The Bad Teacher

Alright, I’m going to get on my soapbox a little bit here because two things I will absolutely geek out over? Engagement and anything related to an english curriculum. Engagement is absolutely pivotal in educating today’s youth. Especially in an era where these children have access to just about anything at their fingertips. I will argue this habit until the cows come home. I wrote my Master’s thesis on how engagement is directly correlated with preventing negative behaviors in the classroom. So I’ve put in the time and energy to prove how important this is. There are a few key books I cited for my thesis and that I use in my novice seminars as well that I will bring up in other posts as we dig deeper into engagement. One of the books I constantly revery back to is William N. Bender’s “20 Strategies for Increasing Student Engagement” it’s the best, and I’m telling you right now to go out and get it if you’re trying to spice up your lessons. So for the rest of this post I’m just going to give you all the reasons why engaging your students should be the most important thing to you and hopefully I’ll have convinced you by the end.

Reason 1: They will grasp the information faster. Think about a time you were doing something you were really interested in. The time flew and you were hyper-focused right? Now think of a time you were learning about something you were completely uninterested in, the time dragged on right? Or maybe you found yourself doodling on your paper instead of actually listening to the teacher. Well, despite what we think, no matter how much we love our subject matter, students aren’t inherently going to be in love with it as well. If they’re engaged in whatever the lesson is the first thing that you will notice is that they will be actively listening to you. Have you ever had one of those days where you’re pretty sure you reiterated the directions 5,000 times? Same. If your students are engaged, there will be no repeating! A modern day miracle if you ask me. Another thing you will notice is when students are engaged they’re more likely to understand the concept you are teaching (the first time you teach it) because they are actively participating. They’ll grasp concepts faster because they are excited about what they are doing. That’s a win!

Reason 2: You will have less distracting behaviors. Trust me on this, I’ve done the research and tested the hypothesis. Literally. I wrote my entire master’s thesis on this and based it around a relatively boring topic that I was teaching my students at the time. Taking a topic that may be a potential snooze fest and putting in the time to make it fun, interactive, or exciting for students is going to be such a game changer when it comes to your classroom management.When you have an engaging lesson, a truly engaging lesson, you will have virtually no behaviors to deal with in your classroom. This is not forcing all 35 students to take turns reading paragraphs in To Kill a Mockingbird. You have to open the class period with some kind of fun hook to engage students so they’re absolutely fired up and can’t wait to read about Boo Radley. Then have them do the meat of the lesson that may require a little more focus, and then finish with something even more engaging than your hook. If you’re stoked throughout the lesson and your students can tell how excited and passionate you are about what you’re teaching them they are going to see that and feed off of it. So have fun! It’s not illegal.

Reason 3: They deserve it. Just because the expectation when you were in school was to sit at your desk, shut up, and take notes, does not mean that’s the most effective approach. Times have changed, and with that so have the youth in America. As a teacher your sole duty is to educate children. To pass them on to the next grade level with as much knowledge as they need to have in order to be successful in the next grade. If that’s your goal (it should be) than engaging your students is imperative. So many education courses in college show you that scene with Robin Williams, you know the one…”O’ Captain, my Captain…” Ring a bell? I know so many teacher’s that would clutch their pearls at the thought of hopping on a desk, let alone allowing students to do so. If that’s not your jam, think of a different way to be equally inspiring and exciting, maybe without violating OSHA. Student’s aren’t going to look back and remember a math formula because you said it was important, they’ll look back and remember it because you made it important. You made it fun.

I realize I gave you a bunch of reasons why engagement is important and absolutely no way of how to implement engagement strategies in your classroom but I promise that’s coming! Each week I will post a lesson plan that includes all kinds of fun engagement strategies to help push your students to be successful and enjoy whatever it is you’re teaching them. This month I will be posting lesson plans from a unit on To Kill a Mockingbird because in true, english nerd fashion, this is my all time favorite book. I mean, don’t even get me started on how ahead of her time Harper Lee was. But, unlike me, about 85% of America has trouble getting through the first 100 pages. SO each week I will post lesson plans for one cohesive unit that will help make this book the most interesting read your students will ever do. Till next time!