lit for my 7th period class, who deserved the same excitement that my first class of the day received. Teaching takes so much physical and mental energy, and this is one of the reasons why.
If I were in charge of teacher preparation programs, I would add an acting class to the required curriculum. It would be great for people who maybe haven’t stood up in front of an audience before, or might need practice adjusting voice projection or physical presence. It’s important to be your authentic self as a teacher, but there is also a performance component that can be very helpful to master. The ability to access, draw out and present appropriate aspects of our selves to students, together with thoughtful lesson design, makes us more effective in our roles as teachers.
SciencEdLife 