Imagine cooking a big pot full of noodles. You boil the water, add the noodles, and wait until they're done. However, often times the pot boils over with all of the frothy bubbles. Thanks to Pinterest, I'm sure we all know that if you put a wooden spoon over the top of the pot, the bubbles will rise as high as they possibly can, on the brink of falling, but they won't actually spill.
That's how my class is. My teacher is the wooden spoon to their over-talkative, under-motivated, lack-of-respect boiling over. When my teacher is in the room, she can keep them contained. I'd hardly say they're well-behaved but rather she just keeps the chaos from erupting. Remove her from the room and that's when it all bubbles over.
Today, Friday, my teacher had an IEP meeting during our first block. The IEP meeting included the parents, the student, people from downtow, and they wanted a teacher of record. Because all 4 of this student's teachers had a first block, the teacher with an intern was the one summoned for the meeting. This means that for the last hour of class I was left to handle the students. We decided that it would be best to give them a quiz because 1) they needed it 2) I wouldn't be left to teach the students without the guidance of my teacher and 3) less time that I would have to try and control the class and have them focus their attention on math. When my teacher left, we decided to do quiz review and then I'd give them the quiz and anyone who finished early would be able to work on their homework.
As soon as my teacher left, all Hades broke loose. The kids started badgering me as to where the teacher went, they started freaking out that she was reporting their bad behaviors to the principals, and decided that sitting in class was no longer necessary. I gave them problems to do and about a third of the class actually tried. The other two-thirds decided that conversing about last night's tweets and the most recent drama was of greater importance. I tried my best to maintain order, but to no avail.
The students paying attention made comments such as "I've seen this problem about 20 times already. I know how to do it" and "I already know how to do this. That's why I don't do my homework, because I feel like I don't need to practice what I know how to do" and, my favorite, "Can we just take the quiz now? No one cares." The first comment was from a student who truly does know how to do all of the work and is one of the only few who has a shot at passing this quiz. I appreciate his hard work but he usually aids in others being off tasks when HE is done with the work, regardless of the others being done or not. After the second comment, I made the kid work the problem on the board for me and he found that he didn't quite know these as well as he thought he did. The thrid was from another student who also tries really hard and understands most of the material.
I told the class I wasn't going to talk over them and if they didn't listen then we would start the quiz. They talked so we started the quiz. Somehow, the students thought that, even after all of that, since the "real" teacher wasn't in the room they wouldn't have a quiz. Wrong.
Just looking through the quizzes is sickening in and of itself. Questions we attempted to go over were consistently missed. Problems we didn't go over because they wouldn't listen, there was no hope for them. I really care about these kids but all of our classes have told us we need to hold true to our word. My teacher has always said if they don't listen up we'll start the quiz and usually they listen. Since they didn't today, I didn't see any other option.
I told my teacher what happened and she's beginning to think that partial credit may not be a graciously given on this quiz as usual. She even made the comment that it may be an "all or nothing" type deal. Honestly, most will probably fail.
I know as interns we are constantly facing the battle of being seen as a "real" teacher (or maybe that's just me). It doesn't help that I look like one of the students nor that my teacher wasn't there to oversee everything. What I'm most upset about is how disrespectful the students were to me. I know respect takes time to earn but I would have thought that after a month of being in the room, doing mini lessons, and various other things that the students would have at least attempted to be polite. I didn't expect them to be angels but it's unexcusable for me to receive eye rolls after I tell them to be quiet because quizzes are still out.
And that's my classroom. They're constantly on the brink of exploding and we have to devote as much time to classroom management as we do math. It's wild and crazy and sometimes I think we've got a class full of monkies.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Motivation
The age old question for many teachers is "what motivates our students?"
Sometimes kids are motivated by food, bonus points, or other incentives. Sometimes students are motivated by their parents or standards that they have set for themselves. And sometimes kids just simply aren't really motivated.
Such is the case in my Advanced Algebra/Trig class. The class is comprised of only seniors, and seniors who aren't very good at math. However, they do need this class to graduate.
One would think this would be motivation enough, alas it doesn't seem to be so. I believe that we're still early enough in the semester that the kids are looking for short-term satisfaction (with not studying, not doing their homework, etc.) instead of using their foresight to see that they need to build a solid grade in order to pass this class.
Today we realized that many of the seniors thought they wouldn't have to take the EOC for this exam as long as they missed less than 2 of these classes. However, I believe this only applies for the spring semester. Because of this confusion, I think many of the seniors had been banking on not having to take the final. I also think that, subconsciously, a lot of the kids feel that since this is only the fall semester they have the cushion of the spring, if they so need it.
I've also talked to a few of the kids and they have all claimed that they are really good at "pulling their grade up right at the end of the semester." Being a student myself I know that that should only be used as a last-resort strategy, not a first-string plan of attack.
So how do we motivate these students NOW?
