The Classroom As A Gathering of Spirit: Part 1

I walk into a university classroom with an understanding that there is a huge amount of collective wisdom in the room. Each learner will at some time be the teacher. As an elementary teacher, my students regularly humbled me with their life experiences and knowledge.  Everyday I stood before some of the most marginalized people in America (Native American children of low socioeconomic status with exceptionalities) and it always seemed that a balance was struck between the information I was teaching them and the information they were teaching me. Multiple times a week my students moved me to tears and opened a new window in my soul. They helped me glimpse truth.

And now that I am teaching at the university level I find that I am still moved to tears multiple times a week. If you can take some time to float outside of your body as you are in a classroom and just observe the learning environment, you’ll easily see that it’s a gathering of spirit.

A gathering of SPIRIT.

Student posts a thank you letter to a peer at the Message Center in my Language & Literacy course.

If a classroom is viewed this way, the “teacher” can’t help but understand the fragility of the situation. The attitude of the “teacher” becomes the most important determinant of whether or not the learning environment will be fruitful, stagnant or even detrimental. We lead our students by example. If it wasn’t so devastating, I may find it comical when teachers say that their classes would be more fruitful if the student’s attitude improved.

Students use Bag-A-Story materials to collaboratively write an original story. At each literacy center, the students take notes in journals about how the activities could be effectively implemented in their elementary and middle school classrooms.

In K-12 schooling, the students are required to attend. It’s their first job. When people opt to attend college, they are paying a huge sum of money to obtain the education they seek. Many of them, including me, will be paying for their education for half of their lives. Both of these circumstances must be considered as teachers prepare lessons, assignments, assessments, etc. We’re working for our students, and they deserve our utmost consideration.

Teachers should know what makes learning engaging. Just think about the last time you learned something. If you could not personally or professionally connect to the information, you most likely tuned it out and started sending text messages or staring intrigued by the lump of gum on the bottom of your shoe.

Students need the teacher to facilitate the exploration of how they personally connect to the material- it’s a matter of deciding on an appropriate channel. But how often does this important step get missed, or even skipped? Perhaps many teachers, especially at the university level, don’t see how this step is relevant: “These students are here to learn about environmental policy, so that’s what I give them.” But how much do they really LEARN? 

Student sharing her poetry.

Learning must be engaging, relevant, and whenever possible, authentic. So let me translate what this means exactly. It means that the teacher must be working tirelessly for their students as they prepare for class. It means incorporating community- based learning experiences, field trips, guest speakers of high quality, applying new information to case studies, completing field projects, developing thought provoking questions for discussion, modeling expected behaviors, and bringing the content of the textbook to life through hands on experiences. And then the students need time to reflect on these experiences in at least a semi-structured way.

I know it’s the research that shows that these teaching approaches work. But what researcher is going to say, “Teachers need to offer these learning experiences because they feed the students’ spirits.” We may not read this phrase in our education journals or hear it at conferences, but I believe this is the true essence of great teaching. Even the most aloof, passive student will have a more positive learning experience if their spirit is being fed in the classroom.

Student sharing his story to the class in the Author's Chair.

I hate to break it to you, but PowerPoint with a lecture just doesn’t cut it. It never did and it never will. The students may retain enough information in order to pass your final, but it doesn’t mean that you have appropriately prepared them for their future career. The modern day student is navigating within the information age. They come armed with more information, and ways to access new information than ever before. They can find your boring PowerPoint somewhere on the Internet, read it and file it away. When they sit in your classroom, you need to be giving them a UNIQUE learning experience. You need to be Ms. Frizzle.

So, your homework for tonight is: Take a minute to look up “spirit” in the dictionary. I think the definition of this word may surprise you. There are so many layers and possibilities when you think of this word within the context of a classroom. Also, if you don’t know who Ms. Frizzle is, look it up. Gee whiz.

PS. Afraid you may be a Death By Powerpoint teacher? You're invited to explore "From Death By Powerpoint to Life By Powerpoint with the Show 'n Tell Method" by Ellen Finkelstein. Get it free at www.showntell.com/whitepaper.html
What matters most is that you are always striving to improve your teaching approach- be proactive!