Teach Like a Champion

As with so many things in my life, I planned on visiting this blog every day and posting my whimsical thoughts about teaching. It didn't happen.  I got sucked into that swirling vortex of first week of school madness and this is the first time I'm catching a breath.  Plus, I had a tooth out last Friday and for some reason I am the rare, odd person whose tooth didn't heal properly.

I have harbored all sorts of useful thoughts about my teaching that I could have recorded on this blog.  I had ideas about refining lesson plans and tweaking certain activities that I might have shared, but alas, they slipped away like sand hills in the tide, and now I'm left having to piece them back together.

The first day of students went off without a hitch.  They filed in and followed (all except one stray child) my bidding.  That stray child decided to whisper incessantly to a neighbor.  This is not unusual the first day of school, but it always surprises me and sets me on edge. Why don't they know to immediately respect my benevolent authority?  I should be an old pro at this.  Nothing should phase me.  I should be more like my husband, a man who can walk without flinching into an icy lake like a placid buddha.   This day, however, I think I had finally learned my lesson.  I have been reading, Teach Like a Champion, by Doug Lemov (featured above left-find out more at:  uncommonschools.org). It is a practical how to about teaching, a rare book that doesn't spend pages on dry philosophy.  It cuts to the chase and models concrete classroom methodology rather than pedagogy.  I know my kids and Doug Lemov reinforces this.  They cannot bear a public walk of shame.  I took the talker into my room as inconspicuously as possible.  I already had a heads up that he had some issues last year and seems to have started this year with a better attitude.



"Hey,"  I soothed, "I want you to know that you seem like a pretty nice kid to me.  I've noticed that you have a good attitude and that you participate in class.  I also know that we are new to each other.  You don't know me well and I don't know you, but you seem okay."  He stared at me.  Swallowed with wide eyes.  "I noticed you happen to be chatting a lot with your neighbor.  Is that because you guys are pretty good friends?"
  
He confirmed with an emphatic nod.
  
"Okay, I said.  I know how that goes.  It's sometimes hard to resist.  When I'm talking it's distracting to have you guys talking too.  Would it help if I move you apart, so that you're not right next to each other?"  He was quick to agree that it would.  This took me back.  Maybe the opening compliment helped, because the typical response is a shrug, especially from a student with an indifferent attitude towards school.  "Okay, that's great," I continued.  "I'm really looking forward to having you in class.  You seem like you're going to be a good addition to the class and you have a good attitude."  He smiled and bounced off back to the playground.

 Phewww, that went over better than expected.  Thanks, Doug Lemov.  Make it quick with some dignity.  I knew all this before.  Teaching actually is brain surgery.  It's hard work. It's a balancing act.  The key is to convince students to allow you to have control.  This is done by setting expectations early with firmness and kindness.  It is much easier to say don't lose your cool than it is to practice it.  If you have systems set up, the classroom hums.  Well, I could go on about this, but if you're a teacher, check out Teach Like a Champion.  It's worth your time.

 This past week my curriculum has begun to take on more focus, like I have cleaned my lens.  For the longest time, I have given lip service to the philosophy of teaching language arts as a set of reading, writing, thinking, and speaking skills.  It is not about a certain novel, it is the skills that we teach them in reading any novel that they will take with them to the next grade and on to life. Though I said this was how I was teaching English, in actuality I was jumping around without insuring mastery of any particular skill.  This year I am going to make sure that my students have mastered some of the core skills they need to be better readers, writers and speakers.  We will work on everything from making text connections to what are five techniques to writing better description. We will work on using contextual clues to learn vocabulary.  It does matter what I use for content, but who really remembers what happened in Act V scene two of Romeo and Juliet?  What we remember are the personal connections we made to the story at the time we read it.  It does no good to drill students on the content of a story or make them memorize lists of spelling words if they don't have the fundamental skills to analyze that story, or to stop themselves mid draft to see if they spelled that word correctly.

This class will be organized into useful skills, by golly.  I pledge it here and now.  I also pledge, I think sort of, to make notes for myself of what I want to include in this blog throughout the week.  Maybe they will be scrawled on napkins and kleenex, but at least I will maintain a few of my fleeting flashes of what might well be brilliant, or maybe not.
  
That's what's on my teaching mind this week.  What's on yours?