Osgood-Slaughter of the mind: Attaining the fluency of teaching

Oh, dear.

I am, of late, reminded of the phase of language-learning, in which you understand everything that is going on around you and everything that other people are talking about, but cannot for the life of you express what you want to say about it all. You have the knowledge you need, but it remains passive for the time being.

Slowly - and yes, painfully - that knowledge activates itself as you gain confidence and and your ability to automate gains momentum. Then, it is just a matter of time and exponentials until you find, magically, you are fluent. You really do know what you knew you knew all along. Your brain needed time in its expansion to catch up to the input it was receiving, as if Osgood-Slaughter disease had taken over your mind.

And so, I continue to strive toward this ideal as my responsibilities in the classroom increase. I am well over the half-way hump, which means that what I am doing well is not as noticeable and crucial, perhaps, as what I'm not doing well. In other words, once the glass is more than half full, it's simply not full. What is lacking is supposed to be there.

Case in point, brutally put: I bombed the preparation of math stations last week. If I was getting grades for what I do in the classroom everyday, I would have given myself a big fat F for the fact that I had not thought ahead and prepped ahead to send my students to the math stations they love to rotate through on their own on Friday afternoons. I didn't even need to hear what my cooperating teacher had to say about it, the consequences were as obvious as whiplash.

More than anything, learning time was lost. Students waited for me to flounder finding the cards that would tell them what stations they would be visiting, as well as the materials they would need at several of the stations. The students put their name cards in the slots next to the station they wanted to begin at. There are only 4 slots so that each station does not get too crowded; students are expected to rotate through all the stations at their own pace by continually returning to the cards and putting their name cards in the different corresponding slots. In addition - and almost more regretful - in my hurry to find the cards, I put up an incorrect card that confused and upset the students because the choice they had made for themselves and were excited about was now denied. This has particularly dangerous potential for five-year-olds, because their very development relies on the practice of making choices, being accountable for those choices, and growing in their autonomy as decision-makers.

Did they really notice? Probably not. I dashed around to make amends in appropriate corners, and the students had a great time - they always do. But I noticed. I noticed not the cause, but the effect, and believe me, that was all I needed. Thinking through it in hindsight, I can't really explain the cause, which baffles me, but bothers me more than anything. It reminded me of a common adult refrain I heard throughout my high school years: "There's no excuse for not getting an A. You do the work, and you do it well."

I know what good teaching is. I see it and hear it and recognize it all around me in the amazing colleagues I'm working with. But, it seems, as I've tried to activate into practice what I know and observe, it becomes painfully clear that I have yet to achieve the fluency of teaching.

I know I am capable of that fluency. I did not take from this episode the feeling that I can't do what is expected and necessary of a classroom teacher. But it was what I'll call a healthy blow to the ego - the blow that puts you in your place, because you put yourself there. Learning by doing, folks: step right up.