Shakespeare once said "All the world is a stage..." This is especially true of the classroom. The more experience I obtain as an Instructional Leader, the more I think of Pedagogy as an art. I mean, it takes an artist to repeat the same performance several times per day fine tuning the performance to the nuances of each audience. There is no other performance art greater or more organic than that of a classroom teacher. Same with actors... while actors are not afforded the same intimate knowledge of his or her audience, the art form has striking similarities to teaching with one prevailing factor that lends itself to the art to make the artist great: FEEDBACK!
Recently I met a friend of a friend who is an acting coach. He's worked with some pretty famous actors. When I met this acting coach, he said..."hey, you should totally come to a class to check it out." I love learning. Always have, always will. So I decided to take him up on the offer. I've always wanted to be some sort of performer. And while being an administrator does have its fair share of performances, it is simply not the same as the bright lights, glitz/glam and autograph signing life of a TRUE actor...LOL.
So off to L.A. I go. I tell myself I will go to do some "observational work" (fancy actor term for studying a character or subject matter). Exit to Wilshire Blvd. I arrive at my destination and enter the valet parking only building (L.A., go figure) to attend my first ever acting class. I walk into the office of the coach...his office was very similar to that of a classroom teacher: wall of accomplishments (autographed posters from movies that he's worked on with signatures from the obvious stars)...for a teacher this would be like wall of degrees, awards, etc...; bookshelf full of content related material that is all geared toward self improvement in the field, and of course... the class. Attached to his rather quaint office was the classroom: Several chairs facing a window. In front of the window was a curtain. In front of the curtain there were two chairs... two chairs for the experience. Also in the room was a television, a big beaming, bright light and a camera. After some chit chat and celebration of successes among the actors who came to class, it was time to dive deep into what I came to observe: raw talent.
Each student in the class was given a small script to study. They were given time to go over lines then they all had to perform in front of one another with the teacher not saying a single word. After the performance, the actor/actress watched their performance on camera. Then it was time for what I was mesmerized by: FEEDBACK! These actors were hungry for direction. They ate the words of the acting coach because it was providing sustenance for craft improvement. The feedback, I must say, was pretty darn valuable too. It helps that the coach knew the strengths and areas of growth for each of his students, but it was more to it than that...it was the beautiful dance of sharing information to help one another get better so EVERYONE could reach their own level of perfection deemed acceptable by industry standards.
So I got to thinking... why can't Educators do this???
******************************RECORD SCRATCH*****************************************************
I know, I know...feedback requires walkthroughs or peer reviews, right? Who wants a bunch of pesky administrators or colleagues coming into your classroom writing down stuff while you are teaching, practicing your art, right?
Wait. Feedback isn't a gotcha game.
I promise you its not. If used effectively, it can be a very wonderful, valuable tool to help you see better results from your students. That's what it is all about, right? Our students? The little people whose parents, guardians, and loved ones send to us daily to help prepare them for their next stage of life. Remember them? I do have VERY strong opinions about teachers who refuse to adopt new instructional strategies, but feedback is a critical part of being a classroom teacher...if not, it should be.
I will be the first to admit it, when I first started teaching, I too did not enjoy administrators walking around my room with a pen and pad writing down things. It felt odd, invasive, like they were waiting for me to mess up... but that wasn't it at all.
What was shared with me was very valuable.
"Did you know you called on Steven four times during class?"
"Did you know there was an entire three rows to your left where children were raising their hand and you did not call on them?"
"Did you know you have a tendency to call on girls more than boys?"
It was all true. Indisputable evidence from more than one set of eyes telling me the same thing. I could take this information and call it criticism (which clearly it was not) and improve, or I could CHOOSE to do nothing... but at the end of the day, there was no denying I was now AWARE of how to improve...it was due to the valuable feedback I received from my administrators and peers who observed me teaching.
See in one Middle School I taught for, the feedback process was a natural part of the culture. You just HAD to do it. Period. There was no bucking the system. There was also group accountability. As a teacher at that school, going against the culture of feedback would not have gone over well with my peers. It would have evoked a "who the hell do you think you are" attitude.
Who wants that? This was very much like what I witnessed in the acting class. If someone said "no, I'm not going to take that advice that you ALL are giving me", that person, more than likely, would be asked not to return. You see one can only grow AFTER one is made aware of where they need to grow. Growth does not imply deficit, it means you need to get stronger.
How can any TRUE EDUCATOR deny that we all need to be stronger? Are all of our schools with a 100% graduation rate? Nope... growth.
Are all of our schools decreasing their suspension, expulsion and dropout rates? Nope...growth.
Are all of our schools prepared for Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the higher order thinking instructional strategies that will need to be implemented as a result? Nope...growth.
You see feedback doesn't arrest development, it fosters it.
Actors, at the end of the day, are only as good as their last performance. And if your audience (students and their grades/scores) are giving you bad reviews, its time to take a couple of acting classes (feedback from peers) to see what you can do better.
If you aren't quite comfortable with that process yet... I know of a very good acting coach you can see to help you get there.
This acting coach is really good by the way:
www.dustinfelder.com
Tell him teachingwhileblack sent you.
