Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be observed by a principal of another local elementary school and a fourth grade teacher from that school. It was an activity that I had not done before. I talked myself into doing it by thinking about risk-taking and telling myself that it would be okay to fail. In all honesty, while I think you can learn from failure, I don’t like failing. I don’t even really like risk-taking. I consider myself to be a creature of habit. I also think that taking risks is easier said than done. I don’t like change either, but change is necessary. The premise of the lesson was using the Educreations app to have each student teach another student how to do the order of operations. There were no guidelines specifically about how they could create their lesson. There was no time limit for the duration of their lesson, they could use their math book- or not. I told them- you will share your lesson with another student and have discourse through the SMP lense of attending to precision and constructing a viable argument and critiquing the reasoning your partner. I told them spelling is not up for critique. And that was basically it. They did it. They shared their lessons. The app worked seamlessly. Some students shared their lessons with the whole class. The lessons from each iPad projected through the SmartBoard seamlessly. It was good. I was glad I took the risk. It was a successful risk because I thought it would work anyways. I’m not afraid to try something new, but I do get flustered if it goes wrong, or there are bumps in the road. I like to live as close to perfection as possible. It’s lonely at the top. We debriefed the lesson. They loved it. They saw value in it. The stress and nerves from Monday and Tuesday were worth it for the Wednesday observation. After the debrief and lesson, I was on cloud nine. Happy with myself and happy with my perceived perfection. After they left, I checked my phone. I had a missed call and a voicemail from my mom. I figured she needed to know what time pick up my daughter from Spanish class that day, so I just called her back without listening to her voicemail. Here is how the conversation went:
Me: Hi, I saw I missed your call.
Mom: Have you talked to your brother?
Me: No. Why?
Mom: He didn’t tell you?
Me: Tell me what?
Mom: He is interviewing Buster Posey in San Francisco for Bleacher Report at 11am.
(it was 11:33am)
Me: Whaaaaaaaaattttt??!?!? OMG!!!!!!! Seriously!!!!!
My brother had a better day than me. And I thought my day was good.
Here is the link to his article.
