TGIF
After this week I'm pretty sure a teacher coined the phrase TGIF. Unlike most Fridays though, today I wasn't looking forward to a a wild night at a bar or a party, I was just fantasizing about passing out. Since I don't have much energy and my last few posts have been a bit lengthy I'll just keep this to a few short observations, reflections and predictions.
- The quietest kids suffer most, because while I'm constantly riding the kids who are misbehaving, they're just there waiting for instruction. And when given an independent task, they're usually the first to finish while all the students not on task need extra time. So when I let the whole class finish, they're usually left waiting. Something I definitely need to work on by coming up with extra work for the good workers.
- Every student wants to learn. Regardless of what we might think, every student is excited for the chance to learn. It's just a matter of finding a way of reaching them.
- Today my problem child continued with his noise-making and distracting. But for maybe 5 minutes or so he read a book, and wrote a short response. It's a small step, but one in the right direction.
- Students are a lot more self-aware than we give them credit for. During a class meeting I held today to mark the end of the week I asked the students to finish the statement "We can do better...". The responses I got covered every area of misbehavior - walking to and from class, talking, not paying attention, not doing their work... They know what they need to do, I just need to give them a reason.
- If someone asked me to do 7 hours of reading, writing and math in a room of 20 other people with no air conditioning when its 85 degrees out with 66% humidity, I probably wouldn't want to do much work either.
- The quietest kids suffer most, because while I'm constantly riding the kids who are misbehaving, they're just there waiting for instruction. And when given an independent task, they're usually the first to finish while all the students not on task need extra time. So when I let the whole class finish, they're usually left waiting. Something I definitely need to work on by coming up with extra work for the good workers.
- Every student wants to learn. Regardless of what we might think, every student is excited for the chance to learn. It's just a matter of finding a way of reaching them.
- Today my problem child continued with his noise-making and distracting. But for maybe 5 minutes or so he read a book, and wrote a short response. It's a small step, but one in the right direction.
- Students are a lot more self-aware than we give them credit for. During a class meeting I held today to mark the end of the week I asked the students to finish the statement "We can do better...". The responses I got covered every area of misbehavior - walking to and from class, talking, not paying attention, not doing their work... They know what they need to do, I just need to give them a reason.
- If someone asked me to do 7 hours of reading, writing and math in a room of 20 other people with no air conditioning when its 85 degrees out with 66% humidity, I probably wouldn't want to do much work either.
Comments
im so glad someone else feels the way i do.
p.s. its BALLS hot in my room too.