Student (as) Teachers

S1: "If I could teach SS it would be so much better. I can teach better than him."
Me: "Really? It's a little harder than it looks."
S1: "No, I can do it. I can make the class fun. He makes it boring. I can do so much better."

This conversation coupled with this post got the wheels turning on how we could make this work. Two weeks later we turned over our classrooms to the students. Each teacher chose from a number of applicants two students who were interested in teaching that class for the day. "The whole day? Like, every class? All four of them?" was a common string of questions when the idea was proposed. Yep. Every last one of them and all the work associated with it. There were some major positives to come out of it, and a couple of teachers had a big slice of humble pie served up over and over and over....and over. I think all the student teachers learned a little something about themselves ("Next time I have to be way nicer", "I was so exhausted I just went home and slept. That was hard." "I realized you have to give the students what they want. It's not just about MY plan."). And I learned that one of my activities makes me want to rip my eyeballs out, although the students in my group didn't seem nearly as bothered by it as I was.

However, my biggest concern is how students view our classes, and what the potential for those classes could be. I try hard to offer a variety of activities in class, yet only two of the submitted lessons were lab based. The others were book work, lecture, notes, and handouts. There is research that suggests that teachers teach the way they were taught. Through that lens, I can't blame them for the pretty generic lessons. 95% of their schooling has been exactly what they turned into me. But it's not what they want (or is it?) and certainly not what I want to see for an exemplary, once a year lesson.