*UPDATE* Putting Into Practice

It's been quite a challenge seeing how many of the ideas I picked up from my summer reading could be applied during my early experience and winter block as a student-teacher. There's always the question of how effective a theory or method read about in a book actually works in the real world, or at least the world you are familiar with. Yes, it's easy enough to get excited reading about fresh, exciting strategies for success in the classroom, but when you actually try to put them to use yourself in your respective environment...well, that's when you encounter the real struggle.

It didn't take long for me to become a full-fledged champion of Alfie Kohn's cause for community in matters of classroom discipline. Our administration office tells us that we as teachers need to be rigid and firm when it comes to attendance, ID cards, and tardies. To drive this point home, one of the assistant principals will make a daily stroll down the hallway five minutes before the tardy bell sounds. Bullhorn in hand, he'll bark warnings to the students lingering in the halls that less than five minutes remain to get to class, and for teachers to lock their doors and not admit a tardy student. In other words, make them sit out in the hall for the opening fifteen minutes. I guess the idea is that they'll think twice before daring to show up late again.

While I can certainly understand the need to reduce the number of students lingering in the hallway, especially when you consider the sheer amount - 2400 students - that makes up our population, I still question how much good it does for the community in which we stake our belief. Students need that time to be around each other, taking part in conversation, moving about in a sense of freedom without adults barging into their realms with all the force of a siren blast. Yes, we want them to be in classes by a certain time, and yes, there are times when they'll offer no reasonable excuse for tardiness other than the fact that they were tardy. But are there not alternate ways of handling the issue that don't strip the humanity out of the whole process? After all, how can we expect students to respect our time enough to show up for class before the bell if we fail to show a modicum of respect for their time in-between periods? Some give-and-take there would be nice to see.

I find myself envious of the lucky classrooms that are built in such a way to allow for a variety in seat organization. In other words, I speak of classrooms that are fortunate enough to not be bound to the default "row" structure with student desks. Few of those exist at my school, but those that have them - I'm not sure they know how blessed they are to have the liberty to experiment with the make-up of the room. For me, the default system of rows for students' desks serves only to reinforce the idea that the playing field is tilted to their disadvantage once they set foot into the classroom (and we wonder why we have a problem with tardies). The rows are seen as the students' void, whereas the narrow space between the top row and the board is the teacher's personal space - it may as well be a castle for all the grief we give students with "invading" it. The separation need not be so nakedly pronounced - my vision of a more ideal setting (as unlikely as it may seem with such an overwhelming population) is a huge, expansive circle, similar to the design of my English courses at Furman. The classroom thus takes on the look of a forum for discussions, and the teacher merely occupies one of the same spaces as his charges. This way, no single student has a "physical" advantage or disadvantage. It's easier to see everyone, and the teacher can more readily slip into the role of facilitator because the structure helps diminish the "David and Goliath" illusion upon stepping inside.

Without knowing I was doing so, I tried to implement Barbara Kingsolver's naturally organic flavor to my students' writing. When I posed questions for our morning bell ringers (I find that when I give them different names like the "Discombobulator," it tricks students into thinking we're doing something strange and foreign. This way, if a student doesn't like bell ringers, maybe he'll do better at a Discombobulator), I urged students not to think of them as questions per se, but as prompts. The main objective was to get them thinking. I wanted them to get used to composing paragraph length entries, but in a way that freed them up to be descriptive in their language. At times, I had to adjust my method because they were so trained to spot questions & then to jot down 1-2 line answers rather than the paragraphs I requested. So I snuck them into an intro paragraph of my own; that would normally work better. At times it depended on the premise, the topic. Did students find it relevant to their lives, or at least moderately interesting? Doing entries with the meaning of a name or a house almost always struck some kind of chord with many students; each one tapped a story or three inside of them that they felt compelled to write about, which delighted me.

That being said, I feel I need to take back some of my earlier criticism on Brooks' methods from In Search of Understanding. Rubric and structure need not be so rigidly nailed down that it leaves the teacher with little recourse to modify the template if it clearly isn't getting the best out of his charges. The nature of the bell ringers is so flawed because we have made it that way, and the students laissez faire attitude only shows what naturally results. If I only do bell ringers for the sole purpose of occupying my students long enough to take attendance or shut them up (not that attendance isn't important - I've since learned that I have a long way to go to become competant at it), then I shouldn't be surprised at their surly outlook. It shows that I don't care enough to inject any sense of value or purpose into the activity, so why should I expect them to care when I don't? I stand by my statement that I made when I first wrote on this topic: "As much care and passion as a teacher might bring to her subject of study, her instruction will almost certainly fail if she can not get her students to care about it."

