What does learning look like?

When I started teaching, I thought that learning looked organized. Students were in rows. Quietly working showed how successful that I was at classroom management. Compliance was key.

I sure have learned a lot in the past 14 years.

Learning, true learning, is seldom quiet and organized.  Currently, in my on grade level 9th grade English class, students are participating in book clubs.  These clubs are a more relaxed form of the traditional literature circles.  Students rarely have roles.  They meet with one another, they read together, and they discuss what they've read.  It operates just like a real life book club.

It isn't organized.

There are no worksheets to be filled out.

It gets a little noisy.

But they are learning.  They are participating in conversations as adults would, as real life readers would.  Students are participating in genuine conversations about their books.  They are discussing and disagreeing about what they've read.  They are relying on each other for answers, instead of looking towards their teacher.  They are marking passages they like and discussing passages they don't like.  Laughter often fills the room.

It would have made the 23-year-old teacher I used to be cringe.  It gets loud.  But to hear a group of teenagers having genuine discussions about a book they are reading together, to get to see them interact with a text in a genuine, real-world manner...that's worth all the noise they make and the excedrin I have to take.