Sunday, January 09, 2005
And for my next impression...
Some readers of this blog have noted that I tend to focus exclusively on defeats. There are very few tales of my triumphant success in the classroom. I confess that in my first year in the classroom, I expected this would be par for the course. After all, I was cutting my teeth, as it were, and had very little experience or confidence in my abilities as a teacher. This year, I had hoped it would be better, but for some reason or other, this has not been the case. Much of the time, I fear it's my fault.
But every so often, I have a moment, a rare shining moment of glory in the classroom. Last Thursday was such a time as four of my most disruptive students came to me after school for help understanding the work we were doing on distance-time graphs. Normally, I would be tempted to blow off these particular students with a hasty explanation...they generally make my life miserable in the classroom. Cussing, yelling across the room...one of them had the gall to use a cell phone in class and then deny it, not only to me but also to the head of the ninth grade academy and the school police. But that day, I took a deep breath, and I taught. I actually taught. We ran through the basics of slope and then started looking at a set of data...in this case a handy worksheet on Jesse Owens' record breaking run of the 100 meter dash at the Berlin Olympics. Before reviewing, we watched a quick video clip of Owens. Their eyes widened to see Mr. Owens bolt down the metric equivalent of a football field in less than 11 seconds. And then we calculated the average speed during each one second time interval. Blew...their...minds... Seriously. Minds were blown.
And these disruptive kids actually cared about slope. About speed. About physics.
I did something meaningful on Thursday. So what if the rest of my life is crap?
Some readers of this blog have noted that I tend to focus exclusively on defeats. There are very few tales of my triumphant success in the classroom. I confess that in my first year in the classroom, I expected this would be par for the course. After all, I was cutting my teeth, as it were, and had very little experience or confidence in my abilities as a teacher. This year, I had hoped it would be better, but for some reason or other, this has not been the case. Much of the time, I fear it's my fault.
But every so often, I have a moment, a rare shining moment of glory in the classroom. Last Thursday was such a time as four of my most disruptive students came to me after school for help understanding the work we were doing on distance-time graphs. Normally, I would be tempted to blow off these particular students with a hasty explanation...they generally make my life miserable in the classroom. Cussing, yelling across the room...one of them had the gall to use a cell phone in class and then deny it, not only to me but also to the head of the ninth grade academy and the school police. But that day, I took a deep breath, and I taught. I actually taught. We ran through the basics of slope and then started looking at a set of data...in this case a handy worksheet on Jesse Owens' record breaking run of the 100 meter dash at the Berlin Olympics. Before reviewing, we watched a quick video clip of Owens. Their eyes widened to see Mr. Owens bolt down the metric equivalent of a football field in less than 11 seconds. And then we calculated the average speed during each one second time interval. Blew...their...minds... Seriously. Minds were blown.
And these disruptive kids actually cared about slope. About speed. About physics.
I did something meaningful on Thursday. So what if the rest of my life is crap?
