Finding Newness in Repetition: Hooray for Monday

January 4, 2021
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching

Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

Happy New Year!

Webster’s Dictionary defines “new” as just beginning or beginning anew and regarded as better than what went before.

What would it mean to begin anew as teaching resumes in this new year? How do you make it better than what went before when you are teaching a subject or a lesson for the second time, or the tenth time, or the 85th time? What does it look like to begin anew in teaching a group of students who are already known to you, whose learning styles and interests and frustrations you’ve witnessed for months?

My intent was to write about rituals and routines this week, the rituals associated with the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, and their relevance to the classroom. But as I delved into the rituals and routines that are important to me as a teacher – morning meetings, daily mental math, creating songs or poems at the end of the day, among others – I was reminded of the repetition that is an integral part of teaching. This is particularly true for the content we teach. Most of us, if we have taught for more than a few years, find ourselves teaching the same content, even the same lessons, more than once, perhaps many times year after year. Or, if we teach secondary students, we might teach the same thing several times in the same day. With all of this repetition, how can we keep lessons fresh and authentically engaging, for our students and ourselves?

I recently had the pleasure of listening to Alan Alda’s podcast Clear + Vivid, in which he spoke with Itzhak Perlman, one of the world’s greatest living violinists. Alda asked Perlman what he does to keep his performances fresh and authentic. He asked how Perlman navigates performing a Bach sonata or a Beethoven violin concerto a dozen or a hundred or a thousand times.

Perlman’s answer was illuminating: “I try to listen to the music…you have to be interested in the music…You have to have something inside of you that says, ‘this is something special.’ The minute you do that, the music starts to get interesting.”

Perlman’s answer not only illustrates what it means to be a master, it also shows that he is a learner. If you truly listen and observe, if you are truly interested in what you are doing – whether it’s playing music or teaching biology or literature – you will make it interesting for yourself and your students. And you will be transformed, and learn something new every single time.

What would happen if you commit yourself to learning alongside your students, to learning something new each time you teach a lesson? It could be about the subject matter itself, or it could be about the way this particular group of students interacts with the subject matter.

It could be that you learn more about how you feel about the subject matter. (Consider learning to perform double-digit multiplication or balance chemical equations. Those are tasks that might have sparked fear or anxiety the first few times you engaged in them or taught them. How do they make you feel now?) It could be that you deepen your relationship with a student, by focusing your attention on how she engages with a novel or history text or quadratic equation.

One thing is certain: if you learn something new every time you teach, the teaching and learning in your classroom will be better than what went before.

As we start 2021, we have an opportunity to embrace the newness of things that are familiar – like the subjects and the students we teach. If we strive for newness and authenticity, we’ll set our students and ourselves up for joyful learning. And we’ll be doing our part to make this a truly happy, new year.

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.