Best Practice

"Practicing Progress"

I can quickly see why Dr. Thomas favors this book so much. In many ways, it stands as the ultimate affirmation of the constructivist strategies outlined and touched upon within the pages of the other four books. I suppose I can say that as a collection, they introduced to me the idea of descriptive teaching: this book shows how to refine it for the classroom.

What makes this book so endearing and not merely another propaganda resource is that it works. The proof is out there. The techniques that define Best Practice teaching are not in themselves revolutionary; they are nothing more than a return to the heart of education. But considering the state that the “curriculumized” learning process appears to be in, Best Practice holds the effect of a heart transplant, pumping new lifeblood into the old system.

As Dr. Thomas advised, I devoted most of my attention to the BP chapters that dealt directly with my chosen field of study: English Language Arts. So the Reading & Writing sections left me with very much to consider.

I cheered silently when I read the following guideline: Hearing books read aloud is a key ingredient to learning to read. Then a minute later, I cheered out loud upon seeing middle and high school grade levels mentioned in parenthesis. Who in the world came up with the unofficial rule that read-alouds should cease altogether once you got to the secondary grades? Why would it no longer be possible for older and hopefully wiser students to sit through a teacher's reading of a story and to gain something valuable from the experience? Maybe it goes back to the way we handle it. Maybe the enjoyment faotor is no longer present as you grow older because it seems like you always have to be working on something connected to the read-aloud, such as note-taking or worksheets. It's a given that Best Practice does not favor worksheets in the classroom and restricts notes to purposeful learning techniques. Meaning that students should in fact not be required to take notes purely for the sake of taking notes, or staying busily engaged. Whatever happened to letting the story take care of that? Or just holding a brief discussion forum at the end like many of us recall from our elementary days in the library? Why should those ideas stop working now?

Teaching Writing

"Construction Sight"

Dr. Paul Thomas raised a very interesting, and somewhat disturbing, notion during one of my first Education seminars. He stated that learning how to write is one thing; learning how to teach writing is quite another, and it’s often more complex than people think. For it involves substantially more than simply giving students pointers on how to write a thesis statement, correcting their grammatical mistakes, or showing them the “basic” five-paragraph model for an essay (one practice that is not so subtly criticized throughout the majority of my summer reading).

It’s about helping them to think, and to think about thinking, acquiring an enhanced awareness of themselves, their abilities, and their mental faculties (the process that Dr. Thomas terms metacognition), and thereby discovering their “voice” in writing. It’s about encouraging them to challenge pre-conceptions both about the subject material, and the perspective from which they approach it. It’s about pushing, challenging them. It’s about moving beyond the world of the created to the realm of the subjective in which there are less absolutes – and more opportunities for growth spurts (p. 45).

Such is the constructivist point of view that the book promotes. By now, I have become quite familiar with this philosophy thanks in part to the rest of my summer reading books. In all honesty, the appeal of constructivism is so inviting that I find it appalling how we as teachers could have wandered so far away from, as it is described, the core of learning.

I am particularly in favor of Dr. Thomas’ suggestions for how to teach students to write – and enjoy writing. Writing in groups (p. 35) when feasible gives students a wider range of perspectives for present and future reference (provided there is an adult serving as mediator), and it also gives them a certain comfort level in sharing their ideas with others their own age. And I don’t believe sharing of ideas constitutes cheating – certainly not in a group activity for an in-class assignment. Now for a research paper, I would try to make certain that my students understood that an idea they picked up from another student or source should be properly cited (I would distinguish between that and the suggestions other students provide when editing their peers’ work (p. 37); another practice that I would probably endorse).

I also favor making students write as early and often as possible (p. 36). However – and I would be adamant on this – I believe the idea would only work if I take the time to distinguish the writing assignments with varying aspects, or “identities” as it were. For instance, I might start out by assigning my students a persuasive essay on their summer reading (i.e., convince me why Bernard’s actions make him a sympathetic character in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World). Four weeks later, I’d have them submit an informative paper (i.e., explain how the details of Sophie’s World might influence a person to embrace any given philosophy). I feel that students need exposure to all the different ways to write an essay or a research paper, and they need to learn the cues that will call on them to respond in a required form for the paper (analyze, describe, evaluate, synthesize, compare, contrast, inform, assess). And yes, that also means breaking away from the traditional five-paragraph essay form if necessary; I would not abandon it as a helpful guide for struggling writers, but that’s no reason to make it a binding format. It ultimately works to the detriment of the work students are capable of producing given a little (or in some cases, a lot) of freedom to respond creatively as well as authentically.

