Have you ever wondered what a day in the life of a high school student looks like? Many people assume they know including administrators and faculty. However, to understand someone you really need to walk a mile in their shoes. It turns out that a veteran teacher turned coach came to this very conclusion and decided to shadow two students for two days.
This article came out in October of 2014 and the coach starts by saying “I made a huge mistake”. By this she means that she wish she would not have waited so long , 14 years, to shadow a student. The teacher now realizes that she thinks that this is something that all teachers should do during their first year of teaching or sooner. The teacher began this assignment per the request of her principal to fulfill requirements under this teachers new position as a “learning coach” for the school. The teacher was advised to go to every class each student had and to do every activity the students did including taking notes, completing worksheets, as well as tests.
This is the schedule as follows:
“My class schedules for the day (Note: we have a block schedule; not all classes meet each day): The schedule that day for the 10th grade student: 7:45 – 9:15: Geometry 9:30 – 10:55: Spanish II 10:55 – 11:40: Lunch 11:45 – 1:10: World History 1:25 – 2:45: Integrated Science The schedule that day for the 12th grade student: 7:45 – 9:15: Math 9:30 – 10:55: Chemistry 10:55 – 11:40: Lunch 11:45 – 1:10: English 1:25 – 2:45: Business”
There were many key takeaways at the end of the day. One of the first key things this teacher learned was just how LONG the student's day was. Students also sit for the majority of the day and do not move around that much. Sitting all day can be actually be very exhausting. The teacher in this case says she could barely make it through the day and was constantly yawning. But what can be done about this? Here are the teachers suggestions:
“mandatory stretch halfway through the class • put a Nerf basketball hoop on the back of my door and encourage kids to play in the first and final minutes of class • build in a hands-on, move-around activity into every single class day. Yes, we would sacrifice some content to do this – that’s fine. I was so tired by the end of the day, I wasn’t absorbing most of the content, so I am not sure my previous method of making kids sit through hour-long, sit-down discussions of the texts was all that effective.”
Another key takeaway that this teacher had was that students are forced to passively listen to instruction for 90% of their day. It became clear that teachers are talking far too much. Students need to be engaged more with student centered learning. This is key to advanced learning and real world/ practical learning. I believe that classes should be 50% instructional and 50% student centered. Here are some final takeaway this teacher discovered based on this issue:
“Offer brief, blitzkrieg-like mini-lessons with engaging, assessment-for-learning-type activities following directly on their heels (e.g. a ten-minute lecture on Whitman’s life and poetry, followed by small-group work in which teams scour new poems of his for the very themes and notions expressed in the lecture, and then share out or perform some of them to the whole group while everyone takes notes on the findings.) • set an egg timer every time I get up to talk and all eyes are on me. When the timer goes off, I am done. End of story. I can go on and on. I love to hear myself talk. I often cannot shut up. This is not really conducive to my students’ learning, however much I might enjoy it. • Ask every class to start with students’ Essential Questions or just general questions born of confusion from the previous night’s reading or the previous class’s discussion. I would ask them to come in to class and write them all on the board, and then, as a group, ask them to choose which one we start with and which ones need to be addressed. This is my biggest regret right now – not starting every class this way. I am imagining all the misunderstandings, the engagement, the enthusiasm, the collaborative skills, and the autonomy we missed out on because I didn’t begin every class with fifteen or twenty minutes of this.”
It is clear to me that we are beginning to enter a new era in education, a long over due one. Many of the issues mentioned in this article actually pushed myself to give up on traditional high school when I was a kiddo. I hated school for the very reasons mentioned in this article so I called it quits and finished high school in a continuation school. Kids need to have activities during the day in each class where they can actively participate with one another rather than being barked at all day. I had a rather crazy high school experience.... Thats for another post though!
This article came out in October of 2014 and the coach starts by saying “I made a huge mistake”. By this she means that she wish she would not have waited so long , 14 years, to shadow a student. The teacher now realizes that she thinks that this is something that all teachers should do during their first year of teaching or sooner. The teacher began this assignment per the request of her principal to fulfill requirements under this teachers new position as a “learning coach” for the school. The teacher was advised to go to every class each student had and to do every activity the students did including taking notes, completing worksheets, as well as tests.
This is the schedule as follows:
“My class schedules for the day (Note: we have a block schedule; not all classes meet each day): The schedule that day for the 10th grade student: 7:45 – 9:15: Geometry 9:30 – 10:55: Spanish II 10:55 – 11:40: Lunch 11:45 – 1:10: World History 1:25 – 2:45: Integrated Science The schedule that day for the 12th grade student: 7:45 – 9:15: Math 9:30 – 10:55: Chemistry 10:55 – 11:40: Lunch 11:45 – 1:10: English 1:25 – 2:45: Business”
There were many key takeaways at the end of the day. One of the first key things this teacher learned was just how LONG the student's day was. Students also sit for the majority of the day and do not move around that much. Sitting all day can be actually be very exhausting. The teacher in this case says she could barely make it through the day and was constantly yawning. But what can be done about this? Here are the teachers suggestions:
“mandatory stretch halfway through the class • put a Nerf basketball hoop on the back of my door and encourage kids to play in the first and final minutes of class • build in a hands-on, move-around activity into every single class day. Yes, we would sacrifice some content to do this – that’s fine. I was so tired by the end of the day, I wasn’t absorbing most of the content, so I am not sure my previous method of making kids sit through hour-long, sit-down discussions of the texts was all that effective.”
Another key takeaway that this teacher had was that students are forced to passively listen to instruction for 90% of their day. It became clear that teachers are talking far too much. Students need to be engaged more with student centered learning. This is key to advanced learning and real world/ practical learning. I believe that classes should be 50% instructional and 50% student centered. Here are some final takeaway this teacher discovered based on this issue:
“Offer brief, blitzkrieg-like mini-lessons with engaging, assessment-for-learning-type activities following directly on their heels (e.g. a ten-minute lecture on Whitman’s life and poetry, followed by small-group work in which teams scour new poems of his for the very themes and notions expressed in the lecture, and then share out or perform some of them to the whole group while everyone takes notes on the findings.) • set an egg timer every time I get up to talk and all eyes are on me. When the timer goes off, I am done. End of story. I can go on and on. I love to hear myself talk. I often cannot shut up. This is not really conducive to my students’ learning, however much I might enjoy it. • Ask every class to start with students’ Essential Questions or just general questions born of confusion from the previous night’s reading or the previous class’s discussion. I would ask them to come in to class and write them all on the board, and then, as a group, ask them to choose which one we start with and which ones need to be addressed. This is my biggest regret right now – not starting every class this way. I am imagining all the misunderstandings, the engagement, the enthusiasm, the collaborative skills, and the autonomy we missed out on because I didn’t begin every class with fifteen or twenty minutes of this.”
It is clear to me that we are beginning to enter a new era in education, a long over due one. Many of the issues mentioned in this article actually pushed myself to give up on traditional high school when I was a kiddo. I hated school for the very reasons mentioned in this article so I called it quits and finished high school in a continuation school. Kids need to have activities during the day in each class where they can actively participate with one another rather than being barked at all day. I had a rather crazy high school experience.... Thats for another post though!