Teaching, Imagination, Discipline

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I'm a mother, a teacher, a playwright, a former academic. I've spent most of my life in and around schools and universities all over the world. Nowadays, among other things, I teach in a high poverty elementary school in Los Angeles.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Creatures of Habit

We're such creatures of habit. What worked before is what we gravitate towards, instinctually, it seems. Why does it take so much effort to approach things anew? And when are we willing to try?

My kids from the last two years were abstract thinkers. They loved symbolic manipulation. For most of them, math was their favorite subject. This year's crew, individually and in the aggregate, have a completely different personality.

They're tactile. All day long they touch:
tables
pencils
erasers
backpacks
sweatshirts
their body parts
their partners' body parts...

They hug each other. They braid each other's hair. They tangle legs. They make human piles. They just want to be in contact.

I have a silken brown teddy bear named Chocolate. Alejandro gave him to me last year. They vie for Chocolate.

I realized today I have to rethink the methods I use to teach this crew. I can't be so abstract. Most of them don't love words for words' sake or numbers for numbers' sake. Being able to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious does not intrinsically give them joy. They like to count with stackable multicolored cubes. They like to write words with fat, multicolored markers. When I give them something to touch during a lesson, they come back to Planet Classroom. Airplane Eraser Battlefront ends. They're less lost.

But it takes effort to rethink how you teach. I've have to reorient everything that's second nature to me. And there's a block. It's the classic teacher's secret, every parent's nightmare: Will I bond? Will I love the next (class, child) as much as the previous one?

I know I'm still in love with last year's crew. We know each other so well. We worked so well together. We have our inside jokes and games and habits and rituals. A bunch of them still visit me every day, twice a day.

I've got to clear some emotional space for this next bunch. Or I will be forever grouchy this year.

Do you remember being in love with your teachers? Or vice versa?

1 comment:

Alice Tuan said...

Good reminder, Ms. B--each class is its own organism...which puts the standardized test in a completely absurd light. They're lucky that you understand this and them and know, like an artist, to refine your process.