Buzz

This week I enjoyed watching my new group of students have a breakthrough in their capacity to engage with a text.  These are my summer session students, who have a mere six weeks to develop their ability to analyze and write about literature, and they have even less time to get comfortable opening up and working together to achieve this, but they're doing a fine job.  The other day in class I set them up in pairs to analyze a play, and each set of students had a different question to consider and element of the play to explore.  The buzz in the room was beautiful.  They actively worked together and never stopped working, readying themselves to lead the discussion that would follow. They really discussed the text, helping each other find a deeper meaning in it, and they pulled their information together effectively in order to enlighten the class. It was inspiring and they didn't even know it.

This reminded me of a moment I had years ago when I was teaching 7th graders who were hard at work in small groups, collaborating on whatever task was at hand.  I remember stepping back, looking around, and enjoying the buzz in the room of all the little voices blending together like a hive of worker bees. They, too, were on task and working together to achieve the goal. One of my students looked up at me asked why I was smiling, and I said, "This is what learning sounds like." She looked around, smiled, and then turned back to her group, refocusing on the task and rejoining the buzz.