Teach Romeo & Juliet with Concepts Over Content

We Need Change

If you don't already know the purpose of this blog, you can read about it here. However, the short of it is the English classroom needs a revolution. The heart of the uprising should be accepting we need to teach concepts instead of covering content. This idea isn't completely radical. I mean, the Chinese have been saying it for centuries: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." 

I know we aren't dealing in fish, but learning works the same way. Covering content is doing all the fishing for our students. We need to start teaching them how to fish for themselves. 

The First Step

Weaning ourselves off of reading every word of all the great literature available to us will be hard, I know. But, we can start small. I got started by skipping a chapter in Animal Farm in order to free up some time to practice more writing. And you know what? No kids were harmed in the process, no lighting bolts were thrown, my colleagues didn't pick up pitchforks and run me out of town. Somehow, it just worked. 

That experience gave me confidence to start chopping away at Romeo and Juliet. The first year, it began with small pieces. The scenes with the servants went first. Then a section from the Nurse babbling away endlessly, then parts of Queen Mab. And now, after four years of chipping away, I'm left with the best parts to teach symbolism, theme, expository structure, inference and so much more. These are skills the students can use on other Shakespeare plays or even sonnets. 

The Best Part

When you are ready, or if you already have made the leap to teaching concepts over content, you can find my one month long unit here or if you just want to try it out, here is the lesson just for the Prologue. I understand if you aren't ready to give up on every word of Shakespeare's beautiful language, but after going through this unit, my student's developed an appreciation instead of an aversion to Shakespeare. His name was no longer a curse word that incurred hissing when spoken aloud. You can find other lessons I did with Romeo and Juliet here.

Happy teaching!

Innovating the Wheel

Our Profession

If I had a penny for every time I heard a colleague say, "There's no reason to reinvent the wheel..." (followed by handing me a lesson from 1972) then I wouldn't have to be a teacher anymore.

Teaching is the only profession I know of where people believe if one activity or lesson didn't work one year, then it might work the next year because different students are doing the assignment. That's like saying when I punched Bob in the face, he punched me back. Now, I'll go punch Kevin in the face and hope he gives me a hug. Any sane person would tell you to just stop punching people in the face and your problems will be solved. So, all of us insane teachers who believe "it'll work next year" need to take a hint from the sane people in our lives. Find something else to do and life will get better. Or it won't. In that case, keeping finding that "something else" until it finally works.

Innovation

Sir Ken Robinson explains the problems we have with education best. Watch this. You'll laugh, you'll cry...

If Alexander Graham Bell hadn't thought we needed a new way to communicate, we wouldn't have phones. If The Wright Brothers hadn't believed we needed a new way of travel, we would have planes. If Al Gore Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf hadn't thought we needed a better place to store knowledge/communicate, we wouldn't have the internet. 

These people all have one thing in common. They were underwhelmed by the status quo. Sending letters via envelopes and/or courier pigeons wasn't wrong. It got the job done, but someone found a better way. 

What we have been doing in the classroom (since the 19th century) isn't wrong. But there's GOT to be a better way. Something more efficient, more powerful, more meaningful. It's out there, we just have to discover it. My feeling is that there are only a few who are looking for it, and that scares me. 

The Problems with Innovation

There are two really. Teachers love what is familiar. That worksheet from seventeen years ago in my filing cabinet is safe, it's familiar. I don't even need a key anymore because it's stored in my brain. In fact, I just checked and I don't even need to make copies. My past self did that for me twelve years ago. Done and done. 

The second issue with innovation is teachers fear change. Just think back to the year before TOSS turned into TAKS. And in the more recent past when TAKS turned into STAAR. Teachers flipped the heck out. Change is scary for everyone, but it has a special place in every teacher's heart. 

So, how do we fix these nagging problems to innovation? I say it's really easy. Just stop it! Teachers won't fall over and die if we have a bonfire for all those ancient worksheets multiplying in our filing cabinets. The heavens won't fall if we try something new and it fails. In fact, I am a FIRM believer in letting the kids see us fail. How will they learn to succeed if no one teaches them to fail? 

My Mission

In the past year my mission obsession has been searching for lessons and activities that would engage my lumps of anti-motivation into little thinkers that can and want to succeed. So far, my journey has taken me through Pinterest, blogs, TED Talks, brain research and beyond. I will not claim to have the answers (yet), but I think I am going in the right direction. Step away from your worksheets and join me, won't you?