Tougher

This week has been a bit tougher. I did some engaging activities, but the students haven't bought into the course fully yet so Tuesday evening I was quite dispirited. I constantly get messages from last year's students and it just made me wish that I had my old students back. This year's classes I still love, but there is not the kind of chemistry yet as I had with my classes last year. My sister reminded me that it is still early, and that it will come. I sure hope so. Nevertheless, I haven't helped it too much this week.

Yesterday was a disaster. But, greatness can come from failure. I hate it when a lesson fails. Yesterday was different. After 90 minutes of class, I didn't see that my students had grasped much of anything. I could make a bunch of excuses for it, but it's no use. The fact of the matter was, the lesson on this topic failed last year and it did again this year, even with modifications!

I felt awful. I had been nervous all morning about it and then, ONCE AGAIN, it failed. I HATED DEMOCRATIZATION! Darn democracies. If they'd only follow the rules, we wouldn't have such a problem about how to recognize them.

ANYWAY, I went to talk to Tim (the other guy who teaches this class now, the one who was supposed to get the job last year...and whose job I pretty much stole) but he was gone. I had a scared, panicky look on my face. Rob (veteran, amazing, master teacher) saw my look and just said, "Bad day. Wanna do lunch?" We went to my room and he asked me questions, I answered, and after half an hour I knew what I had to do and at least had a direction to go (though it seemed daunting). Karen came in after she saw me surrounded in papers (my whole room looked like ideas and projects had exploded all over it, layers and layers of activities and resources and ANYTHING that I thought might be helpful...just strewn all over). After 10 minutes she helped me model the basic idea of what I wanted to do. (I am so blessed by my colleagues)

I spent the rest of the afternoon/night, from 1:30 until midnight remaking the lesson. The complexity of democracy just doesn't make sense without examples. Unfortunately, my limited political knowledge made it difficult for me to come up with examples. Most of what i knew was about the countries we studied...but I wanted more variety. After a night of scouring the internet for the info I needed and crafting it into a case study...I had a framework.

Today was the test. I cut them all up so that I had 8 squares of info on unidentified states. My stomach was once again in knots. I finished just in time, and the rest of the class was just...quick. I believe in being honest with my students and told them flat out that I had recognized that yesterday's lesson had failed and that I had reworked it to see if we could do it better. I warned them that it was untested, but that I thought they would learn it better if they had to construct the information themselves. I think they were intrigued by that and I felt a blessing of loyalty from them as they eagerly set at the task after I had mumbled that I hoped it worked since "I don't think I can handle this lesson failing for a 3rd time." Tommy said, "I won't fail you Ms. Burdick!"

They worked. They argued. They asked questions. They got confused (but there is a kind of confusion that is good...that triggers learning). They learned.

We pointed out the difficulties as we went and I probed them to explain/justify their conclusions of how these states were or were not democratic, and where they would lie on a spectrum of most to least democratic. They were hooked. They kept talking over me, but it was because they were processing. At the end, when I revealed the countries and they realized that they had placed China closer to democracy than Russia (a democracy...supposedly), they got it.

There were at least 2 "ah ha" moments...where the "ooooh" or "huh...s" ran across the room. I grinned...was pumped...and launched into explanation while I had their attention. It is those moments that re energize us as teachers.

The day ended and 90 minutes had passed in no time at all. I was so glad. They got it, it was fun, it was engaging, and many of them walked away with more questions about why countries end up the way they do.

I must say, at least for this one period...mission was accomplished.

Reflection: Sometimes, failure is just what you need (though it sure is uncomfortable).

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