Unfortunately, many teachers (probably unintentionally) squash it by talking at their students, reading a long syllabus, or (the worst) refusing to smile for fear of looking too nice. One of the best pieces of advice my supervisor has given me (and she's given me A LOT of great advice) is to not go over the syllabus and the rules on the first day of class, but rather to create a lesson that fits with my personality, interests, and goals. The first days are full of possibilities, and, as they say, you only get one chance at first impressions.
Goals for the year
I'll admit that I spent hours looking for activities for the first days until a Twitter search brought me to the Marshmallow Challenge. As I read about it, I thought about how many lessons it would teach students. It also looked like a ton of fun.
It aligned perfectly with the lesson that I wanted to make a focus for my classes this year: not being afraid to fail. It's a lesson that's been everywhere in my own life -- from articles to graduation speeches to yoga classes. I've come to see failure as so valuable to the learning and creative processes, and I want to make sure students see this, too.
What you can learn from marshmallows and spaghetti
I assembled kits with 20 pieces of uncooked spaghetti, one marshmallow, one yard of tape, and one yard of string. When my students came in I told them they were going to be participating in a challenge that thousands of others have participated in. I put them in groups, gave them directions (you have 18 minutes to build the tallest freestanding tower with the marshmallow on top), and let them go.
There were a few brief looks of confusion (why are we doing this in an English class?), but within seconds, every group was talking, planning, and playing with their materials. I stood back and smiled, taking in the energy of the room. I learned so much about my students by walking around and observing their interactions -- Who immediately takes a leadership role? Who thinks outside the box? Who is content to sit back with a short but standing tower rather than pushing higher?
After the 18 minutes were up, I asked students to reflect on the lessons learned.
Our conversations were great, and, as always, they came up with some lessons that I hadn't even thought of.
An introduction to lesson structure We then watched Tom Wujec's TED Talk, "Build a Tower, Build a Team." Many students smiled or laughed when they heard that business students typically perform the worst and kindergartners tend to have the tallest and most interesting towers. While business students may be single-minded and afraid to fail, kindergartners approach the challenge as play, and spend a lot of time prototyping with their materials. They realize the weight of the marshmallow before it's too late to change their structure. We even talked about the negative impact of an extrinsic reward on performance -- money in the challenge, grades in school. | |
The tallest tower of the day was 26 inches. But more important than earning bragging rights, students were smiling, laughing, working together, and creating in my classroom. On the second day of school. Lessons were learned and energy, that precious energy, was created.