Being open to surprise in the classroom - Center for Inspired Teaching

December 6, 2013

In the second of her monthly posts, 2012 Inspired Teaching Fellow Jenny Leehey discusses the value she’s found in being open to surprise in the classroom.

“What do you want for Christmas?” my fiancé asks me each year. “I don’t know. Surprise me!” I always say. Of course, now that I teach three-year olds, I get my fair share of surprises every day at work.

Like all teachers, I spend hours each week planning and rehearsing my days, but no lesson ever goes exactly as planned. There are happy surprises: that afternoon when it finally stopped raining and we went outside with a bag of colorful scarves and the kids discovered wind and how it works. There are not-so-happy surprises: that day my aide left for a doctor’s appointment and two kids had bathroom accidents while our class was trying to make playdough. There are lots of little surprises every day, but as I reflect on my school year so far, I can think of one surprise that continues to amaze me. (Spoiler alert: it’s a happy one.)

Rewind all the way back to the week before school started, when I received my class roster and began calling families to invite them to visit our classroom before the big first day. I was expecting a host of anxious questions about school day logistics, so I had notes and answers ready. What I didn’t plan for was that the majority of family members I spoke with did not understand or speak English. The fact that I would have a class of three-year olds who were not only brand-new to school, but also brand-new to the English language did not feel like a Christmas-present-type-of-surprise. It was intimidating, and it made me wonder how effective I was really going to be at teaching my students.

Instead of wasting too much time feeling worried and scared, I started searching for ways to communicate with and engage young English Language Learners without being able to speak their home languages fluently myself. Motivated by my desire to build relationships with my students, I drew from strategies we learned during our exceptional learners course with Inspired Teaching and opened myself up to practices that were new to me. I started incorporating song into all of our classroom routines, even making up my own! I enlisted the help of a monkey puppet who has since become our beloved class mascot. I made visuals and charts to introduce new concepts, daily schedules, and classroom behavior norms. Despite being someone who had always avoided drama class, I went outside my comfort zone and discovered the value of wacky voices, new personas, and structured play as ways my students and I could better communicate with one another.

I was committed to acknowledging and understanding my students’ backgrounds, their own areas of expertise, and what brings them joy, and my students have already shown me so much about what it means to create a developmentally appropriate, student-centered classroom. Teachers always say they learn from their students, but I cannot help but feel thankful for all that my little ones have taught me in just half a school year. For me, the biggest, thrilling surprise has been that even though it’s only December, I can already see so many changes and so much growth in my teaching practice. May there be more happy surprises in 2014!

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.