Anchorage Daily News

Editor's note: This is the second of three looks inside Anchorage classrooms to see the different approaches some teachers are taking to engage students.

Central Middle School of Science teacher Michael Warren propels himself across the classroom, pantomiming a 13-year-old rushing to turn in an assignment at his desk.

He looks like Will Farrell on "Saturday Night Live" mimicking a teenager.

Warren, who was recognized as one of the country's best teachers last fall when he won the prestigious Milken Educator award, in many ways fits the traditional definition of any good teacher: He's dedicated, he puts in long hours and he knows his material.

But he is also a maverick who believes his first job is to entertain before teach and who pushes his colleagues to embrace the culture of students -- that means not just performing to keep their attention but integrating their technology into the classroom.

"Kids go home and have very, very busy lives," he says, pointing out that they text and instant-message on their phones and computers and spend hours on their MySpace pages.

If teachers don't tap into that dedication to technology, they aren't reaching their students, he says.

Warren has taught using Global Positioning System devices. He's helped his students write a guide to geocaching, an outdoor treasure-hunting game using GPS, for the Anchorage Convention & Visitors Bureau. And, next year, if all goes according to plan, his students will be reading a core curriculum book using their iPods.

He plans on giving iQuizzes.

"There's a digital gap between adults and kids these days," he says. "And if teachers don't stay at the front end of it, we're going to lose."

GETTING ATTENTION

Born and raised on Long Island, N.Y., Warren, 31, came to Alaska four years ago after teaching in suburban Philadelphia.

Central principal Lisa Prince says Warren is a natural-born teacher. "Some people can go to school to become a teacher," she said. "He couldn't help it if he tried. It's just in him."

On a recent day in his eighth-grade language arts class in downtown Anchorage, he transforms into a showman as soon as the bell rings.

"I'm excited and nervous today," he says. "You're getting a huge grade out of what you produce today."

Near the dry-erase board, he outlines what the kids will have to do in the next 45 minutes -- something he does every day for the kids as a guide for the day. He reminds his 25 students that if they haven't done their spelling packets they need to have them done by Friday. Then he then tells them to write a paragraph analyzing a movie they watched in class, the 2003 film "Radio," about a mentally disabled man and a high school football team. Warren speaks loudly and radiates enthusiasm in directing them what to do.

At one point, he realizes he doesn't have everyone's attention. "Somebody from table one: I just need some feedback to know you are, kind of, like, with me?" he says, goofily mimicking an eighth-grader's voice and mannerisms.

Warren often seemingly transforms into one of his students. He says "dang," references the band the Black Eyed Peas, and gives assignments like having his students write essays comparing pizza from big-box store Costco to that of the restaurant Moose's Tooth.

A SHOW WITH PURPOSE

Underneath the show, though, Warren is throwing out simple ideas that the kids catch. He tells them to read their paragraphs out loud before turning them in because they'll hear mistakes that they won't see. He tells them to make an outline to organize their thoughts.

"You want to add detail without faking it," he says. "You don't want to drive around your car just using up gas."

He tells them to explore different vocabulary.

"I used to think a thesaurus was a kind of dinosaur." Then he tells them to use one.

On another visit to his classroom, his students examine the novel "Fever 1793" by Laurie Halse Anderson, about an outbreak of yellow fever in 18th-century Philadelphia. He asks his students to pick out vernacular from the time. Then he asks them to come up with words they use today that likely won't be used 60 years from now.

The kids volunteer: Bro. Crank. What up. Gfunk. Whatchamacallit. Dude. Gnarly.

Talk to Warren about education when he's not in front of his students, and showmanship turns to serious pedagogy. He talks about research-based methods of learning, criticizes teachers who don't apply for grants to supplement what the Anchorage School District will pay for, and believes in each kid's trajectory of improvement, not test scores.

Teachers have to entertain, and they have to make students feel comfortable, he says.

"If you get a kid who's smart but bored, they will find other things to fill the hole. And in Anchorage, it's gangs, drugs or a boyfriend a little too early," he said.

Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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