Over these next few months, I want to discover more of your strengths and skills as a teacher and take some of these skills with me when I have a classroom someday. One I can think of right off the bat is your ability to “teach in action.” This is a term heavily used in my program about learning how to observe objectively, seeing student learning, and being perceptive enough to know that your lesson is effective or not. You are a pro at this. I realize that textbooks can only take you so far when training to be a teacher and that this skill gets better with experience. I guess I want to figure out how to become more perceptive. What should I be asking myself or to the students to figure out what’s working? How do I ensure all the students are learning during class?
Those are excellent questions to ask, and I think the first step to answering your questions is to KEEP asking those questions – both of yourself, and directly of the students. Try to cultivate what I like to think of as “classroom vision.”
There’s an old book about hunting and tracking I used to have when I was around 10. I don’t remember too much of it, but one piece that stuck was the author, Tom Brown’s, description of how to “see like a hunter.” He described how native American hunters would actively un-focus their vision to blur details but achieve a larger field of peripheral vision; by doing so, he argued, they made themselves aware of a larger amount of information and could spot and then re-focus on whatever was most important.
There’s an old book about hunting and tracking I used to have when I was around 10. I don’t remember too much of it, but one piece that stuck was the author, Tom Brown’s, description of how to “see like a hunter.” He described how native American hunters would actively un-focus their vision to blur details but achieve a larger field of peripheral vision; by doing so, he argued, they made themselves aware of a larger amount of information and could spot and then re-focus on whatever was most important.
I think there might be a companion “classroom vision.” Most veteran teachers I know (and there aren’t many!) are highly aware of their classrooms from day one. They see the whole room, but are immediately aware of kids whose eyes wander, look upset, are goofing off, etc. This, like much of teaching, is a skill that takes practice in the field. In addition to spotting kids – watching their faces and the room simultaneously – you’ll also need to build the shameless confidence to address those issues when necessary. I do this frequently, but I’ve had to learn how to balance the confrontation with warmth, empathy, and a clear rationale for the kid as to WHY I needed to stop to address whatever issue I spotted.
I suppose if I were to boil it down to a few steps, they would be:
- Greet your kids at the door with a handshake – you’ll have a quick chance to see their mood, and even correct it with a warm smile or a “nice to see you!”
- Watch faces, move through the room, and be conscious of where your eyes tend to linger. Don’t allow yourself to stick – a teacher, like a boxer, is 90% footwork (or you’ll get it in the jaw!).
- Move towards issues, not away. Do it publicly if you think you can without hurting the kid’s feelings, triggering a blowup, or giving him an audience to perform for – if not, either wait for a working moment to go over and address the issue quietly, or ask him to step out.
- When addressing the issue, be warm, empathize, but be firm. Call crap what it is, but do it with a smile. Offer rationales for every request you make, and offer specific structured strategies for the kid to follow to fix the issue.
- Last but not least, never give up. Never back down. It may not work the first, second, or fourteenth time – it may not even stick until the kid comes back years later to thank you. But it WILL be doing your job, and doing it well.
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