What happened in today's class bothers me more and more. I don't like to let things get to me, and this is certainly no different, but I think there are lessons to be learned from it.
Some people may find this post controversial, because I am using the classroom discrepancies from 649 and the Union Reform "discussion" as a learning tool for the future.
Here is exactly what I learned from it:
-When a group is presenting, I am not going to let another student interrupt their plans and drive the rest of the class away from the presentation. It is disrespectful and will not be tolerated in my classroom.
-I will instill a notion in my students that just because they have an opinion does not mean they have to voice it.
-I will push home to my students how to communicate so that they are not always on the defensive. Just because one person is voicing an opinion does NOT mean that he or she is attacking someone with a different opinion.
-LARA: Listen, Affirm, Respond, Add. This is a good method. The method of "Listen until you form your own opinion and get caught up in it and then REACT to someone else" will not be tolerated.
-When the class stops being respectful to each other, I will stop the class and give them a break and/or continue on without further discussion. Some topics do get pretty hot, and kids need time to cool off. Taking a break after a particularly heated debate to re-realize that the people around each of them are all humans too, with their own feelings and emotions, will give them a chance to gather their thoughts and regain composure.
-I will also push home the notion that the only time a real discussion can take place is when every single person lets go of their need to be right.
-When I begin to feel that a person is cutting others off, not out of excitement, but out of their complete disregard for others and their feeling that what they have to say is more important than everyone else, I will give that person a "respectful reminder card" (see below) and ask him or her to take a break in the hallway. (To clarify the excitement statement, I understand that people get really caught up in a thought and get really excited to share it. That's understandable. Most of the time we will say, "Oh, sorry for interrupting!" after the fact. But people who begin their statements with, "Sorry to interrupt," are usually not sorry at all. They really believe that their thoughts are more important to voice. Again, disrespectful.)
-Under no circumstances should a student target another person for their beliefs, opinions, lack of opinion, etc... Nor should a student target the rest of the class. It is unlikely that they will know enough about everyone else in there to make an assumption or generalization or launch an accusation at the whole class. It will not be tolerated for a kid to do that to one or all of his or her classmates. (I felt targeted today. It prompted this post.)
I obviously need to work on a lot of these things too. I often times tune out people who have bothered me with his or her attitudes and/or opinions in the past and do not show him or her the respect that he or she deserves. I promise I will work on this, but I would really appreciate if the rest of the class could work on that too. Honestly, this was the most ridiculously disrespectful class in which I have ever had to sit. If attendance hadn't been required and the group presenting hadn't been so awesome, I would have walked.
*Respectful Reminder Cards are going to be yellow cards I give to students during classroom discussion (or otherwise) when that student is treating others with disrespect. It will have some guidelines to cooling down and also for what respectful behavior should look like. After the student takes five minutes to read this and collect him or herself, he or she may return to class. If the student gets two cards in a day, it results in loss of participation points or an essay stating why his or her behavior was not acceptable and how he or she could adjust in the future. If a student receives three, it results in detention and he or she will be asked to sit in the office or disciplinary room until class is over. All of the rules of respect I have talked about in this post and the others are subject to RRCs if violated.
I'm not trying to target or offend anyone, although I am calling out the problems of the classroom today. I don't know if anyone will even read this, but at least it's off my chest now, and I've been able to document my goals as a result of these problems.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Respect
Hey, so yesterday I wrote a blog on teaching respect. Then today in class, everyone was completely disregarding what everyone else had to say. It was a very disrespectful environment, and I was kind of uncomfortable after a while.
I think my main "on the fence" opinion with unions is that people need to wait until they get into their school systems, then decide. Traverse City has a really weak union, so if I were to move there I would want to strengthen it to provide more protection for the teachers. I'm not familiar with other school systems, but the cases at many others are different. I'll just have to see when I get wherever I am going.
I think my main "on the fence" opinion with unions is that people need to wait until they get into their school systems, then decide. Traverse City has a really weak union, so if I were to move there I would want to strengthen it to provide more protection for the teachers. I'm not familiar with other school systems, but the cases at many others are different. I'll just have to see when I get wherever I am going.