In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms

"Lens Crafters"

I feel that what separates this book from the rest of the pack is the main issue that it addresses: point of view. This is especially true in the opening chapter as Jacqueline and Martin Brooks single out instances in which teachers can harm student development by offering restricted outlets for learning. I loved reading the sample teacher diary on pages 11-12 because it made the point so vivid and allowed me to easily connect it to real life.

That being said, I feel the need to take issue with the authors’ assumptions that students feel handcuffed by the teacher’s point of view. Maybe this is mostly my experience that takes precedence here, but I think such an idea is too general to absorb at face value, and that it underestimates the way students adjust to the styles and “views” of their teachers.

I don’t believe asking questions like “Who can see a vase” and “Who can see two faces” is inherently harmful to developing a student’s unique view because in my mind, students need those kinds of statements to serve as prompts. It’s not realistic to expect them to go into class and be prepared to think critically, especially at the beginning of the academic year. They learn to become critical thinkers as the course progresses because they latch onto the teacher or more specifically, his/her direction. They see what her style is, what works and what doesn’t, her reactions, and the established rubrics for her assignments.

As the authors themselves say on page 49, “the teacher’s responsibility is to create educational environments that permit students to assume the responsibility that is rightfully and naturally theirs.” Setting the boundaries with rubrics and carefully-crafted questions doesn’t necessarily limit students from experimenting; not if teachers are willing to encourage creativity (which any teacher should). But students need that essence of habit and forwardness to get a notion of what their limits are in the classroom (and the teacher should make clear that those limits are not set in stone). Once they are familiar with the framework and learn what is expected of them, they can start to step outside the box and try new things, and that is when critical thinking should be encouraged.

That being said, I do agree with the Brooks’ point (as defined in chapter 4) that one method of engaging those critical thinking skills is to pose issues with relevance to the students. As much care and passion as a teacher might bring to her subject of study, her instruction will almost certainly fail if she can not get her students to care about it. Once again, they will learn it, but just long enough to write or to recite it for a test (so in essence, it’s not really learning that takes place at all – it’s parroting). If our goal is to teach students to acquire new skills and creative thinking abilities, then it boggles me how we can expect them to transfer to other fields the rote memorization and temporary knowledge that they lack the enthusiasm and zeal to retain. And that in itself compounds a different problem: time management. Because the students are not able to carry over the knowledge and the skills that they should have obtained in grades past, teachers have to waste time treading back over old material, time they would much rather spend on the field they’re hired to teach. This puts both teachers and students behind (and aggravates students who are on track learning-wise but end up having to sit through and endure familiar, “boring” lessons in class).

I have mentioned before that students are more astute than we give them credit for. The sections on pages 43-49 once again awakened me to the fact that as we help students to learn, we in turn need to let them teach us. If we dedicate our careers to molding students into carbon copies of ourselves, parroting back our precise methods word by technique by rubric, then we will never get anywhere. Our job is not merely to make them learn; it’s to foster a growth that represents a natural extension of their unique learning process. It will be a pretty sad day if I find myself reprimanding one of my students on his research paper solely on account of not writing it exactly the way that I envisioned it. First of all, it’s not my paper; it’s his. It is only mine if I get the guidelines and rubric, do the research, write the draft, edit and proofread it, and then hand in a final copy. As it is, the only thing I do is assign it, and the student molds it into a creation all his own,

This means I am laying upon him the responsibility of ownership, and thus it is my duty to teach him how best to exercise that responsibility. I believe that as I teach him, he in turn should teach me, broadening my point of view with his own, and showing me concepts that I [hopefully] did not consider before. This creates a bond between the teacher and student, and lays the groundwork for a positive working relationship in which the student follows my guidelines not out of any obligation, but out of sincere interest in learning what I have to tell him. This is the kind of symbiotic network for which I want to strive in my classes; the ability to tell a student, “This is a very interesting notion. I didn’t consider that before. I will have to give that some more thought. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.” This is enlightenment; we have both taught each other something.

