Visit to Wahiawa Elementry

Just before my school started up I visited a public elementary school where my friend Mr. Duffy teaches. The grounds were beautiful and the students goofy and engaged: everyone was ready to sprint to the water fountain and several girls wanted to hold my hand--so welcoming to visitors!

Mr. Duffy and I planned to coordinate letter-writing between his public school and my independent school to encourage literacy in the younger grades. What third grader wouldn't love to receive a letter with a story from a high-school pen pal? However now that he has his schedule handed to him and the realities of prepping for state testing have hit, there is no time for such projects.

I left enthused by the students who wanted to stay after school on a Friday and disenchanted with the system that so limits teacher planning and creativity.

The flow of teacher-speak

I have committed to sitting in on a master teacher’s class for the semester to see if I can steal his moves. This term “master teacher” is obnoxious for many reasons, but I’m going to use it anyway because I don’t know what else to call people that have experience and charisma and student’s respect. In addition to these things, he also has a huge afro (which I find endearing) and a calmness in the classroom that I want to absorb like a sponge. So I go.
Some describe what Tim does as “magic” because he appears to make up things on the spot. However, the more I observe, it appears to be his train of thought and the transition from one concept to another that makes his teaching style so unique.
I know of 3 ways teachers appear to speak in class.

1. Lecture
“This is how you organize a paragraph” point A to B, B to C etc. I can be clear when I do this, but it is difficult to make entertaining and I sometimes bore myself as well as students by thinking I need to cover everything. What does it take to be a strong lecturer? Have personality and know your stuff? I’m not sure.

2. Storytelling
I just started giving myself license to share personal stories with my students. I brainstormed several stories that they would appreciate (stories about me when I was their age are usually the best to relate to) and now I use them as writing prompts and attention-getters; a way to ground the lesson in a tangible moment. Students tend to pay attention.

3. Giving instructions
“Ok, so what I want you to do is________.” I find myself doing this in class A LOT. This is an unwanted bi-product of student-focused, activity-based lesson plans: in order to set up the activity I spend time explaining what I want them to do. Often, while outlining the plan, I feel I am limiting their options and killing creativity rather than stoking the fires.


Tim talks a lot in class. His voice predominates the room 60-75% of the class time. Yet we are all engaged, all thinking, all on the edge of our seats. I feel exhausted from thinking so much by the end of the period. How does he engage us so much when we are just listening?

He interrelates the three ways of speaking in such a way that the listener jumps between hearing a personal story, getting a direction, and hearing snippets of lecture. For example today he put 20 poetry books on the ground and the plan was to ask students to page through them and find a poem that grabbed them. He would give them 30 minutes to do so and then they would come back into large group and share their favorite line found. Had I done it, this instruction would take 3 minutes and students would use 5 minutes to find something and be done with it. Task→assigned→ executed= we move on and wonder about the point of the activity.

Tim does not do this. He gives instructions in such a way that he doesn’t TELL you what to do, but rather makes you feel as though you are invited to participate. What is gained from each activity changes because of how he framed it.

He might say things like:
What I'm hoping to do is…
The kinds of books I have collected here are all poetry: some are more humorous like this one...
You can go outside if you trust you that you won’t get distracted.
Don’t hurt the books, the way I do, see how my pet bird chewed up the corner of this one? If not interested in one poem or one book of poems, pick up another.
If you read for a while and you get bored, try drawing an image that you see.
If you are reading for ten minutes and don’t find any poems you like, try sitting with one because you know how sometimes a song in your car is one you hate the first five times you hear it and then suddenly you’re like “man, that is a great song!” Poetry can grow on you like that too.
Does anyone have any questions?

Giving directions in this way the students appear to understand what it is that is asked of them. They all settle into the activity calmly and with purpose. No one needs to go to the bathroom or ask a question or be told again: small miracles.
Perhaps this post is more for me to process my observations, but in summary this observation raises new questions for me. What is my point and is a direct line actually the best way to say it? It may be clear, but is this the way that students process information? I'm starting to vary my style of speech in class.