Today, I had a visitor. It was someone from the superintendent’s office. I didn’t do anything different with my classes than I normally would, but the school put on the typical dog and pony show. There were freshly minted bulletin boards and colleagues wearing ties who otherwise wouldn’t have.
Because my school usually chooses the teachers that are observed, I’ve come to view a visit to my room as a nod to my teaching. I must be doing something right for them to choose my room, right? Remembering this keeps me from feeling too much pressure or buying into the masquerade.
When he entered, my students were immersed in their whiteboards, tackling average rate of change. They were killing it. I assessed their work from the center of the room and shifted students to different groups based on my observations. With each passing minute, the students grew more confident. Their work was evidence.
A few minutes into his stay, my esteemed guest struck up a conversation with me. He was curious about my assessment tactics. He said he had been in other classes using vertical whiteboards and wanted to hear my take. Given all the activity around the room, how did I know what “level” each student was at during at any given moment? How did I promote productive struggle? How did I mitigate it? How did this lesson fit into my bigger goals for students?
I explained how, for this lesson, my assessment relied on my active observations of students. I needed to fully attend to student thinking, as demonstrated on their whiteboards, to position and re-position my students to be successful. I also mentioned that my students have an exam tomorrow, and this lesson served as their review. Everytime I answered one of his questions, he had another ready. After a while, I grew frustrated.
I had no problem with him wanting to talk to me about the lesson. A clarifying question here or there never hurt anyone. This is natural.
My issue is that he peppered me with question after question while I was trying to do the thing he was asking me about: assess. Our conversation slowed my momentum in gauging student understanding, prohibited me from putting them a position to help each other, and subtracted from my students’ learning. I respectfully said this to him at some point, around the 5-minute mark of our exchange. I couldn’t resist because he didn’t look like he was prepared to slow down his inquires.
He politely disengaged with me and allowed me to play catch up with all that happened on the whiteboards. Having been plucked out of my flow state, I was in disarray. A few measly minutes remained in class.
Despite his good intentions, he did my students a disservice. He stole precious minutes away from their teacher who was optimizing unit review, all to satisfy his needs. On the surface, because I wasn’t leading a class discussion or demonstration, it may have appeared that I had time to explore his wonderings. I didn’t. My assessment was active and ongoing, each passing moment strategically stacked on the previous.
Given his position, expertise, and vast experience in moments like this, I would have expected him to notice what I was doing and recognize my need to be fully present with my students. Of all people, he should have known to respect the process. To cure his curiosity about my decision-making, connecting with me after class would have been a better approach.
bp
lazy 0ch0 