Max van Mannen puts it this way in his work Tone of Teaching:

“What a thoughtful parent or teacher does is offer the young person a vision of what kind of life is worth living and what image of adulthood is worth aiming for. Indeed, this is the meaning of learning.” (p. 44)

Reading, Learning, Teaching Barbara Kingsolver

"Norm Wrecker"

First of all, I'm sorry to say that I've never checked out any of Barbara Kingsolver's works. This is the first mention that I have heard of the author, and it's hard to identify personally with her books as discussed here. But the way Dr. Thomas describes her in this book, I feel as though we've made a connection. We aspire to be norm wreckers.

Barbara comes across as the kind of writer I aspired to be back in elementary school. Now don't get me wrong. My passion for writing is as strong as ever, and I have no doubt that my skill and quality have improved significantly since those days (otherwise, my parents would be pretty disappointed, as would I). What I mean is, Barbara brings me back to those days when the written language sparkled vivid and bright, and I was only just beginning to take my first steps into the shallow end of the pool. I didn't yet have the experience, knowledge, or regimen that I would develop in the years to come. What I did have was freedom. A certain risk factor. An absence of fear.

Barbara is all about writing honestly as opposed to mechanically. She is very confrontational (to borrow Dr. Thomas' way of wording it) of the established "norms," and that is the main reason why she takes me back to my early writing. Back then, I took more risks. I wrote longer and longer journal entries. I kept coming up with new and different introductions (when I remembered to - sometimes I gave no introductions at all, but merely plunged right in). I experimented with many different ways to say things, interchanging words back and forth throughout the course of my work. For example, if I saw the word "trying" come up again a sentence or two after I had used it, I substituted the word "attempting." And then came words like seeking, undertaking, aiming, endeavoring, and so on (you can tell that I was a stickler for synonymns). Even the direction of my work was not always prone to routine. I might start out talking about what I did in class that morning, only to suddenly jump to a weather bulletin that I heard from the previous night about a chance for snow. Most times, these jumps came without warning as they popped into my head.

I didn't do this subconsciously. Like any child, I'm sure, this was just the way that I learned how to express myself as an amateur writer. It all felt natural, organic. But still, it's interesting to go back and think about how much has changed from that time and the way that I compose pieces now. I no longer feel right or comfortable about doing a research paper without an introduction, body, and conclusion (although I've since come to acknowledge that the conclusion is not nearly as important). An all-encompassing thesis statement is a must. I don't experiment with my words nearly as often as I used to (to an extent, I still do, but mostly because I just can't say the same thing twice) because I'm much more cognizant about what words fit where and what sounds better when read aloud. I'm more concerned about the flow of my papers because I'm old enough to want them to make sense not only to me, but to my audience. As I got older, I paid more attention to the finer details.

Again, this was all very natural. And yet Barbara makes me wonder whether I've lost too much of my amateur writer. I start asking myself: do I feel scared to break through the boundaries that I have set around my writing (not to mention the boundaries of the language rubrics that I have encountered over the years)? Have I become too much of a slave to routines and formula? I don't know. Is there still a place to experiment and risk? Absolutely. I think I had forgotten that.

I think Barbara speaks the truth when she says that we as teachers need to shift away from the workbooks and texts that push for vocabulary lists and half-hearted comprehension exercises. I did all right with them, but I know I enjoy those words better in the context of a short story or a discussion, not a listing. She says that the classroom must be an atmosphere that is positively ripe for discussion because this is where the real lessons lie. Children have to be taught to make use of language in everyday speech; it shouldn't simply begin and end with the textbook and the curriculum. It must be used, exercised as much as possible. Otherwise, how can we expect them to learn? I remember back in my freshman year when I tutored a middle school boy on reading. This kid was smart and had a very articulate way of speaking, but regardless, the school placed him in a remedial class. For some reason, he struck me as someone who could simply go to town with the written and spoken language if only he was given a chance to put his skills into practice. Sometimes the only real limit to our potential is the system itself (see "Beyond Discipline").

Chapter three raises another striking point, and it's something that I've only just begun to notice in classrooms today.

"The traditional approaches to literary analysis, the writing of school essays on literature studied in class, have included having students restate the analysis carefully covered in class and tacitly endorsed by the teacher as the literary authority and the sole guardian of the grade for students and having students write that analysis within very prescriptive (and inauthentic) templates" (p. 63).

