Watching You

 

*This is from a chapter about unusual things that happen in my classroom*

Watching You- Watching You isn’t a game and it isn’t a lesson. It’s not active at all. The point of watching you is to constantly remind my students and myself that learning is serious business, but it doesn’t have to be taken seriously. It is easy to explain. I know I stole it, but I don’t know who from.

Before the school year starts I take a picture of myself looking stern, arms crossed, scowling at the camera. I print five full-page copies of the picture, which I put into clear protective covers. Then I staple the pictures to the walls of my classroom, one on each wall and one on the ceiling.

I say nothing about the pictures. I do not acknowledge them in any way until a student does. This doesn’t take long. The one in the front of the classroom doesn’t get noticed first because it’s normally hidden behind the pull-down screen. It’ll be one to the sides first seen. I hear it discovered. “What the..hey! There’s a picture of Mr. Robertson over here!” Eyes immediately go to the picture, then to the opposite wall, where they find the other. “Hey! He’s over here too!” Quickly they look to the back of the room and see me staring down at them. “He’s got pictures all over the place!” They think discoveries are over now. Where else would a picture be? When I roll up the screen to reveal number four it gets a delighted scream from the class. “Why do you have pictures of yourself all over the room?”

“Because I’m always watching you.”

It isn’t until later that someone finds the one on the ceiling. That’s the best one. The child is becoming bored with class. He lets his head loll back. What in the what? “He’s on the ceiling!”

It’s great. It works all year as parents and other classes come to my room for various reasons. Keeps me amused. It’s funny to listen to the kids share it with siblings outside of class. “He’s got pictures of himself all over! I know, it’s weird, right?”

Performing in Class

When I teach I explore what performers call levels. Levels are best described as high, middle, and low. Those denote where your body is in space. I am a moving teacher, I don’t like to park and bark. So I’m constantly walking the room, making student eyes track me. Easier to see who isn’t paying attention when you’re moving. Whose head isn’t moving along? I’ll get low, kneel down right by a child. I’ll get high, I have been known to stand on desks. Someday my principal will walk in on me standing on a desk, waving a yardstick around like a sword, reading from the book. I hope he doesn’t mind. I also constantly adjust volume. The best advice I ever got, and advice that I’m terrible at remembering, is lowering my volume to keep their attention. Make the students lean in to you. Make them try harder to listen. I’m a loud teacher, so I forget this. Until I remember and suddenly I’m Nic Cage. Nic Cage, for those of you who don’t know (and for shame), has two acting gears. There is quiet, softly crazy Nic Cage. And there is LOUD SCREAMINGLY CRAZY NIC CAGE. Keeps the kids on their toes.

The last point on teaching as performance art I want to make is on reading aloud. Reading aloud is one of my most favorite things about teaching. There are so many fantastic books out there. If you view teaching as performance art, and you view reading aloud as part of teaching, then your read alouds become chapter-long daily plays. I do voices, I do expression, I get into it. Sitting and listening to someone read from a book can be torture. Acting when you read brings the book to life. When you bring a book to life the students see that reading is more than words on a page. Reading is an adventure. I expect my students to read with expression and I model that every day. I go for it so that they feel safe about going for it. I act silly and shout and whisper and do an awful accent because I want them to take risks in class.

Tie Shopping

**This is in a chapter about how I dress as a professional teacher, and how that conflicts with my inner self**

So I also bought nice ties. I went to the store and browsed the tie racks. So many colors. Some of them are shiny, some more flat. Too many with patterns, I don’t want a tie with patterns, that’s not me. As I looked at the ties I started running my dress shirts through my head. Would this go with that? Should I spend this much on a tie that will only really work with one shirt?

Then I found one. A Great Tie. A deep red with a slight sheen. Would be great with the black and dark-colored shirts I have, and I could probably make it work with one or two others. It needs a tie tack. Tie tacks look nice. Here’s a good one. I excitedly took my finds to the cash register who rung me up. I’m going to look brilliant. Won’t the boss be impressed with my tie.

It wasn’t until I got in the car that I realized what I’d done. I’d gotten excited about buying a tie. Unironically, unself-consciously, totally honestly excited about buying a tie. My heart sank. I never was cool, but this is different. This isn’t even metal. In my head I pictured what was happening in my house. I knew it had to be true. As I was buying the tie, as I was excitedly picking it out and whipping out my wallet, someone was breaking into my room. A shadowy figure. Its hand reaches out, grazing my wall of CDs, searching. Searching. I swipe my debit card and the hand finds what it’s looking for. A Pantera CD. The live album, one of the best live recordings ever. So brutal. The hand removes the CD and I grab the bag with my newly purchased tie. And as I turn to walk away from the counter the hand puts new music in place of my Pantera CD. It would be there, waiting for me when I got home. Mocking me. A Best of Sting album.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!