A Teacher's Journal 29: Striking Pedagogical Pay Dirt

In one anecdote, McCourt described a lesson that he taught on sentence structure. His students, a group less than interested in traditional diagramming or worksheets, were struggling to stay interested in this essential concept. Realizing that his lesson was failing, he changed direction and used the mechanical construction of a ballpoint pen as a metaphor for the essential elements of a properly constructed sentence. The shell of the pen became the subject of the sentence and the spring became the predicate. Like a sentence missing a subject or a predicate, a pen is useless when it is missing one of its mechanical parts. His students caught on quickly and mastered content that they could not originally understand.

During another lesson, McCourt noticed that his high school writers excelled in one particular genre: forged absent notes. While they often ignored more meaningful pieces, their efforts to craft false excuses after skipping school were nothing less than masterful. Imaginative scenarios, advanced vocabulary and mature sentence structures appeared in the writings of students generally uninterested in language arts. McCourt capitalized on this discovery by having his classes write excuse notes for major figures in literature and history known for their mistakes. His students, challenged by the assignment, carefully analyzed the intentions and decisions made by these "villains" learning lessons about point of view and persuasion without even realizing it!

Neither of these activities were initially planned by McCourt -- and neither match the instructional approaches in more traditional classrooms -- but both were incredibly effective and appropriate for reaching the group of students that he was responsible for teaching. One of McCourt's assistant principals called these moments "striking pedagogical pay dirt."

I call them evidence of accomplished teaching.

You see, McCourt could have stuck to his original plans, insisting that students learn material his way. He could have argued that it is a student's responsibility to learn material regardless of the way it is presented or explained. Instead, he recognized that his students needed something more to succeed and accepted responsibility for creating new opportunities to approach the same content. Working from an understanding of his student population, he revised his instruction and created material that was exciting and motivating to the children of his classroom.

Our best teachers adjust, refine and revise their lessons in this way every day based on their observations and knowledge of students. They recognize that instruction must be flexible -- what worked in the past may not work today. They are innovative and creative. Their classrooms don't always look like the classrooms that we sat in as children because children have changed -- and so has our world. They ensure student achievement for all with a persistent refusal to allow any child to be overlooked. They strike pedagogical pay dirt often because they are constantly digging!