Warning: This post contains description of a violent scene.

Written by Andy Van Weele

According to Socrates, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” My hope is that every educator finds that fire within them—to find the passion to create powerful and memorable lessons that will, in turn, light the fire inside their students—engage them and inspire them to want more.

Before We Teach, We Must Hook
The entire room smelled of death. The plain white walls were now stained with a crimson mask of blood. This was my house. It was 2:00 am on a dark morning after another endless night preparing for school. The sights and the smells were real. The stains all over the walls were the blood from my two dogs of nearly six years, Buddy and Chewy. For reasons I don’t understand, these two friends engaged in a blood battle that Friday morning. In only a matter of hours, I buried Chewy, had Buddy put down at the vet, and taught a day of school in front of 20 students. There was not a moment to mourn. I felt utterly and devastatingly numb.

The feeling of numbness is where I want to bring you into this painful transition. While that numbness described my emotional state in that moment of trauma, numbness can also describe someone who has lost the passion and will to do more. Most of us, if not all of us, have been there. Too many emotionless, stale, going-through-the-script lessons. It describes a lifeless classroom. Dark, dreary, without a spark.

So, I have a question for you.

Do You Have a Lesson that You Can Sell a Ticket For?
Or perhaps I’d ask, just as further prodding: If your students didn’t have to be there, would you be teaching in an empty room (Burgess, 2015)?

These are meant to be jarring questions for us as Lutheran educators. How many times are you going to read through that Bible lesson script on a semi-annual basis? How often are you going to show that “super cool” PowerPoint you created when Brett Favre was still quarterback of the Packers? And how many times are you going to do a novel study without asking yourself, I wonder if any new books have been published in the past 23 years? We are all guilty of falling into what has worked in the past. The bigger question is, When do those things go from “This is good enough” to “I owe it to my students to do something more”?

Memorable Lessons Demand a Passionate Teacher
I once heard a professor snark at a Ron Clark presentation for not having enough substance. Substance is important. However, I can attest that my colleagues who attended that presentation were on fire for the improvements they were going to implement in their classrooms. They didn’t need substance. They needed fire.

Passion and energy go hand and hand. Clark (2015) wrote that he noticed that some teachers sit at their desks all day while they are teaching. He saw

how the life was sucked out of those classrooms, as the students responded to the lack of movement, energy, and passion. They were like little desk-bound lumps of clay, admonished not to leave their seats or fidget. Other teachers would move around the classroom, and put in a little bit more effort to make their lessons more dynamic. Then there was another category of teachers who never slowed down, who had a real pep to their steps. They would be on their feet all day. . . . I gradually came to recognize that the success of the students in each class had a direct correlation to the teacher that they were spending their time with. Energetic teachers were inspiring energetic learners. (p. 1)

Memorable Lessons Achieve a Purpose
How can we measure active engagement? This can often be seen in a student’s work. Allowing students to give a personal response within the framework of emotional and inflectional safety is just one of many ways to foster that engagement (Antonetti & Garver, 2015).

Memorable Lessons Tell a Story
In The Storyteller’s Secret, Gallo (2016) shared this maxim:

Most speakers who must educate their audience spend a majority of their presentations on what they think will win over their listeners: facts, figures, and data. They give very little thought to how stories move people. The world’s most inspiring educators do just the opposite, devoting 65% or more of their content to stories that establish trust and build relationship with their audience. Once they’ve connected, they can educate. (p. 86)

Every story needs a hero. Who could possibly be the hero of that dark, dreary evening of death from our opening hook? Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you there was a third dog to our little story. A mere month-old puppy was huddled in the corner of the couch, deathly afraid but untouched. That puppy is now my faithful black lab mix of nearly 15 years. In even the darkest of moments, God gives us hope. For me, my hope was seeing those little puppy dog eyes staring up at me in love amongst the terror. If you are the teacher, stuck in that numb rut, there is hope. By implementing and reflecting on the aspects of a memorable lesson, you can be that memorable teacher who gives a nugget of hope to just the right student at just the right time. May God use you as you create memories through your lessons.

Andy Van Weele has served as principal and educator at Life Lutheran School in Friendswood, Texas, since 2004. Andy is a two-time award winner of the My Favorite Teacher regional award by Barnes and Noble.

Mr. Van Weele will be presenting this topic at the WELS Education Conference in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, on June 21. REGISTER HERE to attend the conference and this sectional.

References
Antonetti, J., & Garver, J. (2015). 17,000 Classroom visits can’t be wrong: Strategies that engage students, promote active learning, and cost achievement, ASCD.

Burgess, D. (2012). Teach like a pirate: Increase student engagement, boost your creativity, and transform your life in education. Dave Burgess Consulting.

Gallo, C. (2016). The storyteller’s secret: From TED speakers to business leaders, why some ideas catch on and others don’t. St. Martin’s Griffin.

Clark, R. (2015). Move Your Bus. Simon & Schuster.