More and more as I teach at a middle school level, I realize that what I'm actually teaching is creativity and critical thinking. (Skills that the system of scan-tron tests, unhelpful administrator to educator ratios, and the dreaded No Child Left Behind Act has, well, totally neglected.) The trick is to teach these skills without calling it "Creativity and Critical Thinking Class." The goal you set for the students cannot simply be a vague, intangible concept. "Teamwork", "Trust", "Motivation"... these are necessary tools to achieve the goals, not the goals themselves. You can't tell someone how to use them, you set goals that can only be achieved through them.* So, how do you create a lesson plan that requires productivity and self-motivation, while also making it interesting enough for twelve-year-olds to want to do it?
"Middle schoolers don't want to do anything," I hear a lot. Something about turning 13 makes your brain shut off. "My son would be happy in an empty room staring at a wall," they say. "Everything bores them," I hear. "You could tell them you want to feed them chocolate and watch movies, and they'd complain." Well. There must be some truth to that. What was I doing when I was 12? I spent a whole summer playing Zelda and the Ocarina of Time on the N64. Not only did I sit in front of a video game for so long I started dreaming in pixels, but I didn't even finish the game. I didn't want to. Halfway through Ocarina of Time, Link, the avatar you've been identifying as yourself for hours upon hours, takes the achievements you've collected, puts them in a magic temple, and travels through time - he grows up. The grown-up world was dark, and dangerous, and harder than anything you had previously faced. Why would anyone want to go there? I simply created a new file and played as child-Link all summer. The kid got to pet a horse and go fishing all day. Grown-up Link had responsibilities. The fate of the entire world, for example.
* I had a class where a teacher drew a maze on the ground and told us to get through it. The only way to get to the end was to walk outside the map - literally think outside the box. Some students called it "cheating" but my teacher insisted that it "there were no rules dictated against that tactic" and "cheating" was really just "utilizing resources". I liked her a lot. |
Here's the deal:
Middle school brains are terrified of becoming adults.
And why wouldn't you be? You're suddenly faced with new hormones, new brain pathways, new responsibilities, new kinds of underwear, new relationships with absolutely everyone around you including your parents who until now you assumed would remain constants... It's exhausting. And there are available activities in your life that let you opt out of all that. If we didn't have toxic video games, kids would find ways to keep away from adulthood as long as they can. You can't fight or flee the inevitable passage of time, and the result is often crippling apathy. (Or a Peter Pan complex, or delusional nonacceptance of reality, or becoming an actor. Wait those all might be the same thing.)
So how do you teach a whole classroom of kids who not only are programmed to think that the process of "fill in the blanks, pass the test, forget everything" is learning, but they ALSO enter your classroom with the words "Do I HAVE to be here?" on their minds? Actually, I heard those words out loud yesterday. That was not awesome, to say the least. I just felt BAD. All I could say to this kid was "No, you have options." His other options sucked. We both knew it. "I want to stay in here, but do I HAVE to participate?" he asked me. "I'd like you to try," was all I could say. He didn't, and another teacher wound up sending him into the hall. (She had had enough of him by 3:30 - understandable, this kid is moody.) After the hour was up, he was disappointed he missed everything. I was, too. I found him after class and said "I'm sorry your day sucked. Maybe next week?" "If it's not boring," he threatened. "Well, that's actually up to you," I tried to explain to deaf ears.
Le sigh.
Okay.
Here's what I'm trying...
The "I'm not your babysitter" speech. Make it clear that this is their time to do something more than sit around - that we can accomplish something together. Goals are important, guys. I have really fun ones to try. I promise. (Secretly thinking: I HOPE.)
The "this class is yours" approach. You can't lecture straight at them and expect them to absorb it all. Especially not in an after-school program. You give them brief instructions and THEY create something out of it. You use THEIR ideas. You let them compete against each other rather than against the work they did yesterday, or worse, against you.
Apply it to skills they want to have. They won't care about a moment in history unless you let them live it. They won't understand a concept unless you put their hands on it. They won't want to do it unless they get to put their own personality into it, to show off the important work they've done.
Time to socialize. They are gonna do it anyway. "Sit down and shut up" IS WILDLY INEFFECTIVE.
Teach to the one kid who is interested, the rest will follow.
Lesson plan like this:
Ask a major question: put forth a challenge
Discuss possible solutions
Once ideas are sparking, hand over the tools to put the ideas to work
Look at what they made individually, let them show it off
Talk about all the ideas made tangible - synthesize them together, aknowledge what they've accomplished together
Try again tomorrow
Some times the challenge is taking a little bite of growing up
and there are ways to make that bite bearable, interesting... even fun.
That's a teacher's job. That's a teacher's impossible task. Making a group of unmotivated people want to do something.
So how do you teach a whole classroom of kids who not only are programmed to think that the process of "fill in the blanks, pass the test, forget everything" is learning, but they ALSO enter your classroom with the words "Do I HAVE to be here?" on their minds? Actually, I heard those words out loud yesterday. That was not awesome, to say the least. I just felt BAD. All I could say to this kid was "No, you have options." His other options sucked. We both knew it. "I want to stay in here, but do I HAVE to participate?" he asked me. "I'd like you to try," was all I could say. He didn't, and another teacher wound up sending him into the hall. (She had had enough of him by 3:30 - understandable, this kid is moody.) After the hour was up, he was disappointed he missed everything. I was, too. I found him after class and said "I'm sorry your day sucked. Maybe next week?" "If it's not boring," he threatened. "Well, that's actually up to you," I tried to explain to deaf ears.
Le sigh.
Okay.
Here's what I'm trying...
The "I'm not your babysitter" speech. Make it clear that this is their time to do something more than sit around - that we can accomplish something together. Goals are important, guys. I have really fun ones to try. I promise. (Secretly thinking: I HOPE.)
The "this class is yours" approach. You can't lecture straight at them and expect them to absorb it all. Especially not in an after-school program. You give them brief instructions and THEY create something out of it. You use THEIR ideas. You let them compete against each other rather than against the work they did yesterday, or worse, against you.
Apply it to skills they want to have. They won't care about a moment in history unless you let them live it. They won't understand a concept unless you put their hands on it. They won't want to do it unless they get to put their own personality into it, to show off the important work they've done.
Time to socialize. They are gonna do it anyway. "Sit down and shut up" IS WILDLY INEFFECTIVE.
Teach to the one kid who is interested, the rest will follow.
Lesson plan like this:
Ask a major question: put forth a challenge
Discuss possible solutions
Once ideas are sparking, hand over the tools to put the ideas to work
Look at what they made individually, let them show it off
Talk about all the ideas made tangible - synthesize them together, aknowledge what they've accomplished together
Try again tomorrow
Some times the challenge is taking a little bite of growing up
and there are ways to make that bite bearable, interesting... even fun.
That's a teacher's job. That's a teacher's impossible task. Making a group of unmotivated people want to do something.