What has me up and at my laptop at 1:55 on this weekend morning is a phrase that crept into my mind as I turned the question of my students' learning over and over again in my mind.
Guerilla Education.
A quick Googling shows that the phrase has already been embraced by New York teacher of the year John Taylor Gatto, UrbanDictionary and some music outfit I cannot even pretend to categorise.
The term Guerilla Education came to my mind, however, while pondering the way to capitalise on the boundless enthusiasm my students tend to display the moment we step out of the classroom and off the clock. While the classroom experience is steadily evolving as the students and I dance the two-step of tentative ongoing assessment and feedback, our most meaningful exchanges seem to take place incidentally, in the hallway, the cafeteria, the washroom, the parking lot. Their curiosity is infinite as long as the experience is real.
So the question is how do I make the classroom experience more real, and the outside experience more educational?
My core group stays in one homeroom, which I have not quite outfitted to my liking yet. One sure way to set up a real experience is to let the students take charge of equipping and decorating the room. This allows students to practice the language for expressing opinions, agreeing and disagreeing and making decisions. All this language is also essential for group work in the class.
Inside the room there are several course-related mini-posters already. I would like to add signs for "zones" where information for each subject can be posted. Also, I need bigger, brightly coloured posters on which large print A4 printouts can be pasted.
The teacher's desk has been something of an obstacle in the classroom. It takes up a lot of space and somehow always seems to be between me and the class. It also sends an unequivocal message about the supposed locus of control in the classroom. This needs to change: the students are in charge of their learning. Not me. I have decided to move this desk right next to the side wall, perpendicular to the "front" of the room.
I say "front", because by moving the teacher's desk and some of the other strategies I am devising, the room no longer really has a "front", except when the whiteboard is needed for segments of the lesson. This requires a complete rethink of how lessons are presented - an issue which I constantly find myself needing to address.
I have designated one drawer for students' use, where they can find extra copies of all handouts and some sample work. With the desk-moving operation, I am expanding this: there will be signs allocating a subject to each drawer, as well as a sign for a stationery drawer. There will also be a drawer for newspapers and other authentic materials students may read when they choose to. All drawers are for students' use.
Another way to remove the "front" of the room is, of course, the grouping of desks. This can be done by having two sets of marks on the floor: one for three arcs facing the front, the other for small groups. The groups can also be marked by colours, which can be indicated with small stickers on the desks. Student groups can be varied by randomly handing out coloured cards to allocate students' seating for a particular activity.
A further weapon is a student whiteboard, which can be portable or affixed at the "back" of the room. This can be used during group work sessions. Students write on the board. When not in use, this board can also show important information.
To encourage involvement and active literacy rituals, a class bulletin board can do wonders. This can be used for course-related postings, preferably student-generated, for random posts by students or even real-life notices, like advertisements and the like. Wouldn't it be great to see students huddled round the bulletin board in breaks?
We also definitely need a map of the world.
What if the classroom became a hive of activity? What if there were always something fruitful and stimulating for the fast workers to do when they finished? What if the university class were more like a lab or a studio or even a kindergarten playroom?
Another strategy is to take language learning materials out of the room in a very literal sense. Our students spend a lot of time just hanging around in the open hall between classes (both, incidentally, in space and time). I have been covering spelling with my students by working spelling words into a rhyme and illustrating it. If these were posted in the hallway, would my students start teaching others what they are learning? Would some of the words sink in? Would there be guerilla peer teaching?
I do not know these little tactics will be successful. But in the scientific spirit of enquiry, I am going to try them. And I will report back.
2 comments:
When I finally got to sleep, more ideas came.
A Question Box, where students can anonymously leave questions, requests or comments. Checking the box can be a classroom ritual, where students read what others have written and discuss it. The class can decide together how much attention the question needs.
Also, since college law obligates me to post an attendance chart, I can replace the stick with a carrot: a Full Attendance This Week chart. Perhaps a small stationery prize for a month's full attendance...?
I was inspired by a poster in a colleague's class, where a door was open at a crack with the words: Teachers open the door, but students must enter it by themselves. I have made three layers of printouts, to replicate the poster interactively on my classroom door. The top layer shows and enchanting Arabian door, which will be cut top open to a picture of the world in a hand. The third layer contains the words. I will laminate this and put it on my own classroom door. And let's see what happens. I think the studetns will have a blast opening the door to peek inside. BY THEMSELVES!
It's working! A week into the new regime, not only are my own students hanging around the class and discussing the map, posters and self-access materials, but OTHER students are visiting to check them out. Granted, their discussions are not in English, but they are reading and decyphering together, and they certainly are generating enthusiasm.
Another successful innovation has been The Question Box, a brightly coloured box of about 10 cubic centimeters with a slot in the top. Here students can anonymously drop off their questions. When the class needs a change of pace, I let students read questions from the box and briefly discuss them. The questions have mainly been logistical, but I'm dropping some myself to guide students to participate more and at a more sophisticated level.
Very, very excited about this. It is bringing out the best in my students and forging a bond that can withstand the many frustrations we will all face.
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