The Art of Teaching Children, page 18
Reinforcing measurement? Take your kids outside and make a couple of lines on the blacktop with chalk. Starting with their toes behind the line, let the children leapfrog, then measure the distances. For fun, make the kids some paper headbands with frog faces for them to wear while they’re jumping.
Reviewing geometry? Play Geometry Simon Says. Ask your students to stand up and face the front of the room. Call out: “Simon says turn ninety degrees!” “Simon says show me a point!” (a fist). “Simon says show me a ray!” (both arms extended, one hand in a fist). “Okay, now show me one hundred and eighty degrees!” Point to the children who flinch and say, “Gotcha! Simon didn’t say. Take a seat.”
Another fun way to review geometry is to have kids buddy up with a friend or two, lie on the floor, and use their bodies to show you various right, acute, and obtuse angles, as well as lines, line segments, and parallel lines. Teacher tip: Don’t ask children to show you intersecting and perpendicular lines unless you’re ready to see a pileup. I call this acting out math “Dramath.” Kids love it. But don’t confuse Dramath with “Dramarks.” That’s when you use your body to make exclamation marks, commas, apostrophes, and question marks on the floor with your friends.
Technology
When I was teaching, I had the chance to visit a lot of schools. Oftentimes, when I observed classrooms during math, I would witness entire classes of headphoned children playing math games on laptops or iPads. I’d wonder, Just how much math is being learned here? What also concerned me was what the students were not doing. When kids are playing games on their devices, they’re not manipulating concrete objects with their hands or building anything. They’re not interacting with their peers or moving their bodies. They’re not jumping outside with frog masks. I’m not against on-screen math games. They’re fun, and children enjoy them, but just like you wouldn’t give your students Skittles Math every day, I believe that online games should also be limited and offered as a special treat.
Wiggle Room
These days, more and more teachers are asked to follow scripted math programs. I’m not a big fan. A lot of teachers aren’t. One friend of mine calls scripted curriculums “paint-by-number teaching.” When you’re bound to one program, there’s not a lot of extra room to implement ideas from other resources. It’s a shame because there are so many wonderful ideas out there for teaching math. To compound the problem, there’s a big push to have every teacher in a grade level teach the same unit at the same time. When you have to follow a canned curriculum, something valuable gets lost. You lose your autonomy. You can no longer try out an idea that you recently learned about or one that you just thought of and know your kids would enjoy. When all teachers have to be on the same page (literally), you also lose your flexibility. You limit the time you can delve into a topic, spend on review, supplement with enrichment, or follow a teachable moment. For teachers, this kind of lockstep teaching can be extremely frustrating.
It reminds me of one of my favorite I Love Lucy episodes, where Ricky puts Lucy on a strict schedule. One night, to get back at him, Lucy sets Ricky’s dinner on the table only to whisk away his plate seconds later. She claims there’s no time in the schedule for him to eat. Sometimes teaching math can feel this way. In order to keep the same schedule as our colleagues and keep in step with the program, we “serve” our students a skill, then whisk them to the next one before they’ve had a chance to taste it, let alone digest it.
If you are required to follow a program, the good news is that there are a couple of things you can do to free up your time so that you can do other things. To start, don’t do every lesson in the teacher’s manual. Pick and choose. Also, ditch those pretests that come with the program. Pretests take up valuable time. You don’t need to give all of them. Posttests are enough. And don’t be afraid to “close the door.” If you want to deviate from the program, shut the door, tell your kids to keep their math books in their desks, and do something else. It’s okay to take a little detour sometimes. We teach kids first. Then programs.
