Twenty-four students in my class

Twenty-four is a slightly different kind of memory. It isn’t about a single child or a pair of friends, or even a trio of friends. Twenty-four is the number of children enrolled in my first period class. Why does that matter? It matters because they taught the class by themselves one morning.

I had a debrief from an observation the prior day that was scheduled before school started. The meeting ran long, and it never occurred me to that the principal would keep me after first bell without arranging coverage for my first period class. Long story short, he hadn’t. So my students, all 24 of them, got into the room even though the door was locked by sending one child into the room next door to use the connecting doors, which did not lock. Once they were all in the room, they shut the door, got out all their materials, and started to work. Entirely on their own. At the time we had more leeway with curriculum and I ran my classroom based on a system where each child had assignments for the week but could do them in whichever order made sense to them. It also allowed me to differentiate because everyone was doing something different, so having a little change to an assignment here or there didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

My 7th graders literally came into an empty room, got out folders and books, booted up the computers, and partnered up, shared resources they needed to, and started their day. Entirely on their own. One pair was working on the computer designing a project, several others were online doing research, one pair was using a non-fiction book to read and answer questions, one group was reading a fictional text sharing the reading and helping each other mark vocabulary and work out anything confusing, and so on down the line. It was truly one of the proudest moments I think I’ve ever had. I tell my students all the time that my goal is to have them be independent learners to the point where they don’t need me. This group had a chance to prove they could do just that and showed me and each other that they quite literally did not need me there at all.

I am aware someone should have been in there, that was not something I’d ever willingly repeat. However, my takeaway was the beautiful sight of walking in to a fully functioning classroom and asking where the teacher was…and them looking at me dumbfounded, like I was crazy, and explaining to me how they started class alone. Did it take a lot of work to establish that kind of class culture? Yes. Did it take a lot of work to create different projects that could all be completed at the same time with limited resources so everyone got a chance to use what we had access to? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. I’ve never had a class prove it quite that way, but ever since the class of Twenty-four I’ve taken time to step back and let my students figure out what they are doing/need to do and how to get their work done. It isn’t always successful, some years kids are less interested in being independent thinkers and more interested in ‘finding the answer’ but every year I push them to do more for themselves and by themselves so they are able to think on their own and solve the problems that can arise from using shared materials or from working in a group.

So what did I learn, other than my Twenty-four children were pretty exceptional? I learned the power in being prepared. The time I had spent setting up the research, writing questions, organizing vocabulary, etc. so that every student had directions and next steps was definitely a good use of my time. The energy I had invested in teaching my class how to manage things for themselves was well worth it. So to the class of Twenty-four exceptional students, thank you for regularly helping me remember what it is to be a good teacher.