The Big Fresh December 10, 2016 Golf Course

Golf gives you an insight into human nature — your own as well as your opponent’s.

                                                                             Grantland Rice

Not long ago, I attended a professional development opportunity for teachers and school leaders where we spent time reflecting on the environment in effective classrooms. The facilitators opened by asking us to reflect upon our own classrooms in previous years. “Make a metaphor for what it looked like,” they told us. “Be open and honest; your metaphor should reflect what it  looked and felt like on a daily basis.”  They broke us into small groups of eight people so we could talk about our metaphors.

When it came time to share our metaphors, I spoke first.  I told the group my classroom had been a golf course. There were a few titters as I explained my thinking:

My classroom had been a traditional one, following the general model of classrooms from years gone by. The rules were well established.  It was fun; everyone was generally pretty happy to be there. Some players were  successful; others couldn’t seem to get the ball where it needed to be. And me?  In my analogy, I was the golf pro. I was running the place. I ordered the T-shirts; I managed the snack bar; I set the tee times. I was the one who closed things down when it was hot or stormy.  I helped when the swing was off, suggesting little tweaks that could be made to improve performance. If someone was really struggling, on the course but playing some other game entirely, I was largely at a loss and wasn’t sure how to guide them back.

As others shared their metaphors, we found ourselves delighting in the analogies:

• science experiment

• talk show

• baseball game

• television set

• yoga studio

• subway car

Although most metaphors were largely positive, there were a couple of honest and open teachers who were more negative.  An art teacher confessed, “My class was a sweatshop with child laborers.”  A kindergarten teacher admitted, “I was the ringleader in a three-ring circus.”  A special education teacher, who had spent her year juggling an extremely tricky caseload, said “I think I was teaching in a mousetrap. And it was ready to snap at any moment.”

After we explained our metaphor to our group members, our facilitators asked us to think of a metaphor for how we’d like our classrooms to be in an ideal, perfect teaching world. This was a lot more difficult to do. We talked at length about it before all agreeing on the same thing:  our metaphor for our ideal classroom wouldn’t be a metaphor at all. It would be a classroom.  A well-run, well-organized classroom, complete with interest-based learning, workshop routines, and extensive differentiation.

It was a fun exercise, one that I’ve continued to reflect upon.  It might help all of us to consider a metaphor for what our classroom looks like  . . . and what we want it to look like.  And, most of all, what needs to be done to shift the metaphor to what we’d like it to be.

This week we look at courage in classrooms. Plus more as always — enjoy!