The Heart of the Classroom
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match
Find me a find,
Catch me a catch.
Matchmaker, matchmaker, look through your book,
And make me a perfect match!
Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I have little regard for this holiday, and would just as soon ignore the tacky and garish trappings of Pepto-Bismol pink that festoon the aisles of every store during this season, but if you've ever been in a middle school on Valentine's Day, you know it's impossible to pretend it's not happening. The hormonal soup the average 8th grade brain stews in on a daily basis gets turned up to a rolling boil in the week leading up to the holiday, and by 2:15 on 2/14, education seems a lost cause. This year, Valentine's Day got me thinking about my role as a matchmaker. It's kind of what I do. I'm not sure that my algorithm is as sophisticated as Match.com, but at this point in the year I am pretty confident in my matchmaking capabilities.
In first period, I know that I can match Errin up with any book written in first person, with a straightforward narrative and no more than three main characters, and she will fall in love with it. Lizzy adores books with animal companions and illustrations. Angel is a romantic at heart; if it's a love story, she's in. Zeb likes action, but if the narrative is third person he will dump it every time. Violet is a serial monogamist with realistic fiction. Jay will spend time with any book vaguely related to Star Wars or superheroes.
The ability to play matchmaker with text is so much easier to develop than romantic match-making (with obviously lower stakes), but it relies on the same foundation. The most successful matches are made by people who have an intimate understanding of both parties involved. It is one of my pet peeves to hear teachers say, "I don't teach curriculum, I teach students." We teach both, always both, and we are responsible for both sides of the match. It's a cop-out to claim that we only need to form relationships with students. Content matters. Our relationship with the content we teach must be the bedrock of our classroom practice. How else will we create passionate learners with a life-long relationship with our subject area? Isn't that what we want? Experience and expertise matter, and my having an intimate grasp of the materials students use to access my subject area matters most of all.
When I meet my students at the beginning of the year, I spend a chunk of time introducing and talking up all of the potential matches available on my bookshelves. Would students prefer a dark, edgy, Holly Black faerie tale? Maybe a quirky Andrew Smith or Libba Bray comedy? An all-American sports story by Mike Lupica, or gritty, rough-around-the-edges, realistic fiction from Matt de la Pena? I introduce them all, because at that point I know my books better than my students.
As we start reading conferences, I begin to get a better feel for what matches will work best for each student. Some of them come to me with a pretty specific "type", while others have no idea. Some students think they know what they're looking for, but discover their expectations don't match with reality. Some insist they are not looking for a relationship with books. It's my job to build, as quickly and effectively as I can, a database of information so I know my students as well as I know my books. And then, the relationships begin.
When a match works, you know it. They're so engrossed with each other it's challenging to get them to break eye contact. Discussions about the relationship are often accompanied by emotional responses, sighing, rapid-fire commentary, gushing, and/or loving gazes at the book's cover. The tempestuous relationships formed at the heart of my classroom library sometimes end in tears, in disappointment, or in anger, but most hold the promise of a lasting friendship students can return to after the initial glow of passion has faded. Not every match is perfect; some have more lasting power than others. But every successful match I make leads that student toward a lasting, stable relationship with books.
For years I thought just talking about my own relationship would be enough to inspire students to seek out matches of their own. But it's not enough, because when you lack the tools to navigate the database of information, it is huge and overwhelming. So we have to start out by navigating students step-by-step through the selection process, all the while helping them put together their own criteria for match-making that will outlast the short year we spend together.
I spend every afternoon with my books. After school, I shelve them, straighten them, pull books off the shelves--searching for pieces of text to teach, to model, to share. I can direct students to a specific book without being anywhere near my bookcases. I make great matches because of my in-depth understanding of the books my classroom offers. My classroom library is more than just a resource. It is the heart of my teaching and my classroom, and the shelves are pieces of my relationship with books that I share with my students. I teach my kids what a love affair with books looks like by modeling my own, by opening my heart and letting them in to browse the titles that line it. It may be the only reader's heart they ever see.
