Day 15: Teaching!
We woke up this morning to a luxurious 7am alarm. Today was our first day of teaching! Most of us grabbed a few extra minutes of sleep after the alarm; bed time was delayed last night by long bouts of laughter that only comes from mutual exhaustion and being around each other so continuously.
I felt a mixture of excitement and nervousness this morning. Teaching is the central goal of Spokes, and I couldn’t wait to see how the kids would react to our lessons. On the other hand, I felt a bit underprepared. I’ve never taught in this fashion before.
Nonetheless, we rolled up to the White Pine Library, some in Ody, some on bike. We were greeted by Lori, the person who coordinated the workshops with us. We immediately set to work preparing the room. Kids ranging in age from five to 13 began filling up the room–before we knew it, over 30 kids were packed into the room!
Katherine went first, with her lesson on colors and color theory. Though the kids were still waking up, they quickly warmed up to the coloring. Parth’s lesson followed, focusing on data science. After working through what data means and how it can represent real-world stories, the students investigated their own narrative on data, some indoors and some outdoors.
Before I knew it, it was my turn to teach. In the minutes leading up to the start of my lesson, my nervousness and excitement crescendoed in volume. After I set up, Parth graciously introduced me to the group as “teacher Joel” and I began. My lesson is titled “Intro to Rocket Science.” However, due to the age range, I modified my lesson to be more about engineering iteration than about the actual fundamentals of rocket science.
After talking briefly about rockets, we went outside to launch a simple 2-liter bottle using water and compressed air. Despite my best efforts, the bottle got stuck in a nearby tree! I asked the kids how they think they could improve the design. I was blown away by the intuition the students had about improving the design. One kid even suggested making the rocket heavier to make it more stable, which is actually a counterintuitive fundamental of rocket design.
After we brainstormed improvements, I split the kids into groups, and creative chaos ensued. Some glued leaves to their rockets, some built parachutes. After building, we all went outside, and tested the rocket designs. Each team got to pull the cord on their launch (though one trigger happy student pulled the cord early and got me a bit drenched as I filled the rocket). The excitement was contagious (and no other rockets got stuck in the tree). After a very short hour, we took a break for lunch, with the kids eating their boxed lunches, and us eating pizza generously provided by the library.
After the lunch break, I got the unique opportunity of watching Vincent stuff his face with a banana to demonstrate mental schema. This earned him the nickname “monkey man” from the students. Sophia and Aja split up the kids and taught concurrent lessons. Sophia taught about stories, and Aja taught about urban planning, using a detailed, hand-drawn map of Ely. Timothy finished out the day teaching about how computers transmit information.
Monkey man Vincent eats a banana
The students’ redesign of Ely (photo creds: Aja)
During part of this time, Parth and I played a chess game in the library. We both reminisced about how we got into chess, and confessed to each other that we were a bit rusty. The game was a fun back-and-forth, with no clear winner until the last few moves. I somehow squeaked out a win, though I do believe the game would’ve gone differently without a time constraint.
We learned lots from this first set of lessons. We learned the value of splitting up the students into smaller groups. We learned methods of keeping the kids attention. We teach again in a week, and I’m excited for the adventure that will bring. Tomorrow, we return to biking after a much needed couple days of rest. However, what we are biking towards feels more palpable to me. We’ve acclimated to the cycling part of Spokes; I am very excited to further explore the teaching part of Spokes.
High stoke teaching (photo creds: Aja)
Onwards,
Joel