Some Observations from the Field: Week 1

Week 1

My mind was blown. I sat in the classroom with my jaw scraping the floor. My cooperating teacher had her students reading To Kill A Mockingbird aloud. Popcorn reading in a tenth grade class? To me, this was the equivalent of killing the classics, one painful syllable at a time. I came home after the first day of witnessing this and vented to anyone who would listen. How could this be happening? "Did this happen in your classes in high school?" I asked my friends, aghast.

I don't want to reflect upon my experience like it was a Cinderella story; I still hate popcorn readings, but I will say that I became more open towards the read alouds after seeing students actively engage in them.

That's just one of the valuable lessons I learned this week: be willing to try new things. Don't let your prior opinions cloud what you do or do not include in your classroom until you have evidence that it won't work. Be open to new ideas. Be flexible.

Rather than let the popcorn reading bother me, I sat and quietly observed how the students responded to it. Were they bored? Were they sleeping? Were they unfocused?

As near as I could tell, they were none of these things! In fact, quite the opposite. The students were actually engaged and focused. In fact, the read alouds made the book a shared, social experience among the students. They loved talking about it with one another. They legitimately looked forward to class so that they could read more of the book. Additionally, since everyone was going at the same pace, following along in their own copies of the book, everyone was quite literally on the same page. The book became a communal artifact that all the students had equal ownership over. The class investigated questions about the text in a safe, nurturing discussions. While I assumed they all hated having to read aloud, many of the students actually enjoyed the popcorn reading.

This experience was quite interesting, because it made me realize how I need to open my mind to alternative techniques as a teacher. I cannot just assume something will not work. I have to try it with my students. I have to suit my lessons to my classes, not my classes to my lessons.