The first exam seemed to be a wake-up call for some of these students. Many realized that what they were doing wasn't quite cutting it. They made comments in class about being upset with how they scored and yet it seems as if very few have come in for test corrections. We are at the end of the first interim period and most teachers have started calling home. I think once my teacher starts contacting the parent we should see a turn around in a few of the students' behaviors.
Even still, because of the compositon of the class, the class is merely only striving to pass the class as opposed to getting an A.
I believe that next semester will have a bit of a different feel given that it'll be the spring. Most seniors will already be burnt out and only dream of what's to come in a few short months. However, I think that graduation will seem like much more of a tangible thing and that will motivate them to try a bit harder from the get-go.
I guess I'm not really sure what I can do personally in order to motivate the kids. I try and be as encouraging as possible to students so that they don't get frustrated and beat down. I'm not sure if that's motivating or rather just keeping them from being unmotivated.
Any thoughts, insights, suggestions, etc. would be much appreciated!
Sometimes kids are motivated by food, bonus points, or other incentives. Sometimes students are motivated by their parents or standards that they have set for themselves. And sometimes kids just simply aren't really motivated.
Such is the case in my Advanced Algebra/Trig class. The class is comprised of only seniors, and seniors who aren't very good at math. However, they do need this class to graduate.
One would think this would be motivation enough, alas it doesn't seem to be so. I believe that we're still early enough in the semester that the kids are looking for short-term satisfaction (with not studying, not doing their homework, etc.) instead of using their foresight to see that they need to build a solid grade in order to pass this class.
Today we realized that many of the seniors thought they wouldn't have to take the EOC for this exam as long as they missed less than 2 of these classes. However, I believe this only applies for the spring semester. Because of this confusion, I think many of the seniors had been banking on not having to take the final. I also think that, subconsciously, a lot of the kids feel that since this is only the fall semester they have the cushion of the spring, if they so need it.
I've also talked to a few of the kids and they have all claimed that they are really good at "pulling their grade up right at the end of the semester." Being a student myself I know that that should only be used as a last-resort strategy, not a first-string plan of attack.
So how do we motivate these students NOW?
The first exam seemed to be a wake-up call for some of these students. Many realized that what they were doing wasn't quite cutting it. They made comments in class about being upset with how they scored and yet it seems as if very few have come in for test corrections. We are at the end of the first interim period and most teachers have started calling home. I think once my teacher starts contacting the parent we should see a turn around in a few of the students' behaviors.
Even still, because of the compositon of the class, the class is merely only striving to pass the class as opposed to getting an A.
I believe that next semester will have a bit of a different feel given that it'll be the spring. Most seniors will already be burnt out and only dream of what's to come in a few short months. However, I think that graduation will seem like much more of a tangible thing and that will motivate them to try a bit harder from the get-go.
I guess I'm not really sure what I can do personally in order to motivate the kids. I try and be as encouraging as possible to students so that they don't get frustrated and beat down. I'm not sure if that's motivating or rather just keeping them from being unmotivated.
Any thoughts, insights, suggestions, etc. would be much appreciated!
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
The Sleeping Student
On Fridays, I get to stay at Farragut all day long. Since I only observe 4th block twice a week, the class isn't really my own. This past Friday, there was a student sleeping in class. My teacher asked me if I would review a single homework problem while she pulled her in the hallway to talk. Not knowing the entire situation, I felt that it was odd to do something so drastic just because a student was sleeping in class when usually she merely asks them to wake up. Nonetheless, I got up and reviewed the problem with them.
I asked the class if they had any other questions. At first they said no but after prompting them they finally asked if we could do another problem. When that was done, I told the class to sit patiently while I looked for my teacher in the hallway. I wanted to make sure everything was okay since my teacher had only asked me to do one problem. When I peeked into the hallway, both my teacher and the student were gone. I didn't enter panic mode, but I was concerned.
I walked back into the classroom and told the class to please keep the noise down as I went to ask another teacher if they knew where Mrs. Wolfe had gone. Turns out, no one knew.
So I grabbed the packets that we had planned to do and asked the students to work on the warm-up. Since this class was ahead of schedule, I didn't know how my teacher wanted to introduce the section. If it had been anything BUT word problems, I would have felt comfortable moving ahead. However, since word problems are the nemesis of the students, I knew that having me try to teach them on a Friday would surely lead to bad news. I also felt uncomfortable since I was not used to the students and vice versa. Just going over the few homework problems had raised issues with trying to get them to listen to me and I knew the last thing that they wanted to do was learn more.
So we waited.
I know this might not have been the most professional thing but it was the solution that worked best. After a total of 20 minutes or so, Mrs. Wolfe returned. She was surprised that I had given them the packets and had them do the warm-up but was happy. We picked up the lesson for the last 15 minutes of class and chalked it up to an interesting period.
