Hop, Skip and A Jump

A classroom, energetic, loud with the din of excited voices as students rearrange leaves into various piles. Ordinary, mundane objects become items in the larger picture of the lesson. Diversity, adaptations, classification all becoming a focused idea: variation. While some students jump right in, sorting and creating a dichotomous key, others skip through the lesson making larger connections between different types of leaves and why the leaves are designed the way they are- adaptations. Finally, a few, only a few, hop along side the activity not truly seeing the purpose but trying their best to group the leaves into piles of similarities. As with every lesson: hoppers, skippers, and jumpers all drive the collaborative group in different directions. So how do we get all the movers and shakers into a unified "conga-line?" All the different voices streamlined into a focused goal?

Impossible right? Even in a "conga-line" you have the stragglers and those who move to fast and get separated from the rest of the line. The best we can do as teachers, really, is to at least get them all facing the same direction and moving simultaneously. Whether they all are in sync is another task entirely. I feel a lesson is successful if my students all hear the same music at least. Pick up the beat, sway to the melody. But I now that getting them to all enjoy the same piece of music is impossible but at least I can get them to appreciate it for what it is- music. In my class I try to make the warm-up broad, to entice them in, then slowly focus the activity into a culminating action-dance. If they are all moving and actively dancing then I have done my job.

Hop, skip and jump. Slow dance, wall-flower or the crazy dancer center dance floor, no matter which type they are they all need to be able to hear the song, feel the rhythm, sing the lyrics if desired. Today, I had students get up an move, walk from table to table completing dichotomous keys. Then in groups create one using the leaves we gathered outside last week. This was a quiet piece or orchestral music that built into a full orchestra all instruments booming and combining into a beautiful ensemble. Finally, after the skippers and jumpers found the hoppers along side them, they unified and read each others musical notes, dichotomous keys. Helping those who may not have gotten into sync find their harmony. All we can do as teachers is try to get our individual instruments listen to one another, following each others lead, tuning along the way until all the sounds are harmonious.

Often, it sounds out of tune for awhile, and students through collaboration fine tune their instruments, then slowly the sounds become clear and concise and focused. This is when all the hoppers, skippers, and jumpers hear the same music. And together, conga-line is formed.At first, my students struggled with dichotomous keys, they helped each other see the the big picture, understand the purpose. By the end of class any hoppers along side the group were invested and as a unified group they created their dichotomous key using leaves they found themselves, relevance, and collaboration. Conga-line achieved.