30 Days of Blogging: Day 16
I was watching an interview with Jerry Seinfeld this past weekend and he made a comment that when you do stand up comedy, you are testing your material every night. That’s exactly the way teaching works. I can sit down and come up with what I think is a killed lesson plan, follow all of the rules and use all of the strategies but in the end, it all comes down to the mix of students on a specific day and at the specific time. I can see why so many teachers are able to make the switch from teaching to stand-up and vice versa.
Teaching is a performance art and should be prepared for in much the same ways. Every morning I start prepping my class and my equipment so that I can put on my best show and entertain as I teach. I have tried planning classes where the students do most of the learning by reading and watching videos but that never seems to work. It can’t occupy their short attention spans. I usually try to switch things up every 12-minutes or so and those classes seem to work the best. Even on those days when I’m giving a test, I only let them work on the test in the last 15-minutes or so because if it was a whole period, they would go nuts.
I read once that when introducing new material or starting a new unit, teachers should treat it like the opening to a blockbuster movies. Start with something exciting that grabs their attention so that they hang on for the rest of the ride. Much like a roller coaster, the first big drop is the best and the rest is just filler until the end. It’s hard to do that but when you start to think in those terms, lesson planning does become a little easier. I’ve also thought that planning a unit should probably follow the hero’s journey as laid out by Joseph Campbell so that its familiar for the students. And if I can make the students the hero in the journey, then so much the better.
Living With Computers 