The most important lessons about teaching, I learned from my students.
And there were other memorable moments in the classroom, and several beyond school walls in a program that evolved from "School Without Walls" to "Expedition Institute."
But first...
#1 I remember my first week at Pasadena Alternative School. Previously, I'd taught at Foothill High School for 5 years where Lillian Hagen, the principal expected male teachers to wear a white long-sleeved shirt and a tie. I was surprised the first week there too, when I watched as Mr. Hoffman, the Auto Shop teacher on his back, roll out from under a car wearing, you guessed it, a white long-sleeved shirt and a tie. To this day, I haven't figured out how he kept spotless those starched white shirts.
Though that would be some years in the future, that administrative culture and Ms. Hagan's teacher dress code had already seeped into my teacher DNA... until...
By the end of my first week at Pasadena Alternative School (PAS) I'd been welcomed by the same group of students who informed me that a tie was unnecessary as their school dress code was informal. "less institutional". They were coaching me to better fit in and dress a little less nerdy. That's when that same group of students, greeted me in the hallway, where Angela, quietly, smoothly, and like a ninja, pair of scissors in hand cut off the bottom 7 inches of my tie, leaving the top half with a surprised look and dangling in the breeze. I had not seen it coming, not a single clue. I guess I wasn't listening attentively to their dress code advice. They'd mentioned it three times, but by now the tie had become a habit. I recently asked Robyn Wilson, who was a member of the welcoming committee if it was her idea. "Oh, it was Angela's idea but I brought the scissors.?
Robyn and Angela taught me to actively listen to my students.
I learned that students are a constant data stream, giving teachers all the information needed to make learning a richer experience for all when we act on that data. (See the next example for a more meaningful perspective into the heart of a high school student.
Insert here the same story through their eyes.
#2 It wasn't until my second semester that Angela would be there to help me learn one of the most important lessons of my entire career.
She'd just enrolled in my Psychology class where she'd be the first to arrive. She asked permission to take a chair into the hallway and then return when class began. She could see me and hear the class from her vantage point in the hall. I suspected there be "method" in this pattern so we continued Psychology with Angela just outside the door. Two weeks later, she came into class during lunch and asked if she could rearrange the desks. When I green lighted her project, she immediately set out to actualize her vision. It was that same day that Angela permanently moved into my Psychology classroom.
Ask Angela to elaborate this story from her 15 year old point of view..
OTHER IMPORTANT LESSONS
3. A student handing me a petition signed by 30 students requesting an extension of my Anatomy and Physiology course called: Sex Education. John Ryder (5th grade)
#4 A group of students walk into my ADAS office: "We saw you reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Is it true you have Native American books in your own library? We want you to teach us an American History class: An American History through the eyes of Native Americans.
5. "Oh my God!!!!!" Student first view off the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
6. Egg fertilization experiment
petitioned for my high school level sex education class.
7. The day students engineered an assembly to honor my 39 years as a teacher (complete with an honorary varsity letterman's jacket.
When I was in high school, at 5 feet 7 inches, I was too short to play on the varsity basketball team, and because I was too poor, I could never afford a letterman's jacket. Irony, as I see it to receive a letterman's jacked on my final day as a classroom teacher.
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