While I was finishing up my last week of student teaching, I had some time during my prep periods to go and observe other teachers in the building. One of my cooperating teachers made a list of the teachers that she thought was worth observing. So I went around to four different teachers in various subject areas and observed them at their craft. These four observations were so incredibly more helpful and beneficial than the numerous hours I spent observing for my Practicum II experience. It largely has to do with the fact that I now see things through a different lens now that I have actually taught for 14 weeks. There are so many little things that I pick up on now that I didn't before. My main concern before was logging the hours necessary to pass the Practicum and try to defy boredom from a teacher who lectured for 90 minutes straight (and I had to observe him back to back). But now I can spot how the teacher gets the class' attention, what they do with the troublemaker, how they introduce a new topic, etc. This has been so beneficial that I am going to observe at the other high schools in my district.
As I was observing these four teachers, across different subject areas, one thing in particular stood out to me. All use humor in the classroom, and do so incredibly well. As a result, they all have a classroom full of engaged students. Each teacher used humor in a slightly different way, but all had the same effect. One was a smart alack, another used pop culture references, and the other two were sarcastic. I think this use of humor blends seamlessly with how intense they are when teaching. I realized some differences with how I present information and how they do. In addition to using humor, they also are loud and animated. I can easily see why they have the great reputation that they do.
Using humor is something that I tried to incorporate into my bag of teaching tricks. Some of the time it worked but more often than not, it didn't. I realize that some people are born funny and a large part of being funny is your personality. But I think that I was starting to find my place in the classroom and could be starting down that path to being an engaging teacher. I enjoyed some of the back and forth that I had with a few of my students. The funny part is that the keynote speaker at the IBEA conference spoke about how to incorporate humor into teaching. As I sit here and reflect on my student teaching experience, it dovetails nicely with my experience at the IBEA conference.
Seeing these teachers in action motivated me to make humor a much bigger part of my instruction.
1 comment:
I think what you're really hitting at is the entertainment aspects of teaching that many would rather not admit to. We are performers, each and every day. Our performances get better, worse, and often can rely on a single hook if need be.
Humor is definitely the easiest "hook", but one could argue that it isn't the only trick we have as educators. However, it is one of the best tricks (if used wisely).
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