A friend once asked me why I wanted to become a teacher. I replied jokingly, "I love the sound of my own voice." This statement isn't entirely true: I don't love the sound of my own voice. I find it fluctuates all too freely between my nose and my throat depending on who I'm speaking to and what I interpret their body language to be communicating. More importantly, when I speak pubicly, I tend to lose track of what I'm saying because I don't want to think about the fact that I'm public speaking. My mind would much rather wander while my mouth rambles on and on and on. But I do love to ramble, I do love to speak, and no matter how nervous I get or how far my mind wanders, there's not place I'd rather be than at the front of a room with all eyes on me as I explain something that I just learned, because knowledge, to put is bluntly, is awesome.
Needless to say, I had an absolute blast today. The assignment? Present a short monologue to a history class (today's was a grade 10 applied class) about a single facet of a whole unit (for instance: a particular country's involvement in World War I), and then, with a small group of three or four, engage in an activity that the group will then present to the class along with everything they learned. As a representative for France, I originally planned to perform a mock French accent. Unfortunately, I could never maintain my faux-French accent during practice. It always deteriorated into some wild variation of Russian and German, neither of which sound anything like French. I'll have to practice more for my next presentation when I play a Bishop of New France. My accent didn't matter though. The second I stepped out in front of the class and my initial bout of nervousness subsided, I was completely in my element. I spoke loudly, animatedly, and excitedly, at ease with the 24 sets of eyes that were watching me, 26 if you include the teacher and her EA. I think I was a little too enthusiastic in my approach though. The class was actually intimidated into silence at one point. Reigning myself in, I managed to deliver a semi-coherent explanation as to why France entered the war.
I was going to write extensively about how my activity failed. Apparently, my brain stuck around to help deliver my monologue, but then it ran for the hills the second I needed to give my group instructions. Another mistake I made: allowing the students to pick groups for themselves. Next time, I'll be sure that the group numbers students off or imposes groups so that we don't run into any problems. But otherwise, I think this week's teaching exercise was a big success: my group and I ended up talking about pictures of post-War France, German political cartoons, grandparents' war stories, and violence in war movies. That conversation generated more knowledge than my activity could have done had it been successful. The students learned a little about World War I and a lot more about World War II, which was the war they were more interested in. They learned about Germany's economy and France's devastation post-World War I.
I learned more than I have in any class I've taken at teacher's college so far: when in an unfamiliar teaching environment, let the students talk first. They'll tell you (in so many or so little words) what they want to learn and how they want to learn it. Seek first to understand and then to be understood, as the old saying goes. The students seemed much more at ease when it didn't seem like I was evaluating them, and I got a lot more participation by allowing them to direct the focus of our study with only occasional hints as to what we should discuss next. The primary source documents I brought were also a huge help. Mental note to me: no one wants to listen to an adult ramble. They want to see cool pictures of a decimated French country side and German political cartoons. Thank goodness I made the last minute decision to print those off. They said more than anything I possibly could have, and they said it better.
Ultimately, I think that my group sits at a low Level 3 or a high Level 2. They were clearly listening and attentive, and were able to recite several key points of the lesson.
I can't wait to do this again in two weeks.
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