You live, you learn. Surely teachers are lucky because we get to hear latest research about a number of subjects, useless but fun trivia and very meaningful information both.

I knew that some traits are inherited, some are learned and some are a mix, but a few surprised  me.  Among the inherited ones are if you have hair on your fingers, the ability to curl your tongue, the ability to bend your thumb backwards, whether your forehead hair grows straight across or dips, and which thumb you put in front when you clasp your hands.  The class and I experiment with these things and it’s fun.

I remember reading once that you can get a lot of cooperation from kids if you make things a game. Often in the elementary school we have to walk kids down the halls to gym, music, even to washrooms or the library and little kids being what they are, their natural tendency is to chatter and bunch up, even to run or fool around. Teachers have many ways to ensuring the kids walk in straight lines, quietly but one day I landed on a new idea. I told the kindergarten kids that today’s game was to pretend we were invisible. We were to tiptoe down that hall so very softly that nobody in the adjoining rooms we passed even looked up to see us.  I tiptoed as an example and the kids followed suit, amazingly silently. Well it worked once at least.

The week before Christmas I am teaching French to every single elementary school class, 30 minutes each. As the  last one prepares to file out and there are a few moments of dealy, the grade twos offer to sing me the song they will be presenting at the concert. One lead and suddenly their little voices are all singing along, innocent, angelic even, just for me.

I am teaching music to grade 6 and am not a music specialist but make do with the grade 6 piano level I attained and the choral singing training I took for years.  I am however winging it. Before class I find the sheet music and practice it, line up the schedules and figure out how to make my instructions.  Each class comes in and stands in place as trained.  When they get out their instruments I do the countdown, 1,2,3 4 and they burst forth with music, real music, and I am so shocked I nearly break out in tears. They are creating great melody, powerful emotional music, and for some bizarre reason I got to turn the flow on.  I have to stifle the impulse to grin like an idiot. 

In the last few moments of the music class it occurs to me that some of these grade 4 kids probably are better at music than I am.  I have a piano right there and I ask if anyone would like to play us all  a tune. A few shyly volunteer.  They treat us to renditions of whatever number they are currently studying in piano lessons outside of school and some are indeed very beginner level but a few are out of sight amazing.  All are beaming that they get to perform.

It is very very cold out and outdoor recess is cancelled. In fact outdoor play over the noonhour is also cancelled and the kids are stuck indoors for the full day.  They are allowed to have free time in classrooms and halls and I notice out come the hackeysacks, the spontaneous games, the creative improvisations that kids the world have for coping. I remember hearing that even in war zones, little kids will somehow figure out a way to play on some days.  It is their statement of hope in the future. It is in fact the future of mankind they are insisting on. I love it.

This week I was assigned to teach music to 8 classes over the course of the day, from kindergarten to grade 6, so a quite wide range of levels. The teacher was sick and had left back written work but said if I had some music training to feel free to continue with the music.  I had an amazing day. I practiced the song she had written on the whiteboard before the kids entered and those who admitted they were studying it, sang it with me.
I also had the idea of discussing with the older classes some of the history of music, the use made of it for celebrating historical events, national identity, rituals like weddings and funerals, and for teaching the alphabet, being playful ,expressing emotions or even to promote products in ads.  To do this I hummed a few bars and had the kids identify the songs. I pointed out how big their database was of songs right now in their own heads and I proposed a game where we each sing a few lines and see if the group can sing along or guess the next line. To my amazement, the kids really got into this game and even the boys were singing rock songs and laughing and the kids were all I mean all, every one of the 30 of them, saying lyrics to song after song after song.  Their memories were phenomenal. Then I asked them if there were songs they disliked and why and to give my first example I told about songs I find irritating if they say the same word 20 times.  I told them I dislike jazz numbers that have no melody. I invited the kids to tell us of songs they dislike and why- and shyly at first and then with enthusiasm and laughter they told of songs they hate.  They were laughing and agreeing or disagreeing with each other’s taste and later in the day the classroom teacher told me when they went back to her class they were so happy and excited telling her “We got to talk about songs we hate”.  I consider having experienced the kids that day a real privilege for me for several reasons. First I got to see kids engaged in music and really enthused and I don’t often get to see that. Second I saw even the boys really engaged in learning. And third, I heard laughter and it is always exhilarating to feel a lesson is going well.  Last but not least I got to see what kids are listening to on their radios, their iPods in their free time and I got to maybe understand them a bit more.  A good teacher has to know the kids’ world and I really don’t know it well, but in this way for a moment I got to see it.  What really amazed me was that we could go  back to some lesson singing some chanting little song about rafting down a river, and that is a good song, but it is as if the kids’ fires have gone out. They really do like better the music they like.

