One Example of Good Teaching in Practice

I love visiting wonderful classrooms.

This week, I spent some time in Amber Carrow's classroom. Not only is Amber a California State Teacher of the Year, she is also one of our Institute's key partners. We're working on a book together and she's an integral part of one of our main inititives - The Teacher Project.

In some ways, Amber's classroom looked like almost any other classroom across the state of California - crowded, filled with students who (if you take the time to look and listen) desperately want to learn.

But I also think there are subtle things that make Amber's classroom practice extraordinary. She asks a lot of questions of her students and holds them to high standards, while at the same time meeting them where they are - in both life and in learning. The lesson I observed on Monday was a fairly simple vocabulary lesson to frontload some of the new words for a unit on China.

But the delivery was anything but simple. Amber made use of the technology in her classroom (interactive white board and laptop) and used pictures, sounds, and stories to help the students discover the meanings of the words. She also stopped to answer students' questions, while gently keeping them focused on the task at hand. Although she was teaching a world history vocabulary lesson, she constantly integrated concepts of math, language arts, and science into her teaching.

And the physical space spoke to the level of comfort that was almost visable as students walked into the room. The classroom reflected an organized and established sense of place. For example, the students were beginning a new world history unit on China on Monday, and as students filed into the classroom, they immediately began asking Amber to explain some of the artifacts on the wall.

But the most remarkable (and unremarkable) thing I observed in Amber's room is, I think, at the heart of good teaching throughout the world - many students and one teacher, engaged in a lot of questioning, and exploration, and discovery. Yes, there's an art to teaching. And yes, Amber is mastering that art. But there's also a beautiful simplicity to it, when students and teachers trust each other and truly care about the process.