I touched briefly on this in "Beyond Discipline," but I think it merits elaboration here. Barbara's point is basically that teachers should be facilitators, not authors, of discussion. In other words, they can introduce themes like poverty, social cliques, morality, and injustice as starting points, and then push the kids to take over. Some of my favorite classes, to be honest, are the ones in which the teacher rarely has to say a word, and for 30 minutes, it's nothing but students talking, debating, reasoning, rationalizing, and even arguing (but not too heatedly). I'll admit, that's never easy. A huge reason is that kids are so used to parroting: reciting back exactly what the teacher says, in her precise words, so they can pass next Friday's test (only to forget it when the test is over) or get a good grade on the semester project. They'll retain knowledge for only as long as they think it's useful to them. And once the grades return, it's out the window. There are exceptions, yes, but such thinking is ingrained in them.

I'm reminded of a section in the book Educating Esme that I read in ED-11 my freshman year. The teacher, Esme Raji Codell (she likes to be called Madame Esme, so already you get the idea that she too is a norm wrecker) has just finished giving her kids a lesson on Native Americans. It includes dressing up as your personal favorite tribe for class, giving a presentation on its culture, putting as much of it into practice as possible, and even giving names to other kids ("Girl-With-Braided-Hair" and "Big Chief Micromanager" are some of the main favorites). After the lesson is over, the students are walking down the hall where they are spotted by the school assistant principal. They're still wearing their costumes at this point in time, and she takes note of this. So she comes up to them and asks:

"You're dressed up as Indians, aren't you? Why aren't you hopping up and down and singing like wild Indians?" [approx. quotes]

And one boy turns and answers, "We're Iroquois, not Commanche."

As Esme puts it, those are the moments that thrill teachers. Without having to give a test or to administer worksheets, their kids get it. They get it. And they are able to apply it outside of the classroom.

That's exactly what I feel Barbara is talking about. The need for teachers (and apprentices) to be authentic in both their field and work. Dr. Thomas says it best on page 115, "A recurring plea I have been making throughout the past twenty years is that we must practice our field to be the best teachers we can be." I don't see how we can get across the importance of learning and experiencing the richness of our chosen subject to our kids if we don't already have a passion for it ourselves. We need to teach this stuff because we earnestly want to enrich students' lives in a positive way. That need won't be spelled out on any course syllabus or written on the dry erase board each morning, but it should always be present. It's unrealistic to have that attitude in all of our lessons, I know; we are inclined to enjoy some things and not care for others. But as much as necessary, children need to see that passion because it is infectious. They can tell if we're authentic and when we are not (they are far more astute than we give them credit for); if we set the tone, they'll pick up on it. It may take time for some kids, but authentic teaching bears fruit.

I'll admit; for a moment, I was stunned at Barbara (and Dr. Thomas') idea that we should study poetry in class on a regular basis. I suppose that comes from a history of only using the field on a fixed curriculum, meaning it usually came up once or twice each year. But after three years at Furman, I can begin to see her point. Poetry tells stories every bit as well as prose, and at times better. It evokes images and patterns that gives these ideas new dimensions, and they prove so ripe for discussion because in many cases, the lines and stanzas are wide open to interpretation. There is no one, final say. Also, as Barbara mentions, poems can bring up a whole series of topics such as rape, feminism, genocide, and corruption that prose can't always confront the same way. The ambiguity of the lines, frought with meaning and impact, give the reader a sharp impression, not so much a right or wrong one, but one that can be related with passion and zeal. And that certainly carries over to the main challenge: asking students to write their own poems.

I appreciate Barbara's input on this topic because it's not an easy one to tackle. Writing poetry is an adventure, to be sure, but if you don't have a road map in place, you're almost bound to get stuck. That map is a focus, a primary direction, what you start with, and where you're taking it. Even if I wanted to write about one of the happiest memories of my life, such as winning a prize in the school science fair, I can see myself getting tangled with the words to use, how to describe things, all of that.

Barbara suggests the element of misdirection. Narrowing the focus to the finer details, putting double meanings into words, using repetition to your advantage. I could apply it by taking the perspective of my science experiment, making it the voice of the poem. Or I could introduce a conflict of interest, using words that seem to evoke happy feelings about the idea of winning the science fair, yet tinged with hints of apprehension over what victory does to people. Depending on my experiment, I could repeat sounds that it makes throughout the poem to keep my audience grounded in the moment. Misdirection helps refocus my thoughts into a real story.

