Alien teacher from another planet

I am gradually developing/discovering my own bag of teacher tricks. One already described on this blog is the "snake" class discussion (in which the students call on each other, rather than me calling on them). I am now thinking of this as the "yarn" method, partly because we've recently been using a skein of blue yarn as the talking stick. I like this description because yarn also means to tell stories. And because I like to imagine the web that forms between the kids as they talk to each other and toss the skein.

Today in class I finally owned/acknowledged another tool that I regularly employ: the resident alien. I first discovered the resident alien in my 12th grade (that is, when I was in 12th grade) Dreams in Literature* class. It's a method used is pseudo-Jungian contemporary dream interpretation: describe an object, symbol, thing, etc. in your dream as if to an alien from another planet who has no concept of it.

We first tried it with gender a few weeks ago, but today in class it was Describe race as if to an alien from another planet that has no concept of it.

At first the kids wanted to know if the alien had a skin color (yes: they're all green). Then they asked if the alien could see color (um, yes: same color perception as people.)

They hemmed and hawed, then dove into genetic variation, arbitrary interpretation of genetic variation, and divisions and hierarchies among people. We talked about the idea of social constructs and chewed on ideas of ethnicity, labeling and code-switching the labels we use for people or ourselves.

It was a good class. I was struck at one point with a geeky-teacher desire to wear costume alien antennas (in my family we called them "deely-boppers") and get in character. Props! Props are fun.

So is discovering your methods, and growing into them, as you go.


*You'd think from the name of this class that I went to a super alternative woo-woo high school. I did not. I think this class was a little bit of a fluke.