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Talking about classroom experiences I can mostly refer to them from the point of view as a student during my school career. In that situation my main goal, as for many classmates, was to pass every given course. But I also have a lot of memories about what was an enjoyable and mostly productive class, and what was rather a waste of time and you were better off to just read the coursebook before the tests. Thinking back to that time, it's interesting to see that there was actually a strong link between the enjoyability of a course and what I learned from it. An enjoyable class back then wasn't just seen as a mandatory task to fulfill, but as an occasion to hear and see (and in some case even experience) new things, things you wondered about. Therefore the things I learned and remembered were a multitude compared to the ones of the less enjoyable classes. From a distant perspective, like the one I have now, I can assume with a relative certainty that the difference between all those classes was not the subject or topic of the lessons (which were more or less enjoyable), but rather the teacher. Coming to the the question “Should all activities be directed by the teacher?” The answer isn't probably as clear as someone would expect. Obviously the teacher should direct her/his class, but by doing so she/he probably shouldn't see the class as a completely controllable object. A sort of “own will” inside it will show if something works or rather doesn't. To see that, the teacher has to have a link to his students and should be at least trying to understand them. If he misses out this connection he will simply be pushing through something that makes no point in the eyes of the students, and chances are high that the interest in the lesson will fade quite quickly. Therefore the activities that happen (that have mostly to start from the teacher) will sometimes take their own way, and it lies upon the teacher to sense what can be done from the output of the students to adapt the strategy accordingly. For example, a harsh interruption of the activity would probably be the wrong way to cope with the situation. Especially thinking about a debate or an improvised play, the outcome of such activities are highly unpredictable (and that is not under control of the teacher), but also extremely interesting. In a mood of “let's see where that goes” those situations may reveal something we didn't think of. The positions, clues and ideas that the students can give in those occasions could help the teacher to create new lessons. By keeping this in mind and letting those ideas forge new material, it is then understandable that the teacher and the students are rather a combined identity than representing a simple “teacher+student” layout. This considered, I could imagine that lessons that are planned around the students (like in the example) should be more successful than lessons that have just the goal to deliver information and test what is acquired. As a personal goal for my future teaching career I hope to become a teacher that pays attention to my class and finds a way to let my students to enjoy their lessons while learning in a positive and developing environment.