What had happened is the student who was sleeping had a rather interesting past. Turns out her biological parents had some issues (her dad was shot in front of her when she was 5 and her mom was addicted to drugs). After being tossed around various foster families, doing drugs herself in middle school, and being taken to countless psychologists who had less-than-clean reputations, her life was a little chaotic. My teacher had decided to take her to the guidance counselor to discuss things however she had left for the day and thus they were left to talk to the school psychologist. My teacher felt it was necessary to be in the room with the student given her past, however she did confess that the whole time she was concerned I thought she had abandoned me (which I didn't).
At the end of the day, we talked about how the math might not stick with the students but at least we can be there for them in other ways. Since this block had been ahead, it was okay that we had a bit of a slow day.
The situation was a good reminder that we don't always know what's going on with the kids. Just because someone is sleeping in class doesn't mean we should get angry with them and penalize them for having a difficult home life. This doesn't mean that we need to give students a free pass all the time because they still need to be accountable for their academic work but we always need to be compassionate to the needs of our students.
We ended the week with my teacher telling me a story from when she taught at South Doyle. There was another cronic sleeper in her class and one day she finally decided to try and wake him up. As she walked over to him, all the students told her not to do it. Turns out the kid had to sleep on the front porch every night and often times people would beat him up in the middle of the night. Because of this, if anyone ever woke the kid up, the would wake up throwing punches.
It's a tragic situation that no student should ever have to be in and yet that's what some of our kids are dealing with. I've learned that we need to invest in our students and really get to know them so that we best know how to teach them. Maybe sometimes this means letting them turn in their homework a day late with no penalties (if maybe they had to take their kid to the ER last night) or sleeping a little bit (since they had been up all night dealing with some family issue). Whatever the matter, we need to be compassionate and loving to all of our students because they might not be getting it at home.
I asked the class if they had any other questions. At first they said no but after prompting them they finally asked if we could do another problem. When that was done, I told the class to sit patiently while I looked for my teacher in the hallway. I wanted to make sure everything was okay since my teacher had only asked me to do one problem. When I peeked into the hallway, both my teacher and the student were gone. I didn't enter panic mode, but I was concerned.
I walked back into the classroom and told the class to please keep the noise down as I went to ask another teacher if they knew where Mrs. Wolfe had gone. Turns out, no one knew.
So I grabbed the packets that we had planned to do and asked the students to work on the warm-up. Since this class was ahead of schedule, I didn't know how my teacher wanted to introduce the section. If it had been anything BUT word problems, I would have felt comfortable moving ahead. However, since word problems are the nemesis of the students, I knew that having me try to teach them on a Friday would surely lead to bad news. I also felt uncomfortable since I was not used to the students and vice versa. Just going over the few homework problems had raised issues with trying to get them to listen to me and I knew the last thing that they wanted to do was learn more.
So we waited.
I know this might not have been the most professional thing but it was the solution that worked best. After a total of 20 minutes or so, Mrs. Wolfe returned. She was surprised that I had given them the packets and had them do the warm-up but was happy. We picked up the lesson for the last 15 minutes of class and chalked it up to an interesting period.
What had happened is the student who was sleeping had a rather interesting past. Turns out her biological parents had some issues (her dad was shot in front of her when she was 5 and her mom was addicted to drugs). After being tossed around various foster families, doing drugs herself in middle school, and being taken to countless psychologists who had less-than-clean reputations, her life was a little chaotic. My teacher had decided to take her to the guidance counselor to discuss things however she had left for the day and thus they were left to talk to the school psychologist. My teacher felt it was necessary to be in the room with the student given her past, however she did confess that the whole time she was concerned I thought she had abandoned me (which I didn't).
At the end of the day, we talked about how the math might not stick with the students but at least we can be there for them in other ways. Since this block had been ahead, it was okay that we had a bit of a slow day.
The situation was a good reminder that we don't always know what's going on with the kids. Just because someone is sleeping in class doesn't mean we should get angry with them and penalize them for having a difficult home life. This doesn't mean that we need to give students a free pass all the time because they still need to be accountable for their academic work but we always need to be compassionate to the needs of our students.
We ended the week with my teacher telling me a story from when she taught at South Doyle. There was another cronic sleeper in her class and one day she finally decided to try and wake him up. As she walked over to him, all the students told her not to do it. Turns out the kid had to sleep on the front porch every night and often times people would beat him up in the middle of the night. Because of this, if anyone ever woke the kid up, the would wake up throwing punches.
It's a tragic situation that no student should ever have to be in and yet that's what some of our kids are dealing with. I've learned that we need to invest in our students and really get to know them so that we best know how to teach them. Maybe sometimes this means letting them turn in their homework a day late with no penalties (if maybe they had to take their kid to the ER last night) or sleeping a little bit (since they had been up all night dealing with some family issue). Whatever the matter, we need to be compassionate and loving to all of our students because they might not be getting it at home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)