Reflecting On My Final Exam Lesson Plan

            So I gave my revamped Woody Guthrie lesson in class last Monday, and while it was definitely better than the first attempt, there still is room for improvement. It was difficult for me to initially find a way to get the class more involved with what I felt was more of a biographical presentation, but Prof. Schneider helped me along and gave me some interesting ideas that I ran with. Rather than having the class sit and listen to his songs, I had them sing one together accompanied by me on the guitar. I made use of more group activities and think-pair-share strategies that made the lesson seem less “tired” and more hands-on.

            I think in the future I need to focus less on what I have to say, and more on what the students need to be saying while the class is taking place. I have to be able to guide their conversations in group discussions and inspire both the critical thinking and the critical inquisition in regards to the lesson topic. My goal in the general music setting is to have my students thinking like musicians, regardless of whether or not they aspire to become musicians. After all, math teachers aim for their students to think and act as a mathematician would, even though they are fully aware that 100% of their students don’t all plan on working in a think tank someday.

            With this final presentation, the course has come to an end, though I still plan on updating my blog from time to time as the year progresses. That said, there is one thought I would like to share with my fellow colleagues as the semester wraps up:

            I observed a fifth grade classroom the other day, even though I am interning in a middle school, because I wanted to gain a little more insight on early lesson planning. Noted on the board was the objective for the students: they will learn about the life of the early Western pioneer and life on the frontier in general. I wondered about how I would teach this – it would probably have started off with a PowerPoint presentation on the key points of frontier living, and the situations pioneers likely would have faced. It probably would have involved note taking and exit slips and the sort.

            But the fifth grade teacher had a huge camping tent set up in the middle of a dark room, with very dim lamps hovering around the tent and the classroom. I watched as the students sat attentively and excited within the tent as the teacher remarked what a “frigid night” there was last night, and how the Pony Express had delivered the letters they had written to their folks back home (checking along the way what the Pony Express was, and where they were located, and what obstacles they have faced so far along the way.) Here was a lesson that these kids would definitely remember.

It was great to see this kind of teaching – I remembered that to be truly good in this profession is an art, and a skill. Above all, it takes effort. It made me think of lesson planning from a new angle I haven’t thought of before: if I was a 10-12 year old students learning this information, how would I want to learn it? And above all, what would make me fondly remember this lesson material the most? What will make students remember me as the teacher that went the extra mile for the class? And it made me realize that with all the knowledge and experience I have gained so far, there is still very much for me to learn. Sometimes I forget that. Sometimes I think I know most of what there is to know about teaching, and through all buzzwords and the jargon, I pretty much understand the basic points – I don’t yet. I want to read this blog post again 5 months from now and think, “Yeah, I didn’t have it then. But I’m much closer now.” And 5 months from that point, I want to think the same thing: “I’m much closer now.”

It’s probably what I’ll be thinking after teaching for 30 years, too.