Real Math
All teachers of math know that it’s important for children to have opportunities to apply what they’ve learned, and the best way to do this is what I call “Real Math.” This is where you give kids real menus, catalogs, or advertisements to solve problems. I would try to provide a Real Math activity for my students at least once a month, usually on a Friday. Here’s what it looked like:
In the beginning of the school year, I’d give my kids ads from Walmart and let them go on a “shopping trip” for back-to-school supplies. In October I handed out Target ads for children to “purchase” costumes and supplies for a pretend Halloween party. In November I’d distribute Scholastic book order forms to “shop” for books, and in December I would pass out catalogs from See’s Candies to “buy” holiday gifts. Throughout the year, I also used menus from local restaurants for make-believe trips out to eat. After a few years, I’d pick up new menus and advertisements. Teacher tip: Do not collect your ads with a non-teacher. They won’t get it. Non-teachers do not view the taking of a half dozen ads from the entrance at Michael’s craft store the same as teachers do.
Using the prices in the printed material, write out a bunch of problems for your students. Include plenty of problems that pertain to what they are currently studying. As I pointed out earlier, use your kids’ names. Real Math works best if you include them. On Real Math days, hand out the sheets of questions along with the catalogs, ads, or menus. Allow children to work individually or in groups of two or three. Most will choose to work with a friend. Math, like writing, is more pleasurable when shared with a buddy.
Hands down, Real Math days were always my favorite math times. They were the kids’ favorite too. One day when my third graders had just finished going on a pretend shopping trip to Toys“R”Us, one of them called out, “Mr. Done—when’s math?”
Talking to Learn
“And how old are you?” I asked Christine. I was going around the classroom asking my third graders their ages.
“Eight and three-fourths,” she answered.
I smiled, then turned to Ethan. “And how old are you, Ethan?”
“Sixty-three,” he replied. I pulled a face as his broke into a grin. “In dog years.”
Next was Monica’s turn. “And how old are you?”
“I’m eight,” she responded, “but my birthday is in two months, so my mom says I can say I’m nine.” She went on. “I’m a Scorpio. I wanted to be an Aquarius, but my sister got it.”
When all the kids finished sharing, I said, “Can any of you guess my age?”
“Fifty,” Finn jested. I was twenty-seven at the time.
I pretended to be insulted. “Fifty?”
Giggles.
“Fifty-five,” Harper joshed with a grin.
Laughter.
“Seventy-five!” Brian burst out.
Hooting.
“A hundred!” Ethan whooped.
“Yeah, a hundred!” everyone echoed.
(Cue: peals of laughter.)
As it swirled around the room, I clutched my chest and pretended to have a heart attack.
* * *
Talking with children was one of the things I enjoyed most about teaching. I got a kick out of it. It was certainly never dull. Adults never fall out of their chairs in hysterics after guessing I’m a hundred.
Children love to talk. Every teacher knows what happens when you show a group of students a picture of a dog, cat, guinea pig, or hamster. Immediately all the children begin talking about their pets at the same time without being aware that anyone else is speaking. You get the same response when you bring up bee stings, allowance, getting stitches, or Santa Claus. All teachers have experienced being in the middle of a lesson when a child asks about something completely unrelated to what you are teaching. During a math lesson, no teacher would ever be surprised to be lobbed a question such as: “In the olden days, how did they churn butter?” Teachers try to keep kids’ questions focused on the topic at hand by saying, “Is this a story or a question?” but it rarely works. Children know the difference. They just pretend not to. And all teachers know that when the police officer speaks at the school assembly and asks the kids if they have any questions (not stories), the child who is called on—after assuring her teacher that she really has a question—might very well proceed to tell the entire multipurpose room full of people about the time her dad got a speeding ticket.
During a science lesson, I once had the following exchange with a student:
TEACHER: (seeing raised hand) Is this a question or a story?
STUDENT: A question.
TEACHER: Is it about the topic we are discussing right now?
STUDENT: Yes.
TEACHER: Okay. What is it?
STUDENT: Yesterday I was outside and I saw a dog and then the dog disappeared and—
TEACHER: Hold it. Hold it. This sounds like a story.
STUDENT: No, I have a question.
TEACHER: (looking skeptical) What is it?
STUDENT: Can dogs be angels?
