An Old Teacher with New Tricks

By: Sandra Burgess

I teach middle school. 

I love structure.  I expect calmness.  I require silence throughout much of the day.  I adore a perfectly written sentence in neat, well-formed cursive.  I get chill bumps when I see annotations done beautifully with colorful pens and highlighters.  

For years, I thought, “Yes! I have standards!”  

This summer I realized something about myself:  I am an amazing teacher…an amazing teacher of girls, that is.  

I have been teaching for 27 years, and I thought I had things pretty much figured out.  And then…I went to a conference.  Now, I’ve been to dozens of conferences in my years.  Some were useful.  Some gave me a new idea or two.  But there was something about one speaker at this conference that completely changed things for me.  

Dr. Leonard Sax spoke in a plenary session about his book, Boys Adrift.  Obviously, my first thought was that he was just trying to sell me a book.  But I listened.  I compared his words to my experiences.  And I decided that this man had figured something out that I had never quite put together.  

Please know I did not buy one of his books…I bought three of his books!

And then I went home and spent the entire summer looking for ways to make my classroom more boy-friendly. 

I have a completely different classroom this year.  Please do not think that a boy-friendly classroom has to be chaotic.  It can still be calm.  It just needs movement.  It needs a splash of fun!  It needs proper expectations:  For example, a 12-year old boy is not prone to take out his flair pens and annotate in rainbow order, but that does not make his work any less excellent.

One day this summer, my daughter and I were at a store and I saw a plush basketball.  I picked it up and my daughter asked what it was for.  I said, “It’s for my classroom.”  

She, who has actually been my student at the very small school where I work, said, “Who are you?” 

I am a changed teacher!  I call this “The Great Shift of 2025”!

That basketball is a perfect example of something so simple that makes a huge difference.  We always review things in my class.  In past years, I would just cold call people to get answers.  Now, I throw them the basketball.  And they love it!  It is plush, so no one gets hurt.  I set expectations so no one gets crazy.  But, four weeks into school, some boys walk in every day and ask, ‘Are we using the basketball today?” I see a light in their eyes that, if I’m being honest, I’ve rarely seen in a boy’s eyes in my room. 

I also have implemented “Game Day Wednesday”.  My students have a Vocabulary test every Thursday, so we play a little review game on Wednesdays to get ready for the test.  I found a treasure trove of games by simply searching through teacher blogs.  There are options at varying levels of chaos, so I chose the ones I am comfortable with.  

I also must begrudgingly admit:  My days are a lot more fun this year.  

I think my big takeaway from “The Great Shift of 2025” is to always react to things in humility.  I think it is easy to get stuck in our ways and to think that since we are so experienced, we know all the answers.  

Have an open mind.  Keep learning.  Go to that conference!  You never know…it may change your life!