Staying engaged and engaging after 30 years in the class requires a centering that is as Zen as it is practical. That is, when faced with helping over 100 students a day make progress in their learning journeys, a teacher must be present in the moment for all children. But they must also realize that this “present” is different for each child, built upon a unique past and stretched upward and outward by a future that is, for most children, always in flux.
This is one reason why I have always had a “Be Here Now” banner in my room (usually posted on the wall…near the clock). While some may think it’s my “hippie” leanings (hmm…the thought occurs that I may need to explain that term to some of the younger readers…which simply reinforces the point of this entire blog series), it is actually a reminder to pay attention to what is happening (the “now”) and to document it.
Paying attention to the now is a crucial first step, and it is the only way, no matter what one does or where one is in their teaching life, to create the foundation for engagement that is central to student growth.
Once that eternally aware position is established, documenting student growth becomes a part of the life of the classroom. Students watch me and know that at the same time I am assisting them in their learning, I am also trying to be as observant and descriptive as possible about what I am observing–not only about them but, as this blog series evidences, about myself as well. This focused attention models the same kind of awareness I want them to build so that they can become more astute and understanding authors of their own learning stories.
Why Does This Matter?
I am an English teacher. Stories matter to me. In fact, like Jonathan Gottschall, I believe that we are “storytelling animals”, that “Story” is written into our DNA, a biological encoding for our unique human encodings. That is, story is the stuff of memory.
Cleary then, story is essential to learning. When I can quickly capture stories about the characters in my classroom–about their learning, certainly, but also about their lives, families, interests–I am documenting the history of the learning environment itself. Furthermore, I am understanding what is working for them, what is missing, and how I must change and adapt so that the learning lives of those in this environment are flourishing ones.
What Does this Look Like?
Recording the learning stories of students is not new. Assessment and evaluation were always about documenting learning in quantitative ways. But that was only ever part of the learning story. Now, however, technology has offered us new ways to not only record student learning but to make it real and visible in ways that simply were not practical (if even possible) 20 years ago.
More importantly, those technologies are now available to students themselves, so that reflecting on and capturing of their own learning in the moment is as easy as an Instagram post. (See, for example, Unrulr.com.– Example pictured and linked below)
This is a crucial point to note, for when teachers AND students are documenting alongside each other, their stories begin to intersect, or to counter each other. And in these intersections and conflicts the larger story of the classroom evolves and grows. Far from being a meal of canned and stale repackaged lessons, the learning is, like any good story, dynamic and predictably unpredictable.
In a word, it is more engaging…
For everyone.
I have documented my work for most of my career, albeit haphazardly. Journals, Polaroids, video tapes (remember, I’ve 30 years in the classroom), digital videos. I’ve ample quantities of these strewn through my closets or lost in the virtual realm that is Google Drive. Creating them and examining them both in the moment and years later has always set a tone and purpose for my work.
Looking back now at this blog series (itself a type of documentation), at this year, and at the years still ahead, I am heartened by the fact that stories…engaging, living, breathing stories… have always been at the heart of our work as teachers. I am, even still, happy to “be here, now.”
Only Connect 