I'm tired of fighting with the kids just to get through a lesson each day, so I'm gradually removing the lesson part from each class. I can't teach them. The most they'll abide is reading a text and answering questions about it, with perhaps a bit of prior knowledge or context instruction before we read to make sure they understand what's going on. I could teach them a lesson on how to eat candy and then ask them to practice and they still wouldn't follow directions at this point.
The kids call my classroom "dead" because it's not sufficiently off the chain. I hear them talking in the halls about how "dead" Mr. G's class is, and how they gonna take it "live." A "live" classroom is one where kids are out of their chairs and moving around at will, things are being thrown, and there are kids on the counter and on top of desks. Last period I experienced a bit of a "live" classroom near the end when I stepped into the hall to talk to a parent for 30 seconds and they went ballistic. I had to go in there with guns blazing and then an administrator joined in. "You got a parent up in here and you still don't know how to act. Mr. G hold them 30 minutes after school for me. I wish more of your parents would come in here and see how you act."
Detention music today? Chet Baker. The kids actually were grooving on it for a while, though Liberace told me it made his stomach feel sad.
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