Children talk about everything, and I don’t think parents realize just how much their kids talk about them. Over my career, I heard it all: “My mom hit the neighbor’s car, but don’t tell anyone. She didn’t tell him.” “My dad sleeps on the couch. He snores too much.” “My mom has a tattoo on her (slaps fanny) right here.” “My daddy steals copper pipes from old houses.” “On the weekend, we went to Ikea to buy a new bed because my parents’ bed broke.” “My mom gives me candy right before she takes me to my dad’s house so I can be crazy there.” Kids freely share their parents’ ages, favorite happy hour drinks, and where their moms hide the things they bought so their dads won’t find them. Kids volunteer which parent they go to when they want something (usually Dad), who is less strict about bedtime (Dad wins here too), and who drives the fastest (always Dad).
Teachers have special names for their talkers: chatterboxes, Chatty Cathys. I called mine “Yacky Ducks.” That’s what my dad used to call me. One year I had a Yacky Duck whose real name was Ronny. He never stopped talking. It didn’t matter where I moved him, he’d start chattering away. I tried putting an empty desk next to him. Didn’t work. I tried seating him between two girls. It got worse. Ronny wasn’t just a chatterbox in my classroom. He yacked everywhere. Mr. Miller, the science lab teacher, hung a sign on the human skeleton in his classroom that said “Mr. Miller waiting for Ronny to be quiet.” One day when I needed a break, I challenged Ronny to not talk for sixty seconds. He accepted. I looked at the clock. “On your mark,” I said. His classmates watched the clock with me. “Get set… Go!” As the second hand moved past the numbers, Ronny bit his lip. Then he started bouncing. He covered his mouth with one hand. Then another. Finally, after forty-eight seconds, he collapsed onto his desk and gave a defeated cry: “I can’t do it!”
Of course, not all children’s talk is the same. At school, there are actually four different kinds. The first is “normal talk,” the pleasant childhood chatter that you hear when students are working in their classrooms, standing in line, or sitting on the reading rug waiting for the teacher to get settled in the chair and take one last sip of coffee before speaking. The second type of kid talk is “excited talk.” Louder than normal talk, excited talk occurs when children are waiting for something to start like a class play, a school assembly, or a visit from a firefighter who might let one lucky child wear his helmet. Excited talk also takes place on bus rides to a field trip destination (never on the ride home), when the power goes out, or when the teacher looks at the clock at the end of the day and realizes that there isn’t enough time to assign homework, so that night there won’t be any. The third kind of talk is “loud talk.” Similar to excited talk but not exactly the same, loud talk happens at three times in the day: recess, lunchtime, and during intense games of steal the bacon while out at PE. Loud talk occurs inside classrooms at rainy-day recess too. The fourth kind of kid talk, “secret talk,” takes place at silent reading time when two children sit together in the corner of the classroom or under a table with books in their hands but aren’t really reading. Secret talk happens when kids whisper in line during fire drills even though the rule is: No talking. Secret talk also occurs when the teacher needs to step out of the classroom for a minute but before doing so reminds the class to stay in their seats and keep working quietly. After the teacher leaves, a lookout will stand guard and announce when the teacher is returning. When the teacher walks back into the classroom, all the secret talkers will become perfectly quiet, pretending to work. Most children are quite adept at all four types of talking. A child like Ronny can switch from normal, to excited, to loud, to secret talk without any trouble at all.
As much as teachers would like a little quiet every now and then, we know that kids need to talk. We recognize that talk is central to learning, critical for children’s language development, and foundational to literacy. We understand that it is through talk that children develop their ideas, polish their thoughts, sharpen their thinking, and solidify their learning. Talk enables kids to voice opinions, explore feelings, and work with others. It is in talking that children learn to understand how language works. In short, talk underpins everything we do. And so, teachers do a lot to get their kids talking. We host the morning meetings, run the literature circles, and set up the book clubs. We hold large and small group discussions and have kids turn to the children seated next to them to share. All day long, we ask children questions and listen to their answers. But despite teachers’ best efforts to encourage talking in class, the reality is that schools could do more. Talk takes time, and teachers don’t have a lot of it. In the classroom, talking often takes a backseat to subjects deemed more important. If the subjects in school were instruments in the orchestra, reading, writing, and math would be the first violins, violas, and cellos seated near the front. Talking would be a third fiddle way back under the exit sign.
