What Teachers Can Learn from Caine’s Arcade

Leigh Pourciau is a middle school creative writing and English language arts teacher from Jackson, Mississippi and member of the 2013 LearnZillion Dream Team

 

I recently participated in a well-earned standing ovation given by 200 teachers. The recipient of this applause was not a CEO, a principal, or a six-figure-earning educational consultant, but a ten-year-old boy – the son of an auto mechanic from east LA. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Caine Monroy? If not, stop everything and watch Nirvan Mullick’s short film about his cardboard arcade before proceeding.

Back to that standing O. I was sitting among 200 other educators at LearnZillion's TeachFest. When the company’s co-founder Eric Westendorf opened the morning session by showing this film, laughter and sniffles spread throughout the room. We teachers were struck by the seemingly simple truths Caine’s story revealed about how we learn. We learn when we are self-motivated. We learn when we are doing something we love. In awe of Caine, we sat quietly as the lights in the hotel ballroom flickered back on.

 

Eric took the stage and announced that we had two guest speakers – Caine and Nirvan, in the flesh! Inspired by their shared creativity and what they had accomplished by pursuing their passions, all 200 of us rocketed out of our seats and began clapping. In that moment, I realized how strange it was that this was the first education conference I’d attended whose featured guest was a child, not an adult. Who better to teach teachers?

 

Educators cheer for Caine and Nirvan

 

In the following Q&A session, Caine answered our questions much like any other adolescent boy might.

 

“How have you changed since this experience?’

  - “I’m taller.”

“What’s next for you?”

  - “Sixth grade.”

“Will you hire me?”

  - “Yep.”

Until one teacher asked, “What is the best thing your father ever did for you to encourage your success?”

Caine paused, staring at the microphone and all four hundred eyes, and then simply said, “He gave me space.”

That’s it. He gave him space.

And that’s when I felt very conflicted. Am I consistently giving my students the space to explore their own interests? Am I engaging their natural ability to ask questions and seek answers? Am I making my job harder by giving them too much structure? Too many limits? What am I sacrificing by letting my learning style and interests take center stage in the classroom instead of theirs?

This was a very untimely epiphany as my plane back home landed right in time for standardized test prep. I had planned for students to do the same old prep packets – even though I’ve been long convinced that a demon gets its horns every time we bubble in a multiple-choice answer.

Instead, in a fog of jetlag, I dumped a bunch of supplies in the middle of the classroom and asked them two questions: “What type of question from the test scares you the most?” and “How can you create a board game that takes the sting out of that standard?”

Then I stepped back and gave them space. And they delivered. Homemade spinners were built, verbal Twister was born, and a satirical game of Life was hatched where bad grammar landed you in dead-end jobs. We laughed and sustained paper cuts and didn’t bubble in any little circles, but they still learned all there is to learn about tools of persuasion, complex sentences, and much more.

And I learned to listen to Caine and give them space.

The Importance of Collaboration

Jessica Pitts is a middle school English language arts teacher from Little Rock, AR and a member of the 2013 LearnZillion Dream Team.

I have recently had the opportunity to be in the presence of some really great educators working on amazing things. I was able to attend the LearnZillon TeachFest in San Francisco and an Achieving By Changing Curriculum Huddle with the APSRC (Arkansas Public School Resource Center) in my home state. Attending both of these conferences was so inspiring and motivating because it gave me the opportunity to be a part of a larger community of educators with the sole purpose of improving student learning.

 

It has been so great to meet people in my home state of Arkansas that had the same need and want for a community of passionate teachers that I found at TeachFest. All of the teachers that I met were excited to hear about my experience with LearnZillion. I found myself repeatedly saying, “It was one of the best weekends of my life.” I explained to everyone that the best part was meeting so many intelligent, creative, and most of all, passionate teachers! Before attending TeachFest, I was nervous that I would feel inferior because I am only a third year teacher, but everyone I met was so welcoming and willing to share their knowledge. Through hard work and collaboration, we all became a community by the Saturday night dance party. I will never forget dancing to “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Living on a Prayer” on a tiny dance floor with 200 other teachers. That moment was definitely a perfect moment for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about how we were all working towards the same goal, and as long as we helped each other and refused to give up, we would all succeed.

One comment from my time at the Achieving By Change Huddle that stood out to me was from a teacher who has been teaching for a while. She said, "I didn't know that teachers did this!" She was referring to working together to build the best units and lesson plans we can for our students. In that moment, I realized how fortunate I was to have attended these two conferences in the same week. Collaboration is what teachers need so desperately. We need to feel like we are a part of the solution. Just as we have found through research that our students need to be given the space to create, so do teachers, and we create better as a team.   

All of these experiences have helped me to realize that we are experiencing a really great shift in education. We are building a community of educators with the overall purpose of being the best we can for our students! I am so happy and grateful to be a part of education right now, and I can’t wait to see the results that we produce as a community of educators.