I am in a school with a large aboriginal student body and my job today is to teach phys ed. I am told to work with hoops and I have the little kids practice twirling them around their necks, legs, arms, waists and practice rolling them and making them roll back. I have an odd feeling that I am far from the expert here and some of these kids are actually from cultures that know these skills very well. I feel odd about me being the teacher and let the kids show me what they know.

The grade fives are studying 3 Canadian communities for social studies and we are to discuss their differences and similarities. We look at Northern Alberta, east coast fishing areas and a Ukrainian village near Winnipeg and we are to talk of food, careers, vegetation etc. It occurs to me that it would be best to act this out so I break kids into groups for each community and they are to prepare a live action sequence showing how they live, what they eat, what they grow for crops.  It is hilarious. The kids really get into it and, they are learning.

When we think back to our school days, most of us have some painful memories. I remember in grade one waiting with my icy snowball for show and tell, and I had to wait so long for my turn that it melted all over my desk. I remember being mortified that I got mixed up in French class about soeur and frere and told the class I had one brother and no sisters, the exact opposite of what was true. People gasped.

I was mortified when we were asked to estimate the time of human history and whatever I said was apparently so wrong that laughter erupted even from the teacher. I remember in math class in senior high being asked to plot a graph of how walking motion looks from the side and whatever pattern I created, of arcs I believe, was also deemed so stupid that the class exploded in laughter.

I remember going to a school dance where by tight skirt snap unsnapped and I had to keep holding it together with one hand. I remember the science teacher who made us all laugh when holding a drill bit and saying “This is a bit heavy”.  I was never sure when to laugh and when I would be laughed at.

I remember the intense social pressure of the cafeteria, wondering who would sit with me and would I be left out and I remember those awkward days when my hair did not work, I had a pimple or blackhead and I just wanted to go hide in a corner.  I remember the exhilaration of joy when some cute guy I admired walked near me or spoke to me and I recall feeling I could walk on air on such days.

The thing is school is a mix of the great complexities of life and most kids do not love school. Some actually hate it, but most tolerate it and I think for them it is like doing time or enduring war.  They do outnumber us teachers and were it a confrontational thing, they’d win.  I think that teachers have to work very hard to make sure the experience is not painful, that there is even joy in the learning most days and that when kids think of school they also think of aha moments of discovery, great literature, yes even great movies, great discussions and laughter rippling in a classroom. I want school to be a place kids want to come to and this is even more true when families are in upheaval.  For some kids, some days, school is the familiar when all else is in turmoil.

The privilege of being there then is not just seeing brilliance in the bud, not just in seeing spontaneous kindness from surprise sources, but it is also in the situation itself. It is an honor to share this time with kids, to help them through the journey they really don’t have a lot of say in traveling.

My vision of an ideal school is a bit of a leap from what we have some days.  I think of it this way. Society has decided that there are some things it is very useful to be able to do and to speed up the process and ensure all kids get those skills, we have created a place where they can be learned efficiently. We have discovered that some of these skills are practical and basic and kids will need them to survive while others are a bit more complex but also very useful for understanding the world. We have discovered some skills that make life more interesting, that respond to our natural curiosity for now things work and we have experts who can open up these  secrets to kids.

So our focus is not on kids getting jobs, not on kids staying out of trouble, not on kids being babysat, amused or just monitored so the parents can earn money. Our focus is on the excitement of having something great and useful to teach.

If kids are not caught up in this excitement, it is likely our fault. We are either not presenting what really is useful to know or we are presenting it in a way so boring or inappropriate that we need to adjust the teaching method.

Human nature being what it is, there will always be some who want to opt out of any work, to slide through, use others’ efforts instead of their own, or just have leisure instead of making effort to learn. But we have to make the material interesting, the payoffs appealing, and the environment praising and encouraging. 

Working with kids then is to help them navigate this maze of knowledge, and this changing body with upsetting hormonal swings, and this maze of social pressure to belong. The privilege is to be there for the kids, even when their personal road is rocky..