"Dare to Be Different" Day: Teaching My Second Lesson at Camp Fulbright!

Photo creds: Molly Lockwood, fellow South Korea Fulbright ETA

After Molly taught and right before my turn to teach, a student came up to me and said, "Teacher, you are Jasmine. You look like Jasmine, the Disney character." This is the second student who has compared me to Jasmine. 

Perfect for my topic today!

I was the second ETA to teach this afternoon, and I whiled the time I spent in the back of the classroom taking note of Molly's really creative incorporation of props in her lesson plan, getting ready to provide her written feedback, glancing over my own lesson plan, and generally just working myself up to a state of excitement and nervousness. 

 

LOOKING BEYOND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

My second lesson plan was centered around the idea of "Looking Beyond First Impressions"/ "Not Judging a Book By its Cover." My objective was for students to learn that first impressions are not always fair or accurate, and can often lead to misunderstandings and the unfair treatment of others. 

Using other random photographs of people I found online, I led the class in an exercise that involved showing them a series of images, and asking them to form quick first impressions. They then had to fill out worksheets I had handed out with questions asking for the "character attributes" of the person/people they saw on the photos, whether they would want to be friends with the person/people, and why. 

One of the ways I modeled this activity for the class was by taking taking a photo, showing it to the class, and asking them to answer the same questions as I would later have them fill out on their worksheets individually. 

MODELING A LESSON PLAN: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

This is the photo I used. And, when prompted, these are my students' first impressions of this man based solely on this photo: 

• Gentleman
• Kind to girls
• Yes, I would want to be his friend (said seven out of eight students)

Pause to form your own first impressions of the man in this photo

One student answered that he wouldn't want to be friends with this man because...because of something he couldn't explain. I prompted him to look deeper at the photo and give me the best explanation he could to justify not being friends with this man. 

Student: I don't know! It's intuition. My intuition tells me this is a bad man. 

Me: Ah, okay, so your intuition is also helping you form your first impression of this man? 

Student: Yes

Me: What makes you think he's a bad man? Tell me what it it is about this picture that tells you that. He doesn't look bad to me. 

Student: He looks okay in the picture. I just don't like him. I think he is a very bad man. 

Me: A bad man, huh? Thank you for explaining. We'll return to this photo in a little bit. 

And I went on with my lesson plan. 

High energy and very active in front of the classroom!

LESS IS MORE. LESS IS MORE. LESS IS MORE

Contrary to everything I knew and had been told about "Less is More," I still planned and executed a variety of activities for my class. This worked only because I only had eight students to deal with, and not a full class of 30-40 students in the classroom! I am extremely thorough when it comes to scaffolding and modeling my lessons and so, again, there were different components all leading to my main concept of looking beyond first impressions. Though I was able to incorporate most of these activities today, I was definitely very nervous about time and kept looking down at the clock to check our progress. 

Less is more, Mimi. Less is more! Seriously. 

The switch between student-teacher roles is still a strange one for me, but I am getting better with each lesson!

THE TWIST (OH, HOW I LOVE COMING FULL CIRCLE) 

I showed my students all of the images, and walked around the room checking up on each and every one of them as they filled out their worksheets and occasionally looked up to refer to the images on the board. After our activity was done, I concluded the lesson by revisiting our first image. 

Here it is again - but, this time, with the rest of the photo showing through the dark overlay, with information on who the man is in the photo, and, most importantly, whether or not the students' first impression was fair and/or accurate based on reality. 

Ted Bundy in custody in 1978. Photo courtesy of State Archives of Florida. Now you know why I had to cover up the left side of the photo!

The student who had expressed his dislike of this man based on his intuition yelled triumphantly as the rest of the class screamed in shock and settled back in their chairs groaning half in wonder, and half in dismay. 

Students: [Still in disbelief] Teacher, how could you do this to us?!

Me: Now you know not to rely on first impressions because they can be deceiving! 

Students: [Groaning] Teacher...

How I really ended class: Complimenting a student on his bright orange sneakers. It tied to the lesson, believe me.

Immediately after class, I met up with my CI again and received excellent feedback. He thought I did even better the second time around while I was still undecided whether this one topped the first. Overall, a great personal dilemma to have after teaching a lesson.

We exchanged a few comments about the Ted Bundy photo illustration, and how fortunate I was that the students gave me the answers/the impressions I needed to make the lesson really work. 

CI: That doesn't happen very often, but when it does - when students give you what you need for a lesson - it's awesome. Great job. 

Me: Thank you. It was a gamble, but it worked out! 

I have really enjoyed teaching this group of students for the past two lessons. They have been very engaged and expressive of their opinions in class. I know that I will have different challenges to overcome in my upcoming third practice teaching. 

My third and last practice teaching will be with a different teacher, in a different classroom, and with much-younger elementary students! I am both terrified and extremely curious and excited to see how I will do with this particular group of students. The last time I interacted with younger ones in this kind of capacity was six years ago when I was a YMCA summer camp counselor. Yikes. We will see soon enough! 

MY QUESTIONS FOR YOU: 

In all honesty, what was your first impression of the man in the photo I used to model my lesson for today? Were your impressions similar to the ones my students gave me? Be honest! Share your impressions in the comment box below.