During my first year of teaching I taught in the junior high were I had attended. I was in the position that Mr. Sommer's, one of the teachers who had had the greatest impact on me, had inhabited. In my class was his son Steven. Steven was a very unique young man who enjoyed wearing a big puffy coat with a hood and slumping down in his chair until he disappeared. I had the son of one of my favorite teachers in my room and I was failing him. His father had made such an impact on my life when I was in the 9th grade it was a weird twist of fate that I would have the same chance with his son. I talked to his father I talked to other teachers and I tried to talk to him. One idea kept surfacing-- Steven was artistic and loved to draw. At the time Learning styles was not yet a buzz word but I knew that Steven was not going to learn in the normal way and I had to reach him. I started including a visual element to every assignment. We enacted puppet shows and drew visual interpretations of literature. He peeked out from under his hood. Then one day in the middle of a unit on folk tales he actually took off the hood. I asked my students to take a traditionally American/European tale and pick a different culture to tell it in. They were to write the story and provide a visual. Twelve years later I still have the pictures he drew. On that day I knew that I would always include a visual element in my classroom. Over the years that idea has expanded into a project oriented classroom that includes the use of art, music and my most recent addition technology.
What experience has most changed you as a teacher?
I thought the question should come first. I am wanting to know more about this student and I know that is not the point.
Wow, I love your description! When you say "he peeked out from under his hood" you had me hooked. How exciting that moment must have been!
That is a wierd twist of fate. I'm glad you wrote about it, and it challenges me, once again, to reflect more carefully on my teaching.
Hook them into learning...whatever it takes....grag their interest and gru with it.
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