Molly Berger: Flexibility, Feedback, and Relationships--All Part of Good Teaching

What should have been an interesting discussion question was returned with blank stares, not even a flicker of thought in the space behind the eyes. Charlotte Brontë’s assertion that a woman should not fall in love until six months after she is married usually sparks a lively response, but not on this Monday following prom weekend.

I’d forgotten about prom; I should have remembered they’d be in slow motion that morning. A couple of probing questions failed to break through the mush minds, and so I changed direction. “Take out a sheet of paper and a pen.” (Even brief movement was good.) “Brontë is telling you, particularly women, to hold back on your emotions of love to protect yourself from getting hurt. Do you agree with her? Is this good advice for us in 2008? Why or why not?” After a few minutes of writing I said, “Now turn to those around you and share your ideas.” Slowly they began to wake up, and although not as lively as usual, they were engaged.

Good teaching is a series of decisions based on the feedback students give us. Although a well-written lesson plan may guide us, we must be flexible and able to adapt to what our students need at that moment. A well-trained teacher knows to plan lessons and units with formative assessments which provide this feedback. However, it is more than this. To truly understand the feedback our students give us, we must understand them beyond their academic abilities. It is the relationships that we build with them that allow us to make sense out of the feedback. Whether through a greeting at the door, a joke, a comment about a great shot in the game last night, or a story about a first job, the conversations we have with students outside the curriculum are often as critical to student learning as the curriculum itself.

As my students slowly woke up that morning, the “prom factor” dawned on me. As I listened to their conversations as they shared their responses, I knew they understood the reading and connected it to their own lives. And later in reading their short responses, I could even see their experience of prom coming through. After all, Brontë’s “A Warning Against Passion” is about relationships and so is prom……and so is my classroom.

Molly Berger is a guest blogger and teacher in Yakima.

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