Advice for Veterans
I guess after almost nine years of teaching I’m considered a veteran at this job, but because I’m constantly learning new ways of teaching I still feel like a neophyte. I'm always looking for new ideas from fellow teachers (my department head knows that teachers learn more about how to teach from each other than from any other source).
One thing I'm still learning about is classroom routines. There are certain routines in any job, and sometimes teaching high school can be extremely repetitious. I learned as a musician, though, that if the bandleader never changes the arrangements or the repertoire the musicians will burn out. The same goes for students. No one should have to do the same things day after day; life is quotidian enough. Teachers that like to stick to a strict routine day after day generally start boring their students pretty quickly
Yet I’ve learned (the hard way) the advantages of maintaining certain routines in the classrooms, particularly at times when students are in transition. Just because I’m flexible enough to turn on a dime doesn’t mean that my students can always follow me. So at the beginning of each class, students can expect that I’ll introduce the homework and at the end review the assignment and any other necessary information. And when I’m having students form groups, I follow a consistent pattern.
I often fall short in this, so I revise and introduce new routines as needed. And I’ve learned to be very clear when I’m changing a routine, and with repetition, the students come to know what to expect. To engage students I have to come up with a variety of things for them to do, yet still have a framework of routines within which I can introduce different activities.
So there’s a tension between variety and routine that has to be balanced, and that balance is entirely up to me. A lot of variables have to be factored in, however: time of day, the social dynamic within each class, whether a particularly influential student is having a bad day, or any number of things.
Issues like these are what make teaching a human activity. Perhaps because teachers become experts in dealing with all of these variables, they develop a certain contempt for those who have little experience with them but are in the position of telling teachers how to do their jobs. A colleague told me about a woman who came from the state department of education to give a presentation to a bunch of history teachers about using different methods of presenting materials for different types of learners. At one point she asked for questions, and one teacher asked her: If using such a variety of techniques is such a good thing, why are using a lecture format? She replied that she had too much material to present to do otherwise.
At which point about half the history teachers got up and left!
I guess listening to people who are not teachers tell them what to do is at the heart of the frustrations teachers express with their work.
One thing I'm still learning about is classroom routines. There are certain routines in any job, and sometimes teaching high school can be extremely repetitious. I learned as a musician, though, that if the bandleader never changes the arrangements or the repertoire the musicians will burn out. The same goes for students. No one should have to do the same things day after day; life is quotidian enough. Teachers that like to stick to a strict routine day after day generally start boring their students pretty quickly
Yet I’ve learned (the hard way) the advantages of maintaining certain routines in the classrooms, particularly at times when students are in transition. Just because I’m flexible enough to turn on a dime doesn’t mean that my students can always follow me. So at the beginning of each class, students can expect that I’ll introduce the homework and at the end review the assignment and any other necessary information. And when I’m having students form groups, I follow a consistent pattern.
I often fall short in this, so I revise and introduce new routines as needed. And I’ve learned to be very clear when I’m changing a routine, and with repetition, the students come to know what to expect. To engage students I have to come up with a variety of things for them to do, yet still have a framework of routines within which I can introduce different activities.
So there’s a tension between variety and routine that has to be balanced, and that balance is entirely up to me. A lot of variables have to be factored in, however: time of day, the social dynamic within each class, whether a particularly influential student is having a bad day, or any number of things.
Issues like these are what make teaching a human activity. Perhaps because teachers become experts in dealing with all of these variables, they develop a certain contempt for those who have little experience with them but are in the position of telling teachers how to do their jobs. A colleague told me about a woman who came from the state department of education to give a presentation to a bunch of history teachers about using different methods of presenting materials for different types of learners. At one point she asked for questions, and one teacher asked her: If using such a variety of techniques is such a good thing, why are using a lecture format? She replied that she had too much material to present to do otherwise.
At which point about half the history teachers got up and left!
I guess listening to people who are not teachers tell them what to do is at the heart of the frustrations teachers express with their work.
posted by urbansocrates at 6:37 AM
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