Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Teaching in a Peaceful Classroom




(Continued from last Wednesday, October 2 . . . )
 Days slipped into weeks, then months. The number of students staying after school waxed and waned. Some days a few got two checkmarks, but not three. Still, when peace became onerous, some boys would feel the pressure and “act out.” Then I’d be in the room after school with four or five of them.
         On the whole, discipline, order, balance had been established in the seventh-grade classroom I’d tired to teach so ineffectively for the first few weeks. Now I could begin to supplement the books they’d completed in the first semester. To do this, I simply remembered all the fine teachers I’d known. I remembered especially their enthusiasm, their love for their subject matter, and their belief in the thirst most humans have for learning.
         Following their example was not difficult. I loved learning and I quickly discovered that I loved teaching also. Watching a realization dawn on a student’s face. Seeing heads nod in comprehension. Listening to questions that showed critical thinking. Seeing the students reason; their wanting to know more: the why, the wherefore, the what, the when, the how, and when. All this was the reward of teaching.


         Coming up with ways to the minds and hearts and spirits of those students became all-important to me. Here are a few of the many projects I used to capture their interest and to reinforce whatever we were studying:

Dioramas
Debates
Imitations of famous art and books they’d read
Mock radio news programs
Mock soap operas
Mock television news programs
Mock “Man on the Street” interviews
Mock newspapers
Mock quiz shows
Puppets and puppet shows for stories they’d devised
Collages to illustrate types of whatever we were studying
Mobiles for geography

         In the classroom closet, I’d discovered a large roll of newsprint. That gave me the idea for the project I remember best. To begin, I asked the students to bring to class the Omaha newspapers delivered at their homes. We then examined the papers to discover what kind of information they contained.
         The students discovered feature articles, news stories, comics, obituaries, sports articles, advice columns, business sections, gardening articles, movie reviews, weather reports, almanacs, crossword puzzles, letters to the editor, editorials, opinion columns. We discussed the difference between feature and news. We read opinions, editorials, and the letters to the editor. We simply researched the innards of newspapers.
         Then I gave the students large sheets of newsprint and encouraged each of them to do a two-page newspaper on the early American period we were studying in our history class. Most of the students wholeheartedly engaged in this project, which lasted some time and involved research, writing, creativity.


         For example, they came up with letters from colonists—rebels and Tories. One student even pasted onto his paper a mock letter from King George III bemoaning the waywardness of the Massachusetts colonists and praising John Adams for defending the British soldiers who’d been involved in what Paul Revere—the master propagandist—was calling “The Boston Massacre.”
         When the students completed the project—on which they’d worked at home and at school—we had fifty-five two-page newspapers. The names they’d given to their various newspapers, which represented all the colonies in 1776, displayed real creativity, as did the news, features, puzzles, comics, sketches, and other writing they pasted in the columns of their papers.
         We thumbtacked and taped the newspapers all around the room so the students could read and enjoy one another’s work. That was, I say with little modesty, the best teaching idea I ever had.
         Next week, I’ll share one last story about this classroom. Then I’ll post about returning to the monastery that summer and about my second year in Omaha. By the end of October this saga will be complete. Hallelujah!                  
                                             (. . . continued next Wednesday, October 16.)


Note: If you have some interest in discovering how I taught English and writing, please click on one or more of the following postings from my Sunday writing blog. In them I detail how Sister Mary McCauley taught my class in grade school. I followed her example when I began to teach.


Photographs from Wikipedia


50 comments:

  1. That is a neat idea indeed. Would have been fun to do with so many in views

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    1. Dear Pat, the idea was creative and the students did good work even though some of them were reluctant--ever--to participate. Peace.

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  2. How I would have loved to have you as my teacher!!

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    1. Dear Fishducky, I was so lucky to have many fine teachers, and I thank you for believing that I, too, was a good teacher. Peace.

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  3. I love the depth of understanding necessary to do a project like that. Hurray for creative teachers who are not afraid to keep learning right along with their students. I am convinced that the single most important trait an effective teacher has is a desire to learn something new every day. Love you!

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    1. Dear Kari, I so agree with you. When a class is going well, the teacher is learning right along with the students. And one of the great joys of teaching is seeing the students excel you--the teacher. That's so rewarding. Peace.

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  4. I'm enchanted with the positive outlook you were able to introduce into the classroom. Positive thinking is the beginning of everything good in life. Backsliding is always allowed, but remembering how to turn it positive is a gift to every student.

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    1. Dear Joanne, well, I did try to introduce a positive attitude but several students really resisted and they were reluctant to do the projects. But they got one of those dreaded checkmarks if they didn't. The truth was that the students were experiencing a repressive atmosphere and I've always felt bad about that. Peace.

