best not forget

September 27, 2011

It has been no secret that I’ve struggled with my grade 6 pupils, to the point I was almost dreading that time of the day. Friday was crazy, Ma’am was gone working on some professional development and the student teacher was a no show.

At the end of class I sat them all down and had them write down on pieces of paper what their expectations were of me as their teacher. After they all turned them in I asked the class if they enjoyed having me as their teacher. They all said yes and we talked about why for a while. Then I told them that they made it really hard for me to enjoy being their teacher. We discussed what we all could do to make the experience optimum for everyone involved. When I read their expectations later it made me happy, other than playing games and giving good grades they would like me to buy snacks, cancel class, be funny (tell at least one joke per lesson), be beautiful, be tall, be kind, and one kid said he/she had no expectations because I was a good teacher.

They are good kids, but I for sure think they forget. The only problem is, I’m not going to really be teaching them much these next few weeks to practice what we discussed. Lets hope they are not too forgetful.

September 28, 2011

I’m not really sure what the deal was yesterday but when I showed up yesterday after lunch there were no teachers about. So naturally the Grade 6 pupils were all over the place. I asked where the teachers were and they said at a meeting in the conference hall (I knew of this meeting, I even signed off on being told, but the paper said 4:00). The other classes had student teachers teaching but the teacher how teaches before we teach English does not have one. Hence the reason they were all over the place.

I pulled them into class and came up with an activity (not on the spot, I already had it planned). I’m having them do a pen pal program with one of my best friend’s in Albuquerque. I explained that they would be writing with grade 6 pupils and that they would just introduce themselves in the first letter. I also explained that they might not be writing with the gender of their choice because my class is mostly girls. One of my students said he wanted a girl and I said he wanted to write to his future wife. (That met my expectation for one joke per lesson.)

The kids were eating this up and were quietly writing their life stories so I went up to the conference hall. We were planning what to do on Friday for the competition and what to do next Wednesday for World Teacher Day. When it came time for English class I went back to the room to watch the students teacher. We got a new one Friday and she was not ready to teach at all. So, instead of assigning the letters for homework I had them finish them. They asked that I not read them. It was funny, and I hope this turns out to be a positive project for all involved. It seemed to work for Charlie Brown.