Find me a find,
Catch me a catch.
Matchmaker, matchmaker, look through your book,
And make me a perfect match!
Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I have little regard for this holiday, and would just as soon ignore the tacky and garish trappings of Pepto-Bismol pink that festoon the aisles of every store during this season, but if you've ever been in a middle school on Valentine's Day, you know it's impossible to pretend it's not happening. The hormonal soup the average 8th grade brain stews in on a daily basis gets turned up to a rolling boil in the week leading up to the holiday, and by 2:15 on 2/14, education seems a lost cause. This year, Valentine's Day got me thinking about my role as a matchmaker. It's kind of what I do. I'm not sure that my algorithm is as sophisticated as Match.com, but at this point in the year I am pretty confident in my matchmaking capabilities.
In first period, I know that I can match Errin up with any book written in first person, with a straightforward narrative and no more than three main characters, and she will fall in love with it. Lizzy adores books with animal companions and illustrations. Angel is a romantic at heart; if it's a love story, she's in. Zeb likes action, but if the narrative is third person he will dump it every time. Violet is a serial monogamist with realistic fiction. Jay will spend time with any book vaguely related to Star Wars or superheroes.
The ability to play matchmaker with text is so much easier to develop than romantic match-making (with obviously lower stakes), but it relies on the same foundation. The most successful matches are made by people who have an intimate understanding of both parties involved. It is one of my pet peeves to hear teachers say, "I don't teach curriculum, I teach students." We teach both, always both, and we are responsible for both sides of the match. It's a cop-out to claim that we only need to form relationships with students. Content matters. Our relationship with the content we teach must be the bedrock of our classroom practice. How else will we create passionate learners with a life-long relationship with our subject area? Isn't that what we want? Experience and expertise matter, and my having an intimate grasp of the materials students use to access my subject area matters most of all.
When I meet my students at the beginning of the year, I spend a chunk of time introducing and talking up all of the potential matches available on my bookshelves. Would students prefer a dark, edgy, Holly Black faerie tale? Maybe a quirky Andrew Smith or Libba Bray comedy? An all-American sports story by Mike Lupica, or gritty, rough-around-the-edges, realistic fiction from Matt de la Pena? I introduce them all, because at that point I know my books better than my students.
As we start reading conferences, I begin to get a better feel for what matches will work best for each student. Some of them come to me with a pretty specific "type", while others have no idea. Some students think they know what they're looking for, but discover their expectations don't match with reality. Some insist they are not looking for a relationship with books. It's my job to build, as quickly and effectively as I can, a database of information so I know my students as well as I know my books. And then, the relationships begin.
When a match works, you know it. They're so engrossed with each other it's challenging to get them to break eye contact. Discussions about the relationship are often accompanied by emotional responses, sighing, rapid-fire commentary, gushing, and/or loving gazes at the book's cover. The tempestuous relationships formed at the heart of my classroom library sometimes end in tears, in disappointment, or in anger, but most hold the promise of a lasting friendship students can return to after the initial glow of passion has faded. Not every match is perfect; some have more lasting power than others. But every successful match I make leads that student toward a lasting, stable relationship with books.
For years I thought just talking about my own relationship would be enough to inspire students to seek out matches of their own. But it's not enough, because when you lack the tools to navigate the database of information, it is huge and overwhelming. So we have to start out by navigating students step-by-step through the selection process, all the while helping them put together their own criteria for match-making that will outlast the short year we spend together.
I spend every afternoon with my books. After school, I shelve them, straighten them, pull books off the shelves--searching for pieces of text to teach, to model, to share. I can direct students to a specific book without being anywhere near my bookcases. I make great matches because of my in-depth understanding of the books my classroom offers. My classroom library is more than just a resource. It is the heart of my teaching and my classroom, and the shelves are pieces of my relationship with books that I share with my students. I teach my kids what a love affair with books looks like by modeling my own, by opening my heart and letting them in to browse the titles that line it. It may be the only reader's heart they ever see.
Comments
Post a Comment