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  5. Wow. I love the way you engaged their hearts and minds. A bumpy start - for all of you, but a wonderful ending. Thank you. And you are the sort of teacher that stays in a students heart forever.

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    1. Dear EC, the start was bumpy and the rest of the year was also because of a small group of students who resisted--in general--any attempt on my part to make learning fun. It would be nice to think that some of the students remember me kindly. But I doubt that given the repression I had to maintain. Peace.

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  6. I still remember being in the 9th grade making centurions out of plasticene clay (The kind that never dries) ugh, what a mess. I like your newspaper idea!

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    1. Dear Mimi, it was a good idea. I can't ever remember using plasticene clay in class. But I do so remember being in Sister Corita's fourth-grade classroom and making dioramas of the stories we were reading in our reader. Peace.

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  7. Hi Dee, You obviously were an EXCELLENT teacher... Hope those kids realized what a fantastic teacher they had. I had some creative ones --like you were, and loved those classes. But I also had some horrible teachers (mostly the coaches who had to teach). They were horrible --and the sad thing is that most of them taught History. I hated History (which I now LOVE so much) ---and not until I was in college and had a fabulous teacher did I learn to love it.

    Hugs,
    Betsy

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    1. Dear Betsy, I did turn out to be a good teacher, but I don't think those seventh graders really ended up with many good memories of me because I had to be so stern so often. I'm glad you learned to love history. Like you, I came to love it because I had a good teacher--Sister Mary McCauley--in 6th grade and also because the readers we had were based on the history of Europe one year and the history of the United States the next. So we read fictitious stories to make the history come alive. Peace.

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  8. Sounds like you have a fun class. I just hope those kids appreciate it.

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    1. Dear Rick, I wish I could say that the students had fun in the class, but I think they lived in fear of that dreaded checkmark. Peace.

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  9. How I would have loved to have been in your class, or to teach with you. You were truly a master teacher, and I'm sure your lessons, in academics and in life, still live on in them. I'm so glad to read how the tide has turned!

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    1. Dear Shelly, I wish I could believe that those seventh graders have good memories of me. I did turn into a good teacher, a creative one, but to begin I had to be so stern, always on the lookout for behavior that might disrupt the class that the ambience of the room was repressive. Peace.

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  10. Wow, what a wonderful teacher you were (and still are). Most of what I learned came from memorizing facts and there was very little incorporating real life events into the curriculum. You were a teacher who was way ahead of her time, Dee. Your students were very lucky, indeed.

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    1. Dear Arleen, thank you for your belief in me. I don't think the students felt lucky, however. That classroom had an underlying repression about it because I had to immediately respond to any untoward behavior. So I think that many of the students felt they were in prison. My last posting in October will illustrate this. Peace.

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  11. What a different experience school must have been for those students, Dee. I doubt they'd ever had a teacher with such a hands-on approach. And someone who cared about whether or not they retained what they were learning in class. You really are a gifted teacher, Dee. I don't think I ever had a teacher with the kind of enthusiasm you routinely employed. I really admire your abilities and your tenacity with your students! (breathe lighter)

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    1. Dear Debra, throughout the teaching I did--in grade school, high school, and college--I did show great enthusiasm and energy. So much so that every summer in the convent, the Mother Superior gave me the obedience to take a nap each afternoon before Matins. I would so tire myself out during the teaching year that I had to recoup in the summer! Peace.

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  12. I love the newspaper idea -- and the response from the students shows that they loved it too! Teaching can be such an 'organic' kind of process -- planting 'ideas' as seeds and 'nurturing' those ideas -- watching them grow and become established! A good teacher, like you, has very green fingers indeed!!!

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    1. Dear Broad, the newspaper idea really was creative. It just came to me I think because we were reading about the Revolutionary times in the United States and the textbook mentioned the newspapers at the time. And I had this white-light idea to create newspaper. And of course, finding the newsprint in the classroom closet just cemented the idea in my mind! I so like your gardening analogy. Thank you for it. Peace.

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  13. I would have dived headlong into this project, Dee. I always loved history. Actively involving your charges in their learning was a novel approach, especially for the times, and seeing their enthusiasm and creativity emerge must have felt good for you as well, especially since the beginning of this experience was so rocky.

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    1. Dear Penny, watching those students who truly got involved was rewarding and I had to learn that I couldn't expect all the students to want to learn and to involve themselves in their own education. Of course, the students I remember so well are the ones who made the classroom a misery. It really is true that "the squeaky wheel gets the oil." Peace.

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  14. WOW, Dee, Wish I had been fortunate to have teachers like you. Learning can be such a joy. I'm sure your students remember you with great fondness. I bet they are still remembering and telling their friends about the wonderful teacher they had.

