The Dichotomous Lesson

A few years ago, my wife and I left our first parent teacher conference (as parents) unable to pinpoint the seemingly acute- but somehow ambiguous feeling we both had regarding our conversation with our son’s teacher. He was doing well, but, after reflecting, we finally isolated the root of our shared sensation: the teacher didn’t seem to know- really know- our son.

Weeks later, while driving home from work, I was struck by the raw immediacy of NPR’s “The Moth” storytelling hour, during which ordinary individuals share a remarkable story from their own lives. I began to reflect on my own relationships with my students. Did I know them? As learners, yes; as people, not necessarily- and to varying, seemingly indiscriminate degrees. This series of experiences helped me generate a lesson that defines me as a teacher, one that I’d pilot with my departing seniors.

Like any devoted teacher, I can get absorbed in the delivery of content and the development of student skills, particularly when I’m faced with the palpable accountability of an exam like the AP Literature & Composition. This lesson, however, symbolized a reaffirmation of the value of peer and teacher-student relationships, and their ability to transcend the standards any rubric might imply. Sure, my lesson stemmed from a skill-based mastery objective and held students accountable to key narrative elements like the narrative hook, tone, story structure, theme, diction, etc.- but its effectiveness eclipsed obligatory standards.

As an icebreaker, I modeled the lesson with a story of my own about being trapped in a Stuttgart train tunnel for eight hours. Then, for that last week of school, each one of my students sat under the glow of a single light, and student after student, extrovert after introvert, for twenty uninterrupted minutes, had their chance. They didn't share the stage with their teachers and peers; for a fleeting moment- they owned it.

We laughed and cried together. We watched the walls between us dissipate. This lesson exemplifies my beliefs about teaching in its valuation of the socio-emotional lives of young people, the need for responsive plasticity in unit and lesson design, and, perhaps most salient, in the message it sends to its participants: you are your life’s author, and your life is a story worth telling.

They received their rubrics with personalized feedback from their teacher and their peers. I had doubts, initially, about the amount of instructional time I needed to sacrifice to provide adequate time for all of my students to have the same opportunity, but affirmation came through an unlikely heuristic when a week or so later, I received my own feedback. As each of them walked across the graduation stage, I applauded from a distance. Instead of pondering their performances on the recent exam, I reflected on each of their stories- whether humorous, devastating, uplifting, or bizarre. I knew them. -TK