“At the end of the day when we walk out of school, if we have done our job right, it is the kids who should be tired and the teachers should be the ones full of energy.” Unknown
My first full year as a teacher was with a grade 4 class. This was such a great opportunity for me and I still remember most of the kids that were in the classroom. Although the grade was one that I was very eager to work with, there was one thing that I did not want to do as an “elementary teacher”; decorate.
I walked around the other teacher classrooms in August and watching teachers create little displays with borders and decorate their classroom so meticulously that it drove me crazy. This is not something I have ever enjoyed doing and was dreading how bad I would look compared to other teachers in the school, and especially parents. I remember being up until 3am one night in school and writing the names of each on my students on little basketballs and having the “Our Team” banner outside of the classroom. Although I complained through the whole process, I did it (reluctantly).
As the months went by, the other classrooms kept changing on a minimum of a monthly basis while at Christmas outside my door it said, “Our Team”. I was dreading doing this again. I was a teacher not an interior decorator. The other teachers started bugging me about the lack of decorating, and then it happened. The kids started giving me a hard time and asking me why our classroom was not decorated. My heart sunk. I felt I had failed them as a teacher.
One of my students made a comment to the effect, “Why don’t we ever decorate our classroom?”, and I quickly replied, “Why don’t WE decorate our classroom?”. The light bulb went off. If we wanted decorating, the kids were going to do it. Not me. One afternoon the kids started making their own decorations in the classroom and I watched in amazement how excited they were. They took SO MUCH pride in what they were doing and loved it. I thought, “Wow, these kids are taking such joy in what I absolutely hate doing.” All of a sudden, our classroom really became OUR classroom.
I learned so much from this lesson. There were many days where I found myself laying on my back under a computer messing around with USB ports and installing things thinking, “I hate this”. I knew a student would love doing this and so I would look for technology “assistants” that would go in and help with classroom teachers. With about 20 minutes of “training” for these students, they would save me hours of stress. They were helping with the school, saving myself time, doing something they enjoy, and connecting with other classrooms and teachers. How was this not the best thing ever?
I also remember using this same lesson in the classroom. I taught Health to a grade 6 class a few years ago and realized that many of the students understood the curriculum objectives so well, that it would be so boring. I took the objectives, gave them to students, and told them that they would need to create the lessons for the classroom for our health days (I was smart enough to ensure that the human sexuality portion of the curriculum was one that was taken off the list and I would teach myself). Through this process, kids not only enriched their learning in health, they improved their technology skills, collaboration, and built a stronger understanding of assessment as these were components of their lesson. I also did not have to do as much teaching.
So am I really lazy. Too be honest, not anymore but I was when I first started teaching. Now though, I see these opportunities for students to help create their own learning and take leadership in our building not only are beneficial in the growth of each individual student, but help create a school culture where the building is really OURS. We have our students lead our assemblies, often do a lot of the decorating, and I am seeing these opportunities grow more everyday. Our Identity Day was all about the students taking charge and creating their own presentations and displays, not teachers rigidly guiding them every step of the way. It is great that we are seeing others schools take our lead and doing these activities with their own students.
Although it is important that we do a lot to create beautiful environments that our students are proud of, I see our students take more pride in the imperfections that they have created. As a side effect, our parents are more excited about seeing what their kids have done, and teachers are ultimately doing more guiding and less work.
How are you feeling when you walk out of school?