Not a normal way that I would think to compose a poem. Or a story. Or even a classroom lesson. But coming from Barbara Kingsolver, that's not surprising. As far as I'm concerned, she's a norm wrecker. And in the ever-evolving world of teaching, wrecking the norm isn't always such a bad idea.

Beyond Discipline

"Finding Fault"

This was the first book that I picked up this summer (thanks in no small part to my Education-50 professor!), and the first thing I distinctly remember was being intrigued by the title. What did author Alfie Kohn mean by the term"community?" More to the point, what did the subtitle "From Compliance to Community" imply about today's classroom structure? Was it designed to focus solely on discipline, specifically how its use (or misuse) can actually damage a child more than it helps him? That was my first thought, but with further speculation (I had some time to reflect before I actually started the book), I began to wonder if the 'community' factor couldn't extend to other facets of the school as a whole. Issues like student/teacher behavior patterns, methods of instruction, peer relationships (and their presumed hierarchies), and classroom bounadaries may also share this bond, and discipline could be the tool that shapes their foundations, spurring them into motion. And I began to get excited.

I will admit, the main reason for my excitement was getting the chance to reflect on my years in grade school and to see how these concepts could have been applied to my own experiences. I've attended public and private schools in my lifetime, and so I'm not a stranger to either side of the spectrum. While I'm not the type to question the things that brought me to this point, both in my education and life in general, I've found that it can prove beneficial now and then to think about what might have been. What might sixth grade AIMES Math class have been like had my teacher focused more on practical math applications instead of drilling us with tedious and often confusing worksheets? Would I have latched onto her ideas quicker (or failing that, would those ideas stick with me) if I knew that decimals, fractions, and probability could prove useful, say, in figuring up my grocery costs for a week? Did the fact that these only existed as numerical stats have anything at all to do with how difficult it was for me to make sense of them and use them?

Believe it or not, I never thought to ask these questions in my classes. I always kind of accepted blame, whether outright or subconsciously, for my inability to grasp higher level Math, pre-Civil War politics in Social Studies, or the rule forbidding talking "out of turn." I'm amazed as I sit and type this, reflecting on how much has changed; it's not like a typical class at Furman is pin-drop quiet! But back on the subject, I don't think that I seriously considered the possibility, let alone the likelihood, that the rules were somehow at fault. I came into conflict with them as every kid has, of course. But I came to see these rules as invisible standards that couldn't be debated directly. It was either follow them or be punished; no arguments, no second chances, no last-moment pleas for mercy (okay, okay, I'm dramatizing a little bit here, but you get the point). So I learned to follow the rules. That sounds a little pat, but I thought very much like a self-preservationist as a child. Why risk sitting through detention or the dreaded note sent home to Mom and Dad when you can avoid such consequences by respecting the classroom structure? I learned two other things as well. Being on task helps the teachers to like you. And it teaches the other kids to hate your guts. Just a little insight on what my classroom relationships were like.

Needless to say, I can relate quite well to Kohn's point that more often than not, it's the system, not the student, that is at fault. His elaboration on the topic rings startlingly true. Even as a still-practicing teacher/apprentice, I have seen children chafe under regulations on seat posture, the lack of freedom to move around, and worst of all - no talking unless called upon. Not all of them show it openly, but it's visible in their grimmaces, annoyed facials, and defeated body language. I find myself wondering now, "How does the 'no talking' rule benefit a class such as reading or language arts?" These subjects should be thick with discussion! Unlike, say, history or math, in which there are more absolutes, a wide variety of opinions can be offered on stories, literature, poetry and other such elements of the field. There can never be enough time for all to be shared. Shouldn't that fact by itself push a teacher to make talking a coveted thing, not something to be shunned at all costs? Kohn says that the manner in which children behave in class is significantly related to the interest they have in a topic. I doubt that removing the freedom to converse (and worse, structuring the seat arrangement to specifically discourage it) while allowing the teacher to drone on about what he thinks they should know is obscene and counter-productive to the goal: gaining their interest. The only thing children learn is not to interrupt the teacher, especially when he's on a roll...

