turbulance

Last week was filled with the same kind of ups and downs as I have been accustomed to. Although tensions have been a little high for the students as the grade period ends this week and many students are acting out as a result of the anxiety about their poor grades. I have been struggling to help those students who are way behind to catch up. I have noticed that if I give them all the activities and homeworks that they can make up, then many times they become so overwhelmed that they do none of it. However, they get upset at me if I do not give them all their work. I was hoping for some advice about this issue.

Some variables have been added in the last couple of weeks that have led to an improvement in classroom culture. A couple of very bright new students have been at worse improving my days by having some students who are really engaged in learning and at best, at times are inspiring their classmates to succeed. Today, however has been tough as one friend of some of my classmates was shot and killed during the weekend and the students were very upset at even the idea of doing anything but grieving (which seems reasonable although I am not entirely sure how to handle the situation). I had them respond to a journal question for a while and then asked them to share it with someone although they ended up just chatting.

Reflecting...

No big changes last week as I continued to adapt my teaching to a less formal style in order to accommodate the small class size. I think that the Unit I am teaching right now has been about as successful as any have been. This success probably stems from how clear cut the unit is. The students see that there is a solid and meaningful goal and they understand that there is a process that we must go through to meet that goal. I suppose that, as I think of it now, perhaps education is as much a process as a science experiment--purely experimental. The difficulty with this, of course, is that to some extent a science experiment requires a certain degree of faith and trust as there is no guarantee of any meaningful results. I am coming to think about the education of English in this way (I suppose I am coming to see life in this way as well). Students need to trust in the beginning (that's the hard part) and then carry out a process that will yield certain results.

Well, I suppose I am being a bit abstract but last week I was thinking a bit about this as I noticed that although many of my students choose not to participate occasionally, few students who participate fully for the first ten minutes of class decide later not to participate. Those students who do not participate tend to give up immediately or barely try and then quit. I suppose that a good test for the success of a lesson is whether or not, upon attempting a lesson, students becomes interested. If the students participate in the beginning and begin to see meaning in it than they will continue to carry out the activity. Conversly, if the students participate and then quit then perhaps that means that the lesson was not meaningful to the students' lives.

Just some thoughts and reflections.

Perhaps a success

I have been hesitant to post. Perhaps because of the degree to which my school is unique, I have been unsure of posting for fear of exposing too much. But today I am somewhat pleased to report that I have had some limited successes lately. First, in order to accomodate the lack of attendance that persists, I have tried sitting with my class instead of pacing around as in a traditional school. Because of the limited number of students this has not kept me from often assessing my students understanding and ability and yet it accomodates those students who, I think, feel frustrated with the low number of peers and feel some anger at me when I pretend that I am teaching in a classroom of 25.

A second success has been closer to content. I have been teaching poetry writing in order for my students to apply to a poetry contest and i have had some success (more than before) in teaching students how to write poetry. The reason for this success, I think, is that I have focused on writing strategies and I have stressed the important of these writing strategies (writing in active voice and using strong verbs for example) in general.

feeling a bit more successful,

Hebdomeros