Surprise! The Power of the Unexpected

Surprise! The power of the unexpected

27th April, 2016

Matt explores the potential for engagement and personal growth that lie in the unforeseen

During our university education, we pre-service teachers are often told about the importance of planning; planning units, planning lessons, planning the layout of our classrooms and so forth. Planning and preparation are the joint backbone of successful teaching, we are told, and I am not going to say that this is inaccurate. In fact, some of the best teachers I have seen at work are those whose planning is deep and whose preparation is complete. However, there is a foundation for successful teaching that is generally given lip-service but not explored; that of flexibility in the face of the unexpected.

Think back for a moment to times in your teaching experience where you have been honestly taken by surprise. How many of these are negative, and how many are positive? When I do so, it seems that there as many moments of positive surprise as negative. For every time I have realised that I’m missing important materials for my lesson, there has been a time where a student has stepped up to tackle content in way you wouldn’t have expected. Surprise can actually be a powerful font of personal growth and introspection, for you and your students. It is one of the more powerful emotions that we can feel in teaching, and it can be used to your advantage when applied to students.

Allow me to illustrate with two brief anecdotes:

The first concerns a student I had for a short placement who didn’t talk much. Let’s call her Sarah (not her real name of course). I spent a number of weeks in this Year 3/4 classroom, but beyond asking and answering occasional questions Sarah did not participate very much in class, at least vocally. At the time, Sarah and her classmates were studying poetry, which can be extremely dry for students. Although I was only there for a short time, I suggested to the teacher of that class that we could try to have a ‘Poetry Slam’, where each student memorises and performs a short piece of poetry as part of an in-class competition. In the days leading up to the end of my university-scheduled time there, we talked about how to read poetry; using expression, rhythm and projection and such. We provided a few set poems that they could choose from also, ranging from limericks about smelly flies to a passage from ‘The Man from Snowy River’. Although my placement ended, I promised to come back the following week to adjudicate the competition, and so I did. Imagine my surprise when Sarah, as shy as she normally was, busted out the passage from ‘The Man from Snowy River’, difficult enough for professionals, with just the right rhythm, lots of expression and in a loud voice. Not to mention that she was the only student in her class who even attempted that passage. It was a wonderful moment, and she was very deserving of her prize.

The second concerns a lesson exploring nets and faces, edges and vertices for 3-D objects. Instead of looking at pictures of the shapes or basic models and counting each, this lesson involved the students constructing their own 3-D objects from the nets and recording the faces, edges and vertices in their workbooks. This may not be an extremely innovative lesson, but the response to the somewhat unorthodox lesson was amazing. The children wanted to make one of every shape, and even requested to stay in at lunchtime to make more.

I bring attention to these anecdotes for what they taught me about the advantages of surprise. In the first situation, the surprise was mine, the teacher’s, and not only was it personally gratifying but it also showed me the potential performer that Sarah was, showing me strengths and motivation that I had not yet seen from her. If I were the full-time teacher of that class, it would show me a way to engage her in the future and promote her confidence. This was an unexpected moment rife with future potential.

The second was surprise for the students. Entering that maths lesson, none of those children expected to do something so hands-on, and the pleasant surprise was enough to engage them and likely promote their understanding of both nets and the properties of 3-D shapes.

I can’t provide a step-by-step guide to leaving room for surprise in your current or future classroom, but here are two things you can do.

1. Try not to just restrict yourself to the curriculum. Giving yourself a chance to teach something entirely different, even for just 30 minutes, can give you a chance for surprise on both sides of the teacher-student relationship.
2. Try teaching content in ways that are fresh to you and to the children. Sometimes this may not work well, but when it does both you and your students may find yourselves to be more engaged and motivated within the lesson.

I know this was a long post, but if you are still here I thank you for reading. Remember, surprise is not always a bad thing; in fact, it can be extremely interesting for you and your students.

- Matt