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Published: October 25th 2006
… said by one of my students in a paper I had all the students write. They were being really bad today. They wouldn’t stop talking and fooling around. They were constantly out of their seats and weren’t responding to any of the classroom management strategies that were in place. I decided to just stop teaching (mid-science lesson) and sit at my desk. They eventually got the idea that I was upset with them. Jose asked me if I was mad. I said yes and just sat there hole-punching a bunch of sheets for the next week. I then got up and went to the bathroom.
While I was gone, I think one of my students said something to the rest of them because when I got back 2 minutes later, they were all quietly sitting in their desks looking up at me. I said “Oh we’re ready to learn now are we?” They all said yes so I continued the lesson. The period that followed Science was meant to be Language, where we were going to make coke floats and then do procedural writing about “how to” make a float. I decided they didn’t deserve this at the time so I had them write one page about why it’s important not to talk in class, respect your teacher, and respect your classmates. These are a few snip-its of what I received:
“We don’t want that said that this class is bad because will be worry to Miss Sarah and the class.”
“I promess that I will be the best boy in the classes. I promesst.”
“Because if we talk in class the teachers will be sad and mad because some of them are from other place and they come from to far only for teach students like us terribles.”
“We need to respect our teacher because she or he are taller than us.”
“I some days I talk. I am sorry! I love you Miss Sarah!”
“The teacher for Studios S. said that if we want respect we need to give respect too.”
“Now we are happy with the Miss because is fair to the Miss to do this... We love you Miss Sarah Willet.”
“We have to love one to others to have a beter class.”
“You need to respect the teacher becuese she is more big that you and is your teacher. She is the best person of the word.”
“We need to be respetful with the teacher because she is hear sorporting us.”
And here is a third grader’s opinion of what a teacher is:
“You need to be respectful to your teacher. She is the best person in the world. She can help you when you don’t understand. She can explain you about the chapter or story. She is the best person in the world that she study only for teach other people or to help other people to learn. And that is what I said a teacher is the best person God do!”
So cute. At lunch, they told Mr. Chris to distract me so they could do something. They then made me close my eyes and go to his room so they could do something… so not subtle. When I came back, there was a giant sign made with markers and construction paper that was taped to the board. It said “We are sorry Miss Sarah. We love you!” I do have great students and they are SO smart. They just need to learn to control the noise. I blame the fact that they’ve only ever done work where they sit in their desks reading a textbook and filling out a worksheet in their workbooks. I’d be antsy too if that were me. Yet when you try something out of the ordinary, they don’t know how to handle it and are also crazy. You can’t win really.
I am SOOO excited lately though about what I’ve been doing. After my last entry about school, I was motivated to do more with my students. In planning my language class, I was getting angry looking through the book. It doesn’t cover any specific topic well enough and tries to combine styles of writing that should not be combined. I decided I was going to scrap the textbook and do my own thing. I came up with some awesome ideas after MANY hours of looking through forums from teacher’s college and other websites.
Yesterday we started procedural writing. I had them all write instructions for me to “sharpen a pencil.” I then had the students read the instructions while I tried to follow them. It was so funny because a lot of students left out important details and laughed at how I pretended not to know how to sharpen the pencil. Today we took this lesson further and made coke floats. We read a story in reading class about root beer floats and they didn’t know what floats were so I bought ice cream and coke (they don’t have root beer here) and we made them. They then had to do procedural writing on “How to Make a Coke Float.”
Tomorrow we’re starting an awesome project that I am SOOOO excited about. We’re going to make a class newspaper. It’s a great way to look at writing structures like main idea (headlines), paragraphs (in articles), as well as writing styles. I’m going to have them look at a funny picture I give them (one of me acting crazy) and have them write a news story about what it happening. I’m going to have them write a question asking for advice and then have a friend give advice back. We’ll have movie reviews, letters to the editor, comics, crosswords, and all kinds of different types of writing. They won’t even realise how much practice they’ll be getting in writing until it’s all over and they have a finished product. OH MAN! I am so pumped.
I finally feel like I’m applying myself to something. It’s only one out of eight classes that I teach but it’s a start.
If anyone has ideas to make phonics class fun, that’d be greatly appreciated!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Wow. I've made the executive decision that you're prety much a super hero. And I love you. And miss you. And I have a visitor coming the second weekend of November. Hoorah!