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    1. Dear Manzanita, I wish I could believe you that the students remember me with "great fondness," but as I've said to others who have left comments, there was an ambience of repression in the room because I had to be alert to any possibility of disruption such as I'd experienced in the first few weeks. So I think that spontaneity wasn't present in the students because they feared that dreaded checkmark on the chalkboard. Peace.

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  15. Just catching up, Dee, before going away for the weekend. I too am saddened but not actually surprised at the early sexualisation of some of your students. We think that everyone was innocent back then, but they simply weren't. But you handled them so well, giving them standards, and consistency of approach which many of them obviously really needed.

    As for your teaching methods, I think you were very progressive, especially for such a young and inexperienced teacher. The newspaper idea was truly inspired.

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    1. Dear Perpetua, the early sexuality surprised and saddened me at the time. Some of these students had lost their childhood early. Please look at my response to Broad to see what inspired the newspaper idea. Peace.

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  16. That’s what good teaching is all about: creativity and and awakening and stimulating interest.

    Learning by rote may be considered important by some but I remember the teachers who stirred my curiosity and have long forgotten those who made us learn dry facts.

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    1. Dear Friko, you are so right. I remember the dioramas our class made in 4th grade when Sister Mary Corita taught us; and the poetry that Sister Mary Lee taught us in 5th grade; and I can still see Sister Edith mapping out the battles of Caesar on the chalkboard when I was a sophomore in high school. Those are the teachers who inspired me. Peace.

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  17. You are a good teacher. Please note I wrote "are".

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Dear Janie, thank you! I did note the present tense! Peace.

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  18. I would have loved to have you as my teacher at that age!

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    1. Dear Stephanie, as I've said in my responses to many of the comments, I'm not sure you would have "loved" to have me as a teacher in that classroom. I had to be so repressive. Peace.

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  19. I just read all the posts I missed and I enjoyed following you on your journey from a classroom right out of the TV show The Wire or the movie The Blackboard Jungle to one of peace and creativity. I know Ron and the others will always remember you.

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    1. Dear Inger, I'm not sure that Ron and a few others will remember me fondly. In fact, I suspect that most of the students were so relieved when the school year ended and so happy to be with Sister Mary Brendan the next year for eight grade. Peace.

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  20. I'm relieved you pulled them back from the chaos.

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    1. Dear Annie, yes, because of the checkmarks on the chalkboard, but a few of the boys and maybe a couple of the girls seethed all the rest of the school year with resentment. I hope that some good came out of that chaos. Peace.

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  21. Good way of teaching which makes your students remember and speak about you...

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    1. Dear Weekend-Windup, I hope some of the students did speak kindly of me. I'm not at all sure though. Peace.

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  22. I believe we all remember the teaches who go through to us the most, and the ones who we wanted to imitate as you did your Sister McCauley. I attended the Catholic University (I am not catholic) and it was on the McCauley campus at Mitchelton in Queensland. It has since moved but I wonder if the name was in any relation to the Sister you speak of?.

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    1. Dear Crystal, the name of the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy was Mother Mary McCauley. This was back in either the 18th or the 19th century. The nun who taught me had taken, when she received her habit, the name of the foundress. So I'm wondering if the Catholic University you attended was run by the Sister of Mercy. It's good to have you back, Crystal. I hope that all is well in your life. Peace.

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  23. I believe students are inspired by teachers such as you Dee. You loved to teach and found a way to inspire your students to enjoy learning.
    Peace

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    1. Dear Pam, I know that I was inspired by several of the teachers who taught me: Sister Mary Edith especially in high school and Sisters Scholastica and Juanita in college. Who inspired you? Peace.

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  24. This post speaks clearly to the fact that teaching cannot happen until kids are willing to listen. And to the power of one teacher's heart and imagination. I'm sure that year was a game-changer for many of your students. I wonder if you even heard from any of them in later years.

    I'm in no hurry for this story to end! You could spend much more time here and I would read every word happily.

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    1. Dear Deb, I do so hope that some learning took place in that classroom. Unfortunately, I don't remember much of what went on except for those disruptions and the many things that made me want to flee the classroom. I remember the "squeaky wheels" and not the students who didn't cause any trouble. I'm not sure what that says about me. I just know that's the truth of it. Peace.

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  25. What a rich variety of ways to learn. It's interesting how the positive and negative aspects of teaching/learning tend to go hand in hand. Makes for good stories.

    I remember with fondness some wonderful teachers; your creativity reminds me of theirs.

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    1. Dear Deanna, like you, I had some wonderful teachers. I treasure their abiding gifts to me. Peace.

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