Just to Clarify
I am not against tenure. I am for tenure, but not for every teacher that works in the system for a few years. This is something that needs to be earned, and the teachers should be required to keep up standards in order to keep their job protection. That is kind of contradictory, but I think it's fair to say, "We will protect your job as long as you're doing your job well." Perhaps they need to undergo reviews periodically--every five years or so.
Monday, July 13, 2009
School's Social Importance
As a substitute teacher in Traverse City, I came across a lot of issues where I thought that students were seriously lacking in their social education. I'm going to give an example and then explain its significance.
I had two students in an English class one afternoon--let's call them R and T. The directions were for pre-assigned pairs of students to work together to do a very simplistic assignment that would take no longer than one class period, if that. I was the regular substitute in this classroom, so I knew all of the students well, and I know that the teacher had paired R and T for a reason. Both of these students vehemently refused to work with each other. R claimed that he would rather jump out the window than work with T. T said that he would kill R if he had to work with them. Both students opted to face detention and possible suspension, rather than work together.
I think one of the social skills we have to teach is RESPECT.
"You don't have to like each other. You don't have to want to work together. You don't have to be friends. You DO have to learn to respect each other because you DO have to work together."
I didn't get this education until I reached college. Sometimes I struggle with my attitude toward people. I can get pretty haughty and believe that I am right, and if I don't particularly like someone, it is hard to open my ears and listen to them, regardless of what they are saying. But, it is really important to understanding each other and functioning in the real world, as well as our very small microcosm right now. So I do listen, and I do try to gain understanding of others. I think that if I don't like someone, instead of shutting them out, I do try to find something about them that I do like. But this is not something we can impress upon kids if they are so adamant about hating someone.
What we can do for our students is to constantly demand respectful relationships in our classrooms. We've probably all been in that classroom in which the teacher did not stand up for respect, and a student got carried away in a discussion or decides to start picking on another kid, and the teacher didn't want to go out of their own comfort level to stop the problem. Well, I never trusted those teachers. They were chumps. The teachers who demanded that every student be treated with respect by every other student during every second of the class were the ones who had productive, insightful, lasting discussions. They were the ones whom I trusted. And my behavior toward other students in these classes exemplified the respect being demanded of me, even if I didn't like a kid, even if I didn't agree with him or her.
And these are real-world skills that kids need. What job allows you to be crass and disrespectful to other employees? To be sure, the only examples I can think of involve being part of MTV 2 programming.
Another reason we need to be teaching this is because, to be honest, parents are teaching their kids garbage as far as social skills go. Here's another example. My mother is a librarian, and her library has computers that people can use for whatever. A girl came in and demanded to use the computer one day. She was about 14, and her parents were not there. Her mom had dropped her off and driven away. She was very disrespectful to my mother, although my mother was perfectly polite to her. After enduring rude comments from the girl (I can't remember what she said now.), my mom finally said, "This is my place of work, and you need to treat the librarians in here with respect." The girl replied, "Well, my mother taught me that respect is something to be earned."
So apparently this girl had been taught that respect level starts at 0. There is no reason to respect anyone who hasn't proven to you that they are respectable. Basically, this girl will not function in the world and is likely to be beaten up if she crosses the wrong person. Can you imagine her acting rudely and saying that to one of her volatile peers who is also going through hormonal changes and doesn't quite have control of their anger? Just sayin'.
We have to counteract these asinine lessons that they are learning at home.
OK. Enough for now.
I had two students in an English class one afternoon--let's call them R and T. The directions were for pre-assigned pairs of students to work together to do a very simplistic assignment that would take no longer than one class period, if that. I was the regular substitute in this classroom, so I knew all of the students well, and I know that the teacher had paired R and T for a reason. Both of these students vehemently refused to work with each other. R claimed that he would rather jump out the window than work with T. T said that he would kill R if he had to work with them. Both students opted to face detention and possible suspension, rather than work together.
I think one of the social skills we have to teach is RESPECT.
"You don't have to like each other. You don't have to want to work together. You don't have to be friends. You DO have to learn to respect each other because you DO have to work together."
