This week, I asked a friend/ geometry pro/ retired math teacher/ political campaigner, Evie, to consider helping me lesson plan and actually see me teach it out. I'm not sure what prompted me, and I wasn't worried that my classes were falling to pieces. I guess I wanted another perspective and someone to help me stretch.
On a lovely Saturday morning, I went to her house where I set my textbook next to a breakfast spread of Irish soda bread, boiled eggs, brie, blackberries, honey, and coffee. It was as wonderful as it sounds. We started chatting about the law of sines and her eyes lit up as she scanned through her memory of massive archives. We spent talking about how to show a derivation of the law of sines. Evie suggested I show a statement and ask the students if it was true or false. Brilliant. One of the challenging things about showing a proof is getting a gauge of if students are actually following you or not. This was a easy check. We talked about having a problem that could use the law of sines but could also be found without it. I decided to turn it into my class challenge problem. I really gained a lot from her insight, the way she thought about things, and the way she was able to connect ideas. She came to my last period class to observe it all happen in action. I think it's a whole different beast to plan a lesson out and then to watch it unfold in real life. During class, I got hung up on the few students who were behind or kept interrupting me as we went over the derivation. I felt spent by the end of the period. Evie had gone to different groups, giving them hints. It was a nice to have another body in the room, especially one who had helped plan the same lesson. She came up to me at the end of class and simply said, "That was great!" Perspective. I had been stressing about so many little things, and didn't really get a chance to enjoy what was going on that was great. Students brains were fried! I had done my job. They were at max capacity! Some kids came from an exhausting PE class ready to turn off, but they kept pushing on. Some students deeply understood the derivation. Some students had light bulb moments. Not everyone, but hey. I'm not Ash Ketchum here.. A retired teacher saying "This lesson went great" let me take a step back and be thankful. So much work had gone into getting my class to be willing to engage in challenges, work together, turn their brains on. I had forgotten about it all. I realized I have so much to learn from people who've walked the path. What took Evie seconds to think of would have taken me hours. And maybe one day I'll be able to plan great lessons in minutes, but it got me thinking--- I wish teaching was more collaborative. That it included more of the HEART stuff asking questions more like "Are students struggling?", "Are they thinking conceptually?", "Can they make sense of this?" instead of things like "We're covering questions 1-10 on unit 8.2" Even better, if we could watch our lessons as we've created them unfold in real life. That sounds like good PD to me.
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I had gone to D.C. to visit a friend last weekend, and while I enjoyed my time there, I came home on Sunday afternoon and knew I was behind. No groceries, no meals prepared, no laundry cleaned, no lesson planned, no grading complete. A lot of no's and Monday was coming fast. Of course, I was overwhelmed by all of this and decided the sensible thing to do is shut down and watch hours of Netflix. Am I proud of this? No. Should I be less harsh on my students who do the same thing? Maybe.
Monday morning, I woke up at 4:00 AM after procrastinating my Sunday away. I quickly prepared a lunch for the day and then sat at my computer. I have a 100 minute class to account for and. one. blank. screen. I was introducing trigonometry that day. Most of my lesson that I had created needed me to guide my students through concepts and notes. It was going to be a boring day for my students. I teach four sections of geometry. I started teaching the lesson and one of my classes was continuously disruptive and challenging to work with. I wasn't in a great mood either because I'd been up since 4 AM. In the last five minutes of class, I shrugged and said, "If you don't want to learn, fine. I'm done." Five minutes passed without me doing anything. They left. I felt... like a horrible teacher. The next day I decided to go to some lecture on geometry and space by a renowned math professor who had a math thing named after him. I had tried to get a few students to come with me, but since I found out about it last minute, they were unable to make it. It's all for the best though. I understood... zero percent of what was said. What was worse, the professor literally read a wall of text at us. I say literally, because there was literally a PowerPoint with the exact same thing written on a giant screen behind him. I looked around at the math undergrads, grads, professors, and teachers. 100% of them were bored to tears and trying to look moderately polite. All of us hoping that it would end soon. Slide 48 of 62. 1 hour in. I secretly high-fived myself for bringing my textbook so I could plan the next day. I quickly went home, glad that I took none of my students. I started the next day telling my students that I didn't like the previous day. They were disruptive. It was hard to get started. Transitions were rough. My kids looked at me annoyed. Then I said, "I'd like to apologize as well. I went to a math lecture yesterday where the professor talked nonsense to us for 90 minutes, and the audience members were all in math related fields. It was really hard to stay focused. In fact, I didn't. Now, I don't think the lecture wasn't QUITE as bad. (Some students scoffed). BUT, I also don't think it was fair for me to just talk at you for 100 minutes. Today, we're going to be doing a lot more problems. You'll spend time trying to understand and not just trying to jot notes down." Some students looked surprise as at an apology. Others nodded. Either way, I had them bought in. My mentor came into my classes a few minutes later. He left me this note: I got to spend some time reading notes from my journal from last year and some of the difficulties I was facing then. One thing that caught my eye was the word patience. I'm not naturally a patient person. In fact, I watch my students work with each other and some of them are more patient with each other than I am. But I do think that I am more patient now than I am before I started teaching.
I get my patience from empathy. Trying to put myself in my students' shoes and understanding that my version of how time should be spent is often not my students' version. I've also found the most success with classroom discipline and student relationships when I'm in this space. I remember about a full year ago, I had been struggling with a student, Juan, who spent 90% of his time in groups talking about non-math related things. He was also failing. I had conversations with his parents, individually talked to him, tutored him one-on-one. And there he was. Period 8. Failing away. As I watched him talk about the newest sports cars instead of functions, I saw myself get frustrated and angry. Why wouldn't he take advantage of the time in class instead of constantly wasting it??? I'm not sure what act of God made me change my perspective, but I suddenly was struck with a thought, "This poor boy did not have the skills not to be distracted when he was with friends, as hard as he might try." I talked to him outside and he looked annoyed. "Great another talk with the teacher telling me how bad I am." This time I said, "I know that this grade you have in my class is not what you want. You've told me yourself you don't want to be failing this class. Be honest with me- what needs to happen so that you can do better in class." He look up, surprised even. This wasn't part of the script. He responded, "Well, I think I do better when I sit by myself." I said, "you know, it takes a lot of self-awareness and self-discipline to say something like that. I'll tell you what. These next couple days, let's have you sit on your own to see how you do." I remember after that conversation, he was SO focused. It was like a light had switched on. I was so much more patient with Juan after I was able to be empathetic. To place myself in his shoes, I was able to not hurry him along or punish him for something he couldn't do. Patience isn't like a reservoir that gets depleted until I'm drained of everything. It's like a muscle that sometimes wears down, but can get stronger. *Names have been changed |
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