Teaching Technique-Puppets

 I am a former teacher in the Memphis City school system. I have an experience I would like
to share. You decide if you can use the concepts.

I had a second job at a neighborhood community center at night.
Color Video cameras had just come on the market. I bought one to use in my teaching effort. I found some unusually
cool hand puppets on sale and I bought them. I got this great Idea.

At my community center job I used an overturned table, a small 13 inch color TV, my color
camera, the hand puppets and 10 community center kids. I gave them written scripts. They put the hand puppets on,
hid behind the table, raise their hands just enough so that you see only the puppets. They read from the script, as I video taped the educational puppet show. The “puppets” talked about the planets and the solar system.

I was going to use the tape to show my students and get them to also make a tape. During the taping, I noticed that the community center kids were no longer reading from the script. THEY HAD LEARNED ALL INFORMATION.
After the taping I ask the community center kids questions about the solar system and the planets. They could not answer them. I then got a non-logical idea. With the camera off, I ask them to put the hand puppet back on, and I then asked THE PUPPET the same question. The student answered the question (as the puppet) correctly!

I am not sure why.

However as an action step I am asking teachers to use a puppet show format to teach concepts. Do not say anything about learning, just say we are having fun, putting on a puppet show. Tell them (your middle school students) that the resulting puppet show will be used to help elementary students. Tell them that maybe we will upload it to youtube.com to help students around the world. Make it important

This has worked for me. I called it “Trick them into learning”

I overheard a teacher once say “My students have been failing these vocabulary tests for 8 years”
Without thinking I asked her “Are you still teaching it the same way”
She was insulted
I apologized

My thought is if you are not getting the results you want…DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Remember the old saying if you keep doing the same thing but expecting different results…..You are not a good teacher