A Master Teacher At Work
It was one of those life-affirming moments. Sometimes I go through my day and am never in the right place to see excellence, but this day I was in the right place at the right time. A wonderful 2nd grade teacher was reading to her class from Shel Silverstein's post-humous collection, Runny Babbit. As the title implies, the nouns all have their first sound reversed - a great listening and phonics tool. Annie has been teaching a few years, and has honed her skills to a level of excellence. She has been reading to kids for many years, and has learned to sight read with no preparation at all. I was privileged to be present when she was reading Killy the Bid to her classroom, and, well, you have to listen in to hear what happened:
Listen in - about 15 seconds
Admittedly, the sound file is a recreation for other teachers. The point of the recreation was to teach the other teachers that no matter how much experience one has, it is necessary to pre-read the material =:-)
My main thought however has to do with the event in the classroom. Annie read the material and did not skip a beat. I had to turn my back and take a deep breath so I wouldn't burst out laughing, but Annie kept going through the rest of the poem like a master. The faux pas went right over the head of the kids. After reading the poem, she went through her regular excercise of having the kids say the words in the proper way. When she got to that particular line, she simply said that one herself and moved on. The kids were fantastic and simply went with the flow, trusting their teacher completely.
Annie kept a straight face the entire time, and it wasn't till later when the kids had left the class that she burst out laughing. Excellent teaching, IMHO. Others might say excellent acting. Well, in many ways teaching is acting. Teachers are human, and have bad days like the rest of humanity - but the kids must see you upbeat and enthusiastic to get the learning goals across. So yes, there's lots of acting involved with teaching.
That moment will be a source of joy for me for a long time. I have moments of joy from students quite often, but I have to admit it's seldom I've experienced one from a teacher this year. Last year I had the privilege of being in Annie's class quite often and learned to love her teaching and the natural humor she uses to help kids learn. This year I am not in her class very often, but I'm glad I was on that day =:-)
Listen in - about 15 seconds
Admittedly, the sound file is a recreation for other teachers. The point of the recreation was to teach the other teachers that no matter how much experience one has, it is necessary to pre-read the material =:-)
My main thought however has to do with the event in the classroom. Annie read the material and did not skip a beat. I had to turn my back and take a deep breath so I wouldn't burst out laughing, but Annie kept going through the rest of the poem like a master. The faux pas went right over the head of the kids. After reading the poem, she went through her regular excercise of having the kids say the words in the proper way. When she got to that particular line, she simply said that one herself and moved on. The kids were fantastic and simply went with the flow, trusting their teacher completely.
Annie kept a straight face the entire time, and it wasn't till later when the kids had left the class that she burst out laughing. Excellent teaching, IMHO. Others might say excellent acting. Well, in many ways teaching is acting. Teachers are human, and have bad days like the rest of humanity - but the kids must see you upbeat and enthusiastic to get the learning goals across. So yes, there's lots of acting involved with teaching.
That moment will be a source of joy for me for a long time. I have moments of joy from students quite often, but I have to admit it's seldom I've experienced one from a teacher this year. Last year I had the privilege of being in Annie's class quite often and learned to love her teaching and the natural humor she uses to help kids learn. This year I am not in her class very often, but I'm glad I was on that day =:-)
posted by Cholla Needles | 8:40 PM
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