I wish my daughter were in that class - when that is what crosses my mind when I am reading about a particular style of teaching and specific classroom examples, then I know I have found an idea worth emulating. Like many teachers, I was that easy student who sucked in the learning, listened to instructions, paid attention, and accepted responsibility for my grades... and then along came my own children. My daughter in particular is not anyone's idea of an easy student. She is lively, gregarious, in-your-face, challenging, and a total crack-up-good-time gal... as long as you don't demand that she do something she doesn't want to do. Making it through to graduation was an exercise in cherry-picking the classrooms she would find the most success in attending - often it was a matter of would she survive, not even so lofty a goal as would she thrive. Throughout the experience I couldn't help thinking that it just shouldn't be so hard! I know that my experiences with her education has made me a better and more empathetic teacher. Every mother's child deserves the best I can give him or her.
The Teach Like a Pirate question of the day... how can I add movement to this lesson? We've all read the studies that the more senses you engage of your students the more likely they will add what you are teaching into their long-term memories. Sometimes the kinesthetic learner seems the hardest to adjust to in our classrooms and yet that is exactly what my daughter is. She's got to move it! I remember when she was four she taught herself two of the quintessential childhood skills - tying her shoes and riding a bike. One day she asked me to come outside and teach her to ride a bike - I was in the middle of something and told her I'd be there in ten minutes. Ten minutes later when I went outside she said, "Never mind Mommy, I figured it out." I had a genius on my hands... and then she went to school and had to sit in a desk for long periods of time. So how do I incorporate movement? One of my favorite kinesthetic lessons is the living iambic pentameter that a colleague passed along from the Folger Shakespeare company. It is easy and it is memorable - you get 10 students in front of the class and give the first student a big letter "I" and the second students a big "AMB" and then alternate the same words until all ten students have a card. The "I" students read their card softly and the "AMB" students read theirs with power... then you go down the line several times "i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB." As a class you discuss what they are hearing and eventually someone will mention the sound of a heartbeat... the romantic meter of love! You talk about the fact that there are five sets of "I-AMB"s making it a PENTAmeter. Students remember what an iambic pentameter is after that. Of course a drama will lend itself easily to movement as you have students acting out scenes.
The Teach Like a Pirate question of the day... how can I add movement to this lesson? We've all read the studies that the more senses you engage of your students the more likely they will add what you are teaching into their long-term memories. Sometimes the kinesthetic learner seems the hardest to adjust to in our classrooms and yet that is exactly what my daughter is. She's got to move it! I remember when she was four she taught herself two of the quintessential childhood skills - tying her shoes and riding a bike. One day she asked me to come outside and teach her to ride a bike - I was in the middle of something and told her I'd be there in ten minutes. Ten minutes later when I went outside she said, "Never mind Mommy, I figured it out." I had a genius on my hands... and then she went to school and had to sit in a desk for long periods of time. So how do I incorporate movement? One of my favorite kinesthetic lessons is the living iambic pentameter that a colleague passed along from the Folger Shakespeare company. It is easy and it is memorable - you get 10 students in front of the class and give the first student a big letter "I" and the second students a big "AMB" and then alternate the same words until all ten students have a card. The "I" students read their card softly and the "AMB" students read theirs with power... then you go down the line several times "i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB." As a class you discuss what they are hearing and eventually someone will mention the sound of a heartbeat... the romantic meter of love! You talk about the fact that there are five sets of "I-AMB"s making it a PENTAmeter. Students remember what an iambic pentameter is after that. Of course a drama will lend itself easily to movement as you have students acting out scenes.
In finding a new way to add movement to an upcoming lesson I looked at my lesson on fallacies where we are analyzing commercials and creating commercials of our own - there is movement already inherent in the activity, but most of it was taking place outside of the classroom on their own time. I wanted to find one more way to engage the students in an activity that got them out of their seats in the classroom. I decided to add an opening tableau to the activity. Each student will think of one of their favorite commercials and when I tap them on the shoulder they will go to the front of the class and freeze in a pose that they think represents that commercial (of course I will want to add music to this activity and I need to think of just the right song). After the entire class is part of the tableau I will take a picture and then send them to their seats. I will upload the photo and project it for the class to observe as we discuss their choices and their impressions of the commercials they were representing.
I can't help but find myself thinking - if more teachers were teaching like pirates where my daughter was attending school, maybe it would have been easier to find classrooms in which she could actually thrive.