Sunday, November 23, 2014
Classroom supplies
It was like an early Christmas in the room Thursday. By Friday all the book had been checked out and we had started a game of Pandemic with a little bit of free time. Most definitely a huge success so far.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
When your students mutiny
Me: "We are going to write a short essay on GMO foods."
S1: "That's boring, I don't want to write about that."
Me: "Well...tough. It's important and we need to cover it."
S1: "Ummm....no. I am going to write about designer babies instead."
S2: "Yeah...that's way better than GMO's. I want to write about that too."
I think I am getting myself into a tight spot here. Are they seriously rejecting what I have planned for the class? Is this a mutiny? Do you not know who I am? I am the Juggernaut! I can insist they write about GMO's as planned, I know they will do a good job with it. They will follow the provided rubric and the students above will most certainly get an A+, but they will not really care about what they are doing. They will learn something because they just naturally soak up everything around them. My essential question of the day will be answered because they will have completed the work leading to that question. Had I been observed, admin would have said I met my learning objective. My standard #whatever would be rocking. But at what cost?
How often do we assign work to our brightest students knowing they will do it because they understand the game of school, but not necessarily because they enjoy doing it? I feel we (myself included) do this group of students a grave injustice. They will go on to college and get jobs and we don't worry about them because "they will make it". Instead we need to focus on those whose future is a little less certain. But I don't really believe that. If your objective is to prepare students for college and/or a job then fine. I don't feel that way. We need to hook and push them all. That student who we knew would go to college does. She goes to Generic University. What if we pushed her more, challenged her, let her control her education and now she is at UNC, Duke, Wake, NCSU? What bar are we setting for them?
Now, I have the opportunity to let them pursue something they are interested in. Tomorrow we can talk about GMO's, I can throw some stuff up on the board and we can have a little discussion and they will know enough to pass the test at the end of the year. But by letting them control the class I know that the work I get will have a little bit of passion in it, it's something that they might remember later on, it might actually change their view of the world...maybe.
Right after this great back and forth they asked to listen to Megan Trainor so we clearly have a long ways to go in terms of changing their views... I should have been writing my 40+ page paper for grad school tonight but as S1 said "That's boring..." and writing this was way more fulfilling. Now I need to go draw a picture of S1 getