A Peek Inside a Real PAIR Partnership Classroom
Ever wondered what a PAIR partnership looks like in practice? Read on to find out how PAIR actually supports teachers and amplifies student success.
Ms. Thomas has a classroom like many others. It’s filled with cheerful, bustling energy from 15 little angels, busily working, learning, and tripping over untied shoelaces. They bring smiles and sighs in equal measure. Such is the life of a 1st-grade teacher- alternately encouraging their growing minds and requiring them to keep their feet off the desks and their hands off each other. Each one has a particular personhood, a uniqueness that makes them talkative, quiet, methodical, or assertive, but they are all here for the same reason — to be taught, to learn, to grow.
In Ms. Thomas’s classroom, the PAIR program reaches students of all skill levels and each personality alike. Have you ever looked out across a classroom and noticed those different minds? You may see a student:
Practically vibrating in their seat, hand waving, answer ready
Seated sedately, waiting to be called upon, answering thoughtfully
Talking to their neighbor, much more interested in connecting with friends than in this lesson
Flipping through their backpack, distracted by their pencil, fiddling with anything they can reach
Or, you may see a student you know would never volunteer an answer- they may not share a single word until they are volun-told.
When I first visited Ms. Thomas’s classroom, the students were eager and excited for a chance to review what they knew about an author’s purpose for writing a story. The students used a strategy called Three Picture Story to reinforce the three types of the author’s purpose:
to persuade
to inform
to entertain
After a lively class discussion, we asked a few students to use their bodies to create a scene from their most recent book that they believed showed the author’s purpose to be persuasive. We then gave a chance for a new group to show how they believed the author’s purpose was informative, and lastly, a third group showed us a scene they believed displayed the author’s purpose was to entertain.
As you may guess, our most enthusiastic participants were the students with ready answers and those unafraid of standing in front of the class. As the activity progressed, the encouragement from classmates and the excitement of the game motivated our more reserved friends. The beautiful thing about this strategy is that any choice you might make is right!
“Oh, you decided to pose your body with your hands over your head?”
“Great! Tell me more about that — you say your hands are showing how excited you are, and excitement means you’re entertained? That sounds like the third element of the author’s purpose to me.”
Even though we had a couple of students who were too shy to participate much or too distracted to fully engage, we had great results from our time together, and we had high hopes for our second visit.
Sure enough, on our second classroom visit, we were met with much enthusiasm. The students remembered the PAIR program and were excited for a repeat visitor. They were already prepared for a new theatre strategy, and Ms. Thomas encouraged all the students to jump right in.
This time, we chose the strategy Ensemble Squash, which is similar to Three Picture Story, but there is no need to make three frozen pictures in a row- you can make any number in any order. While warming up with a class review about the themes of kindness and selfishness found in their latest book, Ms. Thomas put different illustrations from the book on the smart board to encourage the students to remember the themes they read about. Of course, our outgoing friends were already primed and ready, but this time, even our quieter, reserved friends were excited to join.
One quieter student shared multiple times that he saw a carrot in the scene. There was a new variation each time:
“Oh! They’re eating a carrot together! That shows kindness. Look, that must be a carrot he’s NOT sharing, and that’s selfish. Maybe this scene shows them planting carrots?”
We laughed together and began to anticipate the carrot commentary and asked our quieter friend to tell us how the body language of our actors showed them sharing a carrot or how their facial expressions showed them being selfish.
Soon, we had other students joining in the hunt for the carrot, and the whole class — our diligent and distracted friends alike — worked together to observe these themes of kindness and selfishness within our actors’ scenes.
As we began to close, Ms. Thomas flipped to the last illustration on the smart board — a detailed view of every character in the book enjoying a feast together — a true representation of the theme of kindness instead of selfishness.
Which food do you think was front and center in the illustration? You guessed it! A giant carrot in the hands of the central character. Ah, it all comes together now — our quieter friend remembered what impacted him the most when he considered the book’s theme of kindness and selfishness — the sharing of a great feast, the enjoyment of a carrot.
The way the PAIR Program reaches every type of student is a thing of beauty, and Ms. Thomas’s class is no different. Our carrot-loving friend may not have been the boldest in the classroom, and he may not be the student always ready with an answer. He might need a different way to process what he has learned, and he may require more time to gather his responses. Through arts integration, he was confident to share what he remembered.
He made a sense memory about this particular book and the themes of kindness and selfishness, and this strategy gave him an opportunity to use his whole body to show it. Later, when he considers a new book’s theme, he’ll remember the book about kindness with the carrot, and he’ll ask himself, “What about this new book makes me feel the same way?” This moment of true connection, when all the pieces click together, is the PAIR Program’s greatest success. Call us today at 706-324-1100 to start your partnership!
