Making Gingerbread Houses

Wednesday, December 19th, 2012 - Today we worked with Mme Picard's Grade Two class to create gingerbread houses. I have to admit, when Mme Picard asked me if I wanted to help her with this I was a little uncomfortable. As a teacher, one of the things that I enjoy is the fact that no two days are the same and that every class presents a new set of challenges and experiences. That said, there are certain things that I just don't tend to do. This list includes, but is not limited to anything that is sticky, messy, slimy, stain-inducing, or anything with a high likeliness of making my students lose their minds. Making gingerbread houses, for those of you who are not well-versed in the art of holiday crafts, is all of the above.

We started by finding our buddies and distributing the various wall and roof pieces. So far so good. Unfortunately, the calm was short-lived as, before I knew it, it was time for the icing. The next 30 minutes were filled with whining. Yes, there was laughter peppered in as well, but it was mostly a chorus of "Mr. Howse, my icing is too runny", "Mr. Howse, we're out of icing", or my personal favorite, "Mr. Howse, our house won't stay up." I was quite certain that I was going to lose my mind in record time.

 

 

 

Here's the weirdest part, though - it was a TON of fun! Yes, it was completely sloppy and sticky and noisy. And, yes, the kids were noisy enough to give me an aneurysm, but it was a lot of fun.  In the end, not every student had built beautiful houses out of their pieces of gingerbread. As a matter of fact, the most common innovation was a tent-like structure built on a bed of broken gingerbread pieces and generously caked in jellybeans, Nerds, Skittles, and jujubes. Even though it was an utter failure of engineering, in the eyes of the students, it was a win.

This made me think about my own practice. Teachers like to brag about being flexible and open to change. I always tell my friends that the best part of teaching is the feeling of organized chaos. However, even though I change what I do every year and don't become stagnant in my instruction and evaluation, there are still things that I avoid because I don't like doing them. Making gingerbread houses was an eye opener in that it made me remember that this is not about me, and that we should never rob our students of an opportunity to get messy and sticky and loud just because of our own insecurities and biases. At the end of the day, I realized that Mme Picard, despite being a new teacher, was far more brave and confident today than I was. Who says that gingerbread houses can't be PD opportunities too?