I began to wonder if some teachers might take offense at Kohn's criticisms until he dug into the real meat, or as he calls it, the method behind ineffective discipline (punishing and rewarding students). I feel it's easy to point out things that we don't like about how a teacher manages her classroom, but until we understand why she does it in a certain way, and what goal she is trying to achieve, our criticisms lack substance and attention (and this helps Kohn keep his audience). His research indicates several reasons. One huge issue is control, and I find myself identifying with that whole-heartedly. Personally, I never want to be remembered as a teacher who robbed his students of their freedom to exercise [a measure of] control over the flow of discussion (with me serving as a facilitator), but still, I like to be in control of things. It's a part of my personality; I'm what society might label a "control freak." I get worried or upset when time slips away from me, my status quo gets shaken, or the lessons simply don't proceed according to plan. There is always that temptation to pull back on the reins, so to speak; no matter how much I might want to make my classes as "student-friendly" as possible, I don't want my students to forget who is in charge. That desire is likely in the back of most teachers' minds ("I'm the teacher, darn it!")

So I took Kohn's "challenge." I thought about how my classes might proceed if the structure was different. Would my students be more willing to do what I said if I gave them more freedom, not less? I tested it out in a somewhat different setting. During the week of Vacation Bible School at my local church, I led the 1st and 2nd grade children in music. Curriculum is certainly a factor in VBS, especially if Lifeway is behind it. So my music classes had a pre-determined schedule that was pretty much built in before I even started: greet the kids, introduce the new song, practice motions, sing, new song, practice, sing ... lather, rinse, repeat. It's not a bad schedule; far from it. But as the week progressed, I thought about the need to be so slavishly bound by it all the time.

I asked myself questions and answered them. What was my goal? To teach children these songs. How could it be accomplished? Through practice, repetition and one-on-one help if needed. Why did they need to be taught these songs? To grow them spiritually and introduce a bigger depth to their faith in Jesus (or for some, guide them into faith). Why did I need them to be compliant? Because time is a factor (whether I liked it or not), and every moment is pivotal for growth. So once I established my initial motivations, I began tinkering with my routine to see what kind of reaction I'd get. For example, I skipped our Friday song entirely in two of my rotations because both the kids and I knew that the song wouldn't be used in our commencement service Sunday. It was a mutual agreement that we would be wasting time introducing yet another song; time that could be better spent practicing songs that would get used. I observed that my kids wanted everything that we did to have a purpose. They wanted our period together to mean something. Often it helped to begin each song with a little background/Biblical emphasis (as opposed to just jumping right into practice) to help them connect with it. That grounded the songs with meaning that they needed. In turn, they cooperated with my desire to maximize what little time we had.

I found even more results as I put this theory into practice. I let some kids come to the stage and take the lead on a few songs (because let's face it; it's much more fun to watch them do the wacky motions. And it's a surprisingly effective strategy to speed up the learning process), with me standing by just in case. I worked with one boy's desire to stay late and practice a song even though he was supposed to be picked up at noon in the Sanctuary (we made it work). I allowed them to sit or stand pretty much as they liked. One condition: they still had to participate. Even if that meant doing hand motions in the pews (again, give them something they want, and they'll be much more willing to give what you want). In fact, the one and only rule I made for the music class (and I made sure to stress it) was this: no soft voices allowed. You had to sing, and you had to mean it. Many smiled. Who comes to music to be quiet anyway? That's just common sense.

I had a relatively problem-free music class.

In that regard, I can imagine the positive feelings the teacher in chapter 6 must have felt when she let her students read or write in any position they preferred. What she did was give back a sense of freedom to her kids; once she loosened up, things began to click. Contrary to the catchy saying "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile" (which gets repeated quite a bit in this book), children do possess self-control. Yes, discipline is needed to check it on occasion, but not in a way that disrespects their natural tendencies. Who am I to say that the best, or only, way to write or read a story is to sit at a desk? Why not do it in front of the class, or arrange the desks in a circle to get across the idea of a student-centered discussion? Heck, why not let them sit on a piece of furniture if one is available? My 12th-grade English teacher had this old, beige couch in a corner of her room. Every day before class, two or three of us would sack out on it, and we'd stay there even when the lesson began. At first, she resisted the idea. But as time went on, I think she saw how much we liked sitting there; it provided comfort, which made us much more oblidged to the lesson-learning at 8:00 in the morning! So she not only relaxed on couch sitting, but she altered the seating arrangement so that we all sat in groups of four, an observation of how we preferred to work together. We ended up signing that couch and giving it to her as a cute present. Another method of stressing community over discipline.