Shakespeare once said "All the world is a stage..." This is especially true of the classroom. The more experience I obtain as an Instructional Leader, the more I think of Pedagogy as an art. I mean, it takes an artist to repeat the same performance several times per day fine tuning the performance to the nuances of each audience. There is no other performance art greater or more organic than that of a classroom teacher. Same with actors... while actors are not afforded the same intimate knowledge of his or her audience, the art form has striking similarities to teaching with one prevailing factor that lends itself to the art to make the artist great: FEEDBACK!
Recently I met a friend of a friend who is an acting coach. He's worked with some pretty famous actors. When I met this acting coach, he said..."hey, you should totally come to a class to check it out." I love learning. Always have, always will. So I decided to take him up on the offer. I've always wanted to be some sort of performer. And while being an administrator does have its fair share of performances, it is simply not the same as the bright lights, glitz/glam and autograph signing life of a TRUE actor...LOL.
So off to L.A. I go. I tell myself I will go to do some "observational work" (fancy actor term for studying a character or subject matter). Exit to Wilshire Blvd. I arrive at my destination and enter the valet parking only building (L.A., go figure) to attend my first ever acting class. I walk into the office of the coach...his office was very similar to that of a classroom teacher: wall of accomplishments (autographed posters from movies that he's worked on with signatures from the obvious stars)...for a teacher this would be like wall of degrees, awards, etc...; bookshelf full of content related material that is all geared toward self improvement in the field, and of course... the class. Attached to his rather quaint office was the classroom: Several chairs facing a window. In front of the window was a curtain. In front of the curtain there were two chairs... two chairs for the experience. Also in the room was a television, a big beaming, bright light and a camera. After some chit chat and celebration of successes among the actors who came to class, it was time to dive deep into what I came to observe: raw talent.
Each student in the class was given a small script to study. They were given time to go over lines then they all had to perform in front of one another with the teacher not saying a single word. After the performance, the actor/actress watched their performance on camera. Then it was time for what I was mesmerized by: FEEDBACK! These actors were hungry for direction. They ate the words of the acting coach because it was providing sustenance for craft improvement. The feedback, I must say, was pretty darn valuable too. It helps that the coach knew the strengths and areas of growth for each of his students, but it was more to it than that...it was the beautiful dance of sharing information to help one another get better so EVERYONE could reach their own level of perfection deemed acceptable by industry standards.
So I got to thinking... why can't Educators do this???
******************************RECORD SCRATCH*****************************************************
I know, I know...feedback requires walkthroughs or peer reviews, right? Who wants a bunch of pesky administrators or colleagues coming into your classroom writing down stuff while you are teaching, practicing your art, right?
Wait. Feedback isn't a gotcha game.
I promise you its not. If used effectively, it can be a very wonderful, valuable tool to help you see better results from your students. That's what it is all about, right? Our students? The little people whose parents, guardians, and loved ones send to us daily to help prepare them for their next stage of life. Remember them? I do have VERY strong opinions about teachers who refuse to adopt new instructional strategies, but feedback is a critical part of being a classroom teacher...if not, it should be.
I will be the first to admit it, when I first started teaching, I too did not enjoy administrators walking around my room with a pen and pad writing down things. It felt odd, invasive, like they were waiting for me to mess up... but that wasn't it at all.
What was shared with me was very valuable.
"Did you know you called on Steven four times during class?"
"Did you know there was an entire three rows to your left where children were raising their hand and you did not call on them?"
"Did you know you have a tendency to call on girls more than boys?"
It was all true. Indisputable evidence from more than one set of eyes telling me the same thing. I could take this information and call it criticism (which clearly it was not) and improve, or I could CHOOSE to do nothing... but at the end of the day, there was no denying I was now AWARE of how to improve...it was due to the valuable feedback I received from my administrators and peers who observed me teaching.
See in one Middle School I taught for, the feedback process was a natural part of the culture. You just HAD to do it. Period. There was no bucking the system. There was also group accountability. As a teacher at that school, going against the culture of feedback would not have gone over well with my peers. It would have evoked a "who the hell do you think you are" attitude.
Who wants that? This was very much like what I witnessed in the acting class. If someone said "no, I'm not going to take that advice that you ALL are giving me", that person, more than likely, would be asked not to return. You see one can only grow AFTER one is made aware of where they need to grow. Growth does not imply deficit, it means you need to get stronger.
How can any TRUE EDUCATOR deny that we all need to be stronger? Are all of our schools with a 100% graduation rate? Nope... growth.
Are all of our schools decreasing their suspension, expulsion and dropout rates? Nope...growth.
Are all of our schools prepared for Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the higher order thinking instructional strategies that will need to be implemented as a result? Nope...growth.
You see feedback doesn't arrest development, it fosters it.
Actors, at the end of the day, are only as good as their last performance. And if your audience (students and their grades/scores) are giving you bad reviews, its time to take a couple of acting classes (feedback from peers) to see what you can do better.
If you aren't quite comfortable with that process yet... I know of a very good acting coach you can see to help you get there.
This acting coach is really good by the way:
www.dustinfelder.com
Tell him teachingwhileblack sent you.
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