I didn't get this education until I reached college. Sometimes I struggle with my attitude toward people. I can get pretty haughty and believe that I am right, and if I don't particularly like someone, it is hard to open my ears and listen to them, regardless of what they are saying. But, it is really important to understanding each other and functioning in the real world, as well as our very small microcosm right now. So I do listen, and I do try to gain understanding of others. I think that if I don't like someone, instead of shutting them out, I do try to find something about them that I do like. But this is not something we can impress upon kids if they are so adamant about hating someone.
What we can do for our students is to constantly demand respectful relationships in our classrooms. We've probably all been in that classroom in which the teacher did not stand up for respect, and a student got carried away in a discussion or decides to start picking on another kid, and the teacher didn't want to go out of their own comfort level to stop the problem. Well, I never trusted those teachers. They were chumps. The teachers who demanded that every student be treated with respect by every other student during every second of the class were the ones who had productive, insightful, lasting discussions. They were the ones whom I trusted. And my behavior toward other students in these classes exemplified the respect being demanded of me, even if I didn't like a kid, even if I didn't agree with him or her.
And these are real-world skills that kids need. What job allows you to be crass and disrespectful to other employees? To be sure, the only examples I can think of involve being part of MTV 2 programming.
Another reason we need to be teaching this is because, to be honest, parents are teaching their kids garbage as far as social skills go. Here's another example. My mother is a librarian, and her library has computers that people can use for whatever. A girl came in and demanded to use the computer one day. She was about 14, and her parents were not there. Her mom had dropped her off and driven away. She was very disrespectful to my mother, although my mother was perfectly polite to her. After enduring rude comments from the girl (I can't remember what she said now.), my mom finally said, "This is my place of work, and you need to treat the librarians in here with respect." The girl replied, "Well, my mother taught me that respect is something to be earned."
So apparently this girl had been taught that respect level starts at 0. There is no reason to respect anyone who hasn't proven to you that they are respectable. Basically, this girl will not function in the world and is likely to be beaten up if she crosses the wrong person. Can you imagine her acting rudely and saying that to one of her volatile peers who is also going through hormonal changes and doesn't quite have control of their anger? Just sayin'.
We have to counteract these asinine lessons that they are learning at home.
OK. Enough for now.
Friday, July 10, 2009
I'm kind of frustrated with Twitter, because it won't let me follow certain people, and it won't let me un-follow others. Grrr. So I'm blogging about it instead.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Nothing to do with teaching.
This is the best ad I've ever seen. It came from my SKI magazine, and it's from Vail, Colorado:
The rarest and most precious luxury in the world today is...
a blank canvas.
The pure, undiluted moment.
No LCDs, no FYIs, no PTAs.
No deadlines or treadmills
or laugh tracks.
One beating heart
and five hungry senses,
a child before the world.
Isn't that the feeling we long for?
Work so hard for?
Travel so far for?
To see,
to touch,
to taste,
to breathe,
to hear
yourself be.
A mountain wall 7 miles long
Behind it, 7 china white bowls, famous from here to Timbuktu.
More groomed snow than anywhere on this planet.
An average of 30 feet of virgin powder each year.
And 300 days of blue, blue sky.
VAIL. Like nthing on earth.
....
Ya, that was sweet. I freakin' love powder skiing.
The rarest and most precious luxury in the world today is...
a blank canvas.
The pure, undiluted moment.
No LCDs, no FYIs, no PTAs.
No deadlines or treadmills
or laugh tracks.
One beating heart
and five hungry senses,
a child before the world.
Isn't that the feeling we long for?
Work so hard for?
Travel so far for?
To see,
to touch,
to taste,
to breathe,
to hear
yourself be.
A mountain wall 7 miles long
Behind it, 7 china white bowls, famous from here to Timbuktu.
More groomed snow than anywhere on this planet.
An average of 30 feet of virgin powder each year.
And 300 days of blue, blue sky.
VAIL. Like nthing on earth.
....
Ya, that was sweet. I freakin' love powder skiing.
Homework: finished!
Mmmm, I finished the literacy journal about 30 hrs ahead of schedule. Usually I am a last-minute kind of girl, but working with my classmates on the assignment really helped me stay focused on the assignment. APA format is not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. I think it's much less involved than MLA, so that was cool. I'm just glad that it's done and turned in. :-D
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
