an experiment

Wednesday. 


I walked out of the full classroom and turned left, so the students wouldn't see me. The noise grew louder with each step I took away from the classroom. I ran away from the windows, laughing now, as I met my classroom teacher, and two supervisors on the stairs. I waited four minutes before I entered the classroom again, and I was greeted by chaos....


Before the class began, I put potato chips and skittles in bowls, and set these on the student's clusters of desks.


I turned my camera on, hid it in a desk, and put it into video recording mode. 


I wrote the "Do Now" on the board. #3 was to NOT TOUCH  THE FOOD.


I greeted the students at the door. After the students entered, most shouting about the food, I pressed the camera's record button, then announced I had to run to the copy room. "I'm sorry I put the food out" I said apologetically, "I shouldn't have done that in the beginning of the period, it is for you all at the end of class". 


While my feelings on teaching Bible remain mixed, I set up a memorable (at least for me) social experiment.


Before class, I found four of my students outside, and told them they could have a mission, if they accepted. Their mission was to: eat the food I put out on the table, no matter what I or others said. They could start to eat the food, and try to get the other students to do so once I left the room. Some of them were "good kids", so I thought it would be interesting. They weren't allowed to tell anyone else about their "mission". 


We had been learning about temptation, and to spice things up, the 6th grade teachers and I thought of this activity. 


...As I entered the room after the 4 minutes, I first expressed my shock at the situation, then admitted to setting them up, and recording the audio of the class. (I gave the rest of the students who had figured out it was a set up permission to eat the chips and skittles). The students were in an uproar for the next two days about the whole experiment; their reactions to it were only fed by being able to listen to themselves the next day. Despite the difficulty I had getting their attention for the rest of the week, I believe that they did indeed learn the objectives of the lesson-- strategies to deal with temptation, what it can look like, etc. 


I am so glad I was able to do this. One of the unique aspects of teaching at Dalat is that we can do things like this, and build on them. I actually did this during a formal lesson in which I was being formally observed, I am grateful that my supervisors were on board with the activity.  It made teaching Bible more fun for me, and hopefully more fun for the students to learn. It let the students see I love to laugh and have fun, and gave them an opportunity to laugh with me, something that I think doesn't happen often. While "having authority" in the classroom is important, I want them to see that the "authority" in the classroom is a human too.