Children aren’t talking a lot out of school either. According to a study by the US Department of Education, the average American child talks with his mother fewer than thirty minutes a day. With fathers, it’s even less. In today’s plugged-in world, kids aren’t talking to one another like they used to. We’ve all seen it: groups of students gathered together, but there’s no conversation because everyone is looking at his or her phone. A longtime licensed family counselor I’m friends with named Bill told me that he sees more and more young people who don’t know how to talk. Because they’re on their screens all day, they’re losing the ability to communicate face-to-face. “Today’s kids are becoming conversationally incompetent,” Bill said. “It’s becoming a big problem.”
Just like anything else, children need to be taught how to converse. We can’t assume they know how to have a conversation. A conversation is like a partner dance. It involves give and take. There’s a rhythm and a flow to it. You must be attentive to your partner. And just like it takes practice to learn to dance, learning to be conversant does too. The good news is that we can teach our students how. We can move talk out of the third-string section. Teachers understand the value of asking children open-ended and thought-provoking questions to stimulate conversation. What follows are a few additional ideas that not only encourage kids to speak but also help children to speak well.
Plan for Talking
One day when I was a student teacher, I sat down with my master teacher, Bob, to go over a lesson I’d just given to a class of fourth graders. Bob asked me how I thought the lesson went, and I told him that I felt it had gone pretty well. Then Bob said something that I will never forget. He gave his head a shake and said two words: “Too quiet.” Gulp. Bob pointed out that during the lesson, I was the one who had done most of the talking. The kids had done very little, he noted, and several hadn’t said anything at all. It was a valuable lesson, one that always stayed with me. “Children,” he said, “learn with their mouths open.” When creating your lessons, plan activities for kids to share and discuss, comment and converse. Embed speaking opportunities in subjects that don’t normally have a talk focus, such as math and science. Be deliberate about it.
Model How to Converse
Before asking children to participate in a discussion with their peers, demonstrate how. Teach it explicitly. Sit down with a student or two in front of your class and model what a good conversation looks like. Show them what a bad one looks like too. One way to illustrate a good dialogue is to toss a tennis ball with a student. Explain that a conversation is like a friendly game of catch. In both, there is a back-and-forth: throw and catch, talk and listen. Of course, you can also use the tennis ball to illustrate a poor exchange. In this case, you might want to put on a catcher’s mask.
Create Discussion Guidelines
To encourage respectful communication, create classroom discussion guidelines with your students early in the year. Mine would look like this:
Keep your eyes on the speaker.
Respect one another’s ideas.
Give everyone a chance to speak.
Invite others into the conversation by asking a question.
After creating your guidelines, have students role-play what each one looks like. Post the guidelines on the wall and keep them up all year long. Refer to them often. As you observe children following the guidelines, compliment them on what you see.
I remember one particular group meeting where I was not only glad to see that the children were keeping to our discussion guidelines, I was pleased with what they’d come up with. It was our first student council meeting of the year. The third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade representatives from all the classrooms were gathered in my room at lunchtime, brainstorming rules for their upcoming campaigns for president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer (for the bake sales). When the students finished their list, I thought, All politicians could learn a thing or two from these kids. Here are the rules the children decided on: (1) Don’t put up more than two posters. It should be the same for everyone; (2) No bribing others with candy to get votes. It’s not fair; (3) You can’t say anything bad about anyone else. That’s not nice; (4) You’re not allowed to make promises you can’t keep, like “There will be pizza every day in the cafeteria!”; and (5) There’s only one promise that you can make: to do your best.
