Twin Teaching: Life in the Clone Zone
This morning, my mentor teacher greeted me and asked me if I wanted to teach a lesson today, and I said yes. She assured me that I would be able to watch her teach the same lesson two times first, and I wanted to give it my best try. As soon as our day started, I got my composition book out and wrote down the structure of her lesson from start to finish. One thing I worry about most is timing a lesson just right--nothing makes me more fearful than running out of time. I even added time stamps to my notes each time my mentor teacher transitioned, so I could estimate how much time I should be spending on each part of the lesson:
If this all seems a little eccentric to you, that's because it is. My mentor teacher has 30+ years of teaching experience and perfecting her timing, while I was trying to calculate it all exactly because of my goal to time it all just right. I was even writing down the smaller things my mentor teacher said during class. I had exactly everything I needed to do and say laid out in my notebook. By third period, it was my turn. My mentor teacher gave me her notes for the story plot diagram, and I left my painfully detailed notes behind when I walked to the front of the room.
It felt like there was an invisible line between the front near the board and the students' desks in front of me. My mouth instantly went dry, and it didn't feel right to walk over and grab my water bottle. I tried to remember the brief steps I had written down to get through the whole lesson. When a student said something that wasn't quite right but on a good track, I even said, "Interesting, who else thinks that?" just like I had seen my mentor teacher do. Don't get me wrong, she also let a student know when what they said was not the answer, but all I could think about was what I had watched her do and say. To tell you the truth, I never say the word interesting.
Long story short, I got through the lesson. Luckily, my mentor teacher was in the room when I forgot what I was saying in the middle of my sentence. She brought up some main points of the lesson and helped me refocus. Instead of kicking myself, I remembered that I was learning. In entering this new territory of being a teacher instead of a student, I was running the risk of stepping outside of my safe zone. Because of this, I tried my hardest to try and teach the lessons in exactly the same way that my mentor teacher did, since that's what her students were used to.
I admired the way she broke down the material for the students so much that my admiration turned into imitation. There is a clear difference between modeling after someone, and trying to be a clone of someone.
It felt comfortable at first to go through the motions in the same ways my mentor teacher had done, and to divide the information with the same wording. After all, she was the expert at teaching this grade level, and I should model myself after her. This is what I thought at the beginning of my lesson, but it is not altogether what I thought at the end of it. In trying to mimic even my mentor teacher's explanations word-for-word, I forgot what I was saying in the middle of someone else's sentence! Yes, I had taken notes for two hours, but I was just repeating a list in my head instead of really focusing on what I wanted the students to understand.
None of this means that I think the lesson went badly. I received positive feedback from my mentor teacher, and she was both patient and kind. During our quick debrief, she went over specific feedback she had written on a lined sticky note, and I felt so relieved to have a conversation about the lesson as a whole. I felt especially fortunate that I had the chance to get feedback on the third day of my internship experience before all of the formal observations start. From this point on, I'll focus more on who I want to be as an individual teacher, instead of striving to be another teacher's twin.
With this lesson, I collected more valuable learning moments:
1. Never underestimate the power of proximity (use your space, and walk around!). I stood frozen at the front of the room despite previously watching my mentor teacher use the entire space and walk around the whole room. My mentor teacher told me that sometimes all it takes for a student to raise a hand is for the teacher to be standing nearby. I saw this when students at the front of the room where I stood answered more often than those sitting farther away.
2. If you forget what you were going to say, just refocus yourself and slow down.
What was I just about to say? What did I just finish saying? What can I do with twelve pairs of eyes on me? Do they all know I forgot what I said? Take a few deep breaths, but not as dramatic as the ones in yoga class. Oxygen is good for the brain, and so is glancing at your notes or the board. Blanking out happens, even when you think you know your material.
3. Try hard to get to know students' names, you'll need them.
This one probably seems obvious, and this challenge will differ depending on class sizes. Students are forgiving when it comes to the whole name thing, but it's important to be able to name students during class, and for them to know that you know their names. Give it some time, but don't wait too long.