From the Mouths of Babes

Today I had the privilege of witnessing a student deliver one of the most thoughtful interpretations of Starry Night that I have ever heard in all my years of interacting with that painting. It was completely beautiful. My lesson for the day was on the way society influenced art and vice versa in the late 19th and early 20th century. We started with Realism, worked our way through Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and ended our conversation with Cubism. The main objective of this activity was to point out how society became less about conformity and more about individual expression at the beginning of the 20th century. As the eras of art progress, the artists within the same genre get more and more distinguishable from each other.

The students got very interested and involved in discussing the works of art, and they especially enjoyed Van Gogh's Starry Night. One boy compared it to what the reflection of the night sky might look like in a puddle of gasoline, which I thought was clever (even if not totally thought out). However, the comment that stopped me dead in my tracks came from one of the quietest students in the class. The only time she had opened her mouth the whole period was to say "here" during attendance, but she made up for quantity with quality.

We were talking about what emotions the painting provokes. Students were saying things like anger, sadness, depression, confusion, which were all perfectly excellent answers. Then Silvia (name changed) raised her hand and cautiously suggested, "I think that the painting shows very conflicting emotions." Of course I asked her to explain why she thought so. She replied, "Well, the sky is very swirly and violent looking, but the town in the background is very still and calm looking, so I think when Van Gogh was painting this, he was experiencing conflicting emotions about something."

For a moment, all I could do was stand dumb founded, but I quickly collected myself and asked the rest of the class what they thought about Silvia's interpretation. Overall, I was very impressed with their level of maturity and their engagement in the conversation today. I am especially proud of my group of students because they have been labeled "CP," or College Prep. This is just a nice way of saying you guys will probably go to college, but you are not quite smart enough for honors.

Many of the teachers I have interacted with at my school prefer teaching honors classes and do not get any joy out of teaching CP classes. They complain that CP kids have more behavior issues, more difficulty grasping advanced concepts, and a wider range of ability levels. That may all be true, but I tried to go in to my first days of teaching with an open mind and high expectations. The conversation we had today definitely required my students to deal with advanced concepts, and they handled it brilliantly.

I believe that teaching can take on many different forms. Yesterday, I tried to be brilliant, eloquent, witty, and captivating with an 80 minute lecture that would leave them wanting more of my fabulous teaching abilities. That failed miserably. Today, I tried to uncover the brilliance lying inside each and every one of my 23 students. That brought me much closer to success. It seems then, that my passion lies in helping students find their own voices and establish their own opinions about the world they live in and the information available to them in that world. Hopefully I can keep that in mind in future lessons. All around, it was a wonderful day that reminded me of all the reasons why the prospect of teaching fills my heart with so much joy.