So last Thursday, I was feeling pretty down about the fact that I had to have my observation redone. It turned out to be better this way because the lesson that was observed was a drama activity.
When last I saw my Year 11 students, we were slowly and steadily making our way through the chapters of Face by Benjamin Zephiniah. If you didn’t know anything about my students, you might not be impressed with them. But to hear some of the volunteering to read is amazing, especially from three of the lads who, I’m told, in the past wouldn’t even bother raising their hands.
One of the lads, “Laurence” suggested reading the next chapter as a script. I told him we could do it, forgetting the fact that I was going to be observed the next time we met as a class. Usually, when you’re about to have an observation, people play it nice and safe. I’d already made a commitment to my students about doing it up as a drama activity, so I went ahead and did it anyway. It’s funny ‘cuz my learning zone leader (department chair) (LZL) said it was really ambitious of me to try this. It wasn’t a matter of being ambitious at all; it was a matter of doing right by my students.
I went ahead and adapted Chapter 4. My LZL knew what I was up to and she helped me structure the lesson to the general standards the observation people would be referring to. In all seriousness, it probably wouldn’t have gone so well if I hadn’t had help.
I was all nervous about it this morning. Then I saw Michael; usually he is only in Monday through Wednesday, but because he isn’t going to be around towards the end of the month, he was making up days now. He said he’d be in my class to help out. At first, I thought it was kind of odd, but later I would discover that it was actually beneficial. Not like I don’t like him being there, in fact, I wish he was there more often for some of my classes; it was more the fact that when I think of observations, I think of ‘em as being a thing done with just me if that makes any sense.
So anyway, I set up the room in such a way that we would have a “stage” area. Just as I’d feared when I received the message that I would be re-observed for the same class, only five students showed up. I knew a few of them would be gone because of college (like work study) and that three of ‘em were in in-school detention, but still…five of seventeen? (Not to be confused with Seven-of-Nine.)
We got through the “boring” stuff all right. One of the first things we did was read the chapter in prose form in order to help us understand the difference between prose and script format, as well as give us an idea of what the blocking might be. There were some other mini-activities we did before tackling the script.
Now here’s where things get a bit amusing; two of the students who were absent from class showed up just as we were allocating parts. It’s amusing because for some reason, their time tables have them in a free period during our class for Week 2, but they came anyway because they knew we would be doing the script the second half of class. They said they were there to “help out”. I was just happy to have seven students!
Not long after their arrival, the observers came in. I kinda ignored ‘em ‘cuz I was too busy helping the students in the blocking process. I really didn’t care that they were there, in fact, to me they were kinda in the way. I was more focused on trying to get “Scott” to dance (he was brave enough to take on the main character, but didn’t really think about the part where Martin has to show off his dance moves). To make things even more…interesting, Scott and Laurence were supposed to have a dance off. This made me nervous only because the first day of class, the two of them almost came to blows. I know what you’re thinking — why cast them opposite each other then? Honestly, I didn’t want to maneuver it in such a way that would raise their suspicion. I mean, Laurence volunteered to be Other Dancer ‘cuz he knew how to break dance, and getting Scott to volunteer to be Martin was yet another amazing thing ‘cuz he’s usually reluctant to participate.
I had absolutely nothing to worry about. In fact, they seemed to get along great in the scene. I was really proud of them.
Michael played the part of the Drug Pusher, which is fine by me, but I thought it a little strange. Again, I would discover that it was actually a good thing.
We had to go through it a few times ‘cuz for one thing, it isn’t a drama class and for another, their attention span is about as focused as mine is when I’m not playing the part of a teacher.
In the end, I didn’t care if I got a low mark for the observation because the students really enjoyed the activity. In fact, one of them said to me afterward that he thought he had a better idea of the chapter after having done that. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious, but when I had my feedback with Mr McCullagh, he said he saw the same boy in a different class completely disengaged from the lesson. Hence, I’ve come to take “Mikhail”’s comment a little more seriously.
After the class, Shelby and Miss Williams said they heard good things about the lesson. I brushed it off ‘cuz I think they got their impressions from Michael, and Michael is probably one of the most positive and encouraging people I know. Again, later, I would discover that Miss Williams heard more information from Mr McCullagh and still she told me it went well. Mr McCullagh stopped by to give me unofficial feedback and said he thought it was a good lesson.
I dared to be hopeful it didn’t suck.
After school, Mr McCullagh came to my classroom to give me my official score. We went through the observation matrix and he asked me how I thought I did on each point and then gave me the official marks. I was actually pretty accurate in my self-evaluation except on two points where I gave myself a lower score than where it actually ended up. Remember how I mentioned having Mike there was actually a beneficial thing? Well, one of the sections on the matrix is about how I use the ALTs in the class. Mr McCullagh said I made great use of Mike; which really threw me off ‘cuz as far as I’m concerned, Mike is more of a colleague than an ALT. (Seriously, I have no idea why it is Mike isn’t a full-time teacher.)
Overall, I got a 2 — which is pretty good for a first-year non-British trained teacher. Of course, I’m not kidding myself into believing it will always be like this because if you want to know the truth, the only reason I scored so well was because it was a small class, it was a drama activity, and I had help from Miss Williams.
Apart from all that, doing the activity made me realize just how much I actually miss drama. I’m hoping that once I get my head above water, I can get involved a bit more with activities. Peter, the other English department cover teacher guy, was actually putting together a flyer for a drama workshop that I might try and help out with. But again, I have to break surface first.
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