There are always little moments as a teacher where something wonderful, even miraculous can occur. Sometimes without warning, these little moments make teaching worthwhile.
I was lucky enough to have 2 of these moments today.
The first one occurred during reading groups this morning. We were reciting a readers’ theatre text, and it was one of my more able groups. The scene was a mystery, aimed at students, with a parody on Sherlock Homes (the lead girl detective is called Shirley Homes). We discussed how you recite in character when reading readers’ theatre. I left the group for 5 mins to read their parts and practice their delivery.
When I returned, they had gone above and beyond my expectations. My student who was the narrator, used a dramatised American voice, which set the mystery perfectly, just like a voice over on a crime show, like Law and Order. We all had a laugh and added the Law and Order sound effect (‘duhn duhn’). We had Posh British accents for our detective Shirley Homes and her side kick Amber Watson. All the students in the group really got into character and we all enjoyed the performance.
The second lovely moment occurred during our HSIE lesson. We are learning about Global connections and today began our lessons on learning about Aid organisations and charities. We looked at the posters from the 8 UN Millenium goals.
In groups of 3, students were asked to read and look at the posters, asking questions and discussing the posters with their group. As I looked around, it was such a great moment. Everyone was engaged, there were people deep in discussion that usually don’t talk to each other. And the comments! The questions! There was real humility showing, some students were shocked at how some people in the posters lived, and they made comments about how grateful they were, how we take things for granted, some of them expressed sadness. For some students who do not have much contact with the wider global community, it was a lesson that they really connected with, and had genuine questions and concerns.
What a great start to the next 4 lessons on Global Aid and Global citizens!
Here are the 8 millenium posters that we used. They were taken from the Oxfam Uk site, which also has extensive teaching resources.
