HORSEplaying In The Classroom?!

Before.......................................................................................................................After


In these pictures, my English class is galloping. Yep, that's right. You read me correctly. They/we galloped. A guest speaker, or another professor or someone came to talk to our class about Shakespeare and as a result, iambic pentameter. What better of a way to get college students enthusiastic about, and aware of the rhythm of a sonnet than to stomp it out in front of their peers, right? Well, maybe. At first it was very awkward and childish-seeming and I did not want to touch it with a ten foot pole. No one in our class was volunteering except one person that somehow had no problem with galloping alone in front of the class (see below). As for the rest of the class, they were maintaining their comfortability standing on the sidelines (see above left). Not for long! Then however, our teacher somewhat forcibly involved us by saying that everyone had to take a turn. As two halves of a class, we took shifts. One time, half the class would be reading a sonnet in unison, emphasizing the meter, while the other half was galloping the beats at the same time. Then we switched. Everyone had a chance to be embarassed (or humored)! (see above left).


I realized that it is okay to look silly in front of my classmates, for the sake of learning. I also learned that I can do something that seems like it will make a complete fool of myself, but really it could turn out being fun. I also learned that when several people do something humiliating together and at the same time, it makes the experience a whole lot more endurable. Also, I realized that I learned more about iambic pentameter (whether I wanted to or not) by doing that seemingly stupid activity than I would have by reading a definition of it in a dictionary, or even listening to a teacher explain it. There is something about self-participation that makes a subject more captivating.

This situation can be applied to Understanding Content because it is content OF A DIFFERENT CLASS (happy now, Bobby? :). It is an example of a different course besides Eds 150, reiterating the things we learn about in Eds 150. From this galloping day, I connected it back to previous lessons from Eds, and saw that it affirmed how teaching active lessons yields more effective, memorable effects when a student is learning. This day in my English class was like a deja vu of the day we got in groups with classmates and made a common list of traits from our most memorable learning experience. Active learning was in all of our experiences, and agreed upon in all of the groups. This guest speaker guy must have sat in on that Eds class or something, because he definitely used active learning on us!

I can use this experience as a teacher because I need to remember that often times, in order to strike a student's interest, I need to be interested also. It makes it a whole lot easier for them (and a whole lot less hypocritical for me) for me to join in the activity as much as possible.
I should meet them where they are. If they have to look and act like fools, then so should I! I also want to be sure I realize that EVERYTHING can be creatively taught. Even something as bland and textbook-bound as iambic pentameter, can be brought to life and made fun. I want to try to be aware of creative techniques for teaching my students. I want to get them all involved instead of asking for volunteers or pinpointing one brave soul every time.