(Note: I wrote this as part of an introduction to a book in January 2012, before I even knew what flipped classrooms were. It serves, I think, as a look into where I started, and maybe a glance towards where I am going.)
* * *
The story begins, as most of mine do, with a moment of terror. Humans have
evolved for millennia to be scared of large groups of animals that all, collectively, have
their eyes trained on you. We react with spikes of adrenaline, sweating, shaking, our
fight-or-flight reflexes kicking in full speed ahead; to be in this situation, alone, was often
the precursor to a grisly death at the teeth and claws of a pack of wolves. Of course,
this is why so many people are terrified of public speaking, and this is what I do every
day, along with thousands of teachers around the country and around the world. We
stare down our fears and proceed, because it doesn’t really get any easier, no matter
how much we wish it would. And when this evolutionary panic is combined with the
anger and frustration of being the one trying to share the most “important” of information
and having no one listen (the audience, of course, probably regards me as the
homeless man on the corner, raving about the end of the world), well, it’s quite the
powerful cocktail of emotion. We end up a good ways down the path to burnout, and it’s
difficult to see the way back.
So, the story begins with me, as usual, trying to fight back a rising wall of panic,
feeling cornered in a room of thirty high school juniors, feeling like this every day, and
the edge never really wearing off. It sounds insane to call these my happy moments,
but they are—the moments when I’m trying to outrun my own pounding pulse and share
bits of wisdom from the ages. But spending six to eight hours a day feeling like I was
running for my life, well, that’s not sustainable, not for the long-term. I had to find a way
to adapt, to survive, because as difficult as it is for me to simply be in the room with and
be responsible for so many young lives and minds, I cannot imagine spending my life
doing anything else. There had to be another way, a way that was less overwhelming, a
way that felt better to me, more peaceful, less like slow death, a way, more importantly,
that engaged kids. Because, of course, when students are working on something that
interests them, they aren’t staring at me. I had to do something different.
This is my something different.
I write this, then, partly as an explanation, partly as justification, partly as a
coming-to-terms with my own thoughts and my own teacher-demons, and partly as an
invective against the “way things have always been done.” We know, and have for a
while, that what many of us do in the classroom isn’t engaging to students—and though
I have heard many teachers say that our job is to teach, not entertain, my belief is that
we have to do better. We don’t have to put on clown noses and do the happy dance,
but we do have the responsibility to create curricula that meets students where they are,
and we have to be clear about the skills we want them to be responsible for. And we
need to be honest about the best ways to get them there.
* * *
The story begins, as most of mine do, with a moment of terror. Humans have
evolved for millennia to be scared of large groups of animals that all, collectively, have
their eyes trained on you. We react with spikes of adrenaline, sweating, shaking, our
fight-or-flight reflexes kicking in full speed ahead; to be in this situation, alone, was often
the precursor to a grisly death at the teeth and claws of a pack of wolves. Of course,
this is why so many people are terrified of public speaking, and this is what I do every
day, along with thousands of teachers around the country and around the world. We
stare down our fears and proceed, because it doesn’t really get any easier, no matter
how much we wish it would. And when this evolutionary panic is combined with the
anger and frustration of being the one trying to share the most “important” of information
and having no one listen (the audience, of course, probably regards me as the
homeless man on the corner, raving about the end of the world), well, it’s quite the
powerful cocktail of emotion. We end up a good ways down the path to burnout, and it’s
difficult to see the way back.
So, the story begins with me, as usual, trying to fight back a rising wall of panic,
feeling cornered in a room of thirty high school juniors, feeling like this every day, and
the edge never really wearing off. It sounds insane to call these my happy moments,
but they are—the moments when I’m trying to outrun my own pounding pulse and share
bits of wisdom from the ages. But spending six to eight hours a day feeling like I was
running for my life, well, that’s not sustainable, not for the long-term. I had to find a way
to adapt, to survive, because as difficult as it is for me to simply be in the room with and
be responsible for so many young lives and minds, I cannot imagine spending my life
doing anything else. There had to be another way, a way that was less overwhelming, a
way that felt better to me, more peaceful, less like slow death, a way, more importantly,
that engaged kids. Because, of course, when students are working on something that
interests them, they aren’t staring at me. I had to do something different.
This is my something different.
I write this, then, partly as an explanation, partly as justification, partly as a
coming-to-terms with my own thoughts and my own teacher-demons, and partly as an
invective against the “way things have always been done.” We know, and have for a
while, that what many of us do in the classroom isn’t engaging to students—and though
I have heard many teachers say that our job is to teach, not entertain, my belief is that
we have to do better. We don’t have to put on clown noses and do the happy dance,
but we do have the responsibility to create curricula that meets students where they are,
and we have to be clear about the skills we want them to be responsible for. And we
need to be honest about the best ways to get them there.
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