Coffee. Mmm. Schools are fueled by coffee, I believe. The coffeemaker runs constantly in the faculty lounge, and nobody's drinking decaf except for the people who've already had heart surgery.
There's this great energy in the building that doesn't come from caffeine or sugar. I can't quite define what it is, but it flows from the interaction of teachers and students. I'm participating in a pilot program for teachers this year called peer coaching, where teachers go into other teachers' classrooms and observe all or part of the class. We fill out evaluation sheets with two compliments and two suggestions, then put one copy in the evaluee's mailbox and keep the carbon in our files.
I went and observed my first class today during my planning period: A.P. Biology with a 25-year veteran teacher (actually, the person who suggested the whole peer coaching program in the first place). At first, it felt weird to be commenting on someone else's teaching...almost as weird as it felt to be in a classroom that wasn't mine!
How quickly people get stuck in their little habits. I've been at my school for two years (starting my third), and I've never been in another teacher's room while teaching was going on. I probably know more about what's going on in Europe than I do about what's going on in another classroom down the hall.
I found that I was able, after a few minutes, to observe the instruction objectively. It's so great to see a master teacher at work, especially when you're a younger teacher. It gives one hope that there will come a day when everything starts to flow and you don't feel terrified that somebody's going to ask a question for which you have no answer. I also saw a few things that maybe weren't working so well. One was possibly a function of the classroom setup: students sit at lab tables with large computer screens under hoods at the center of the tables, which makes it possible/easy for students to have side conversations without being noticed by the teacher. The other made me realize how important it is to get information from another perspective: I had trouble hearing from where I was sitting in the back of the classroom because of the level of ambient noise in the room from the computers and projectors, especially when the teacher turned and faced another direction from me.
Maybe I'm deeply sensitive to hearing issues, since both my husband and my dad are hearing-impaired, but as a teacher, that's something I'd want to know that probably only another teacher would notice. I left the class excited to think of the possibilities for the program.
As I walked down the halls, I looked into windows to see classrooms full of students and teachers and learning happening, and it made me happy. I think that you know you've found your vocation when you can walk away at the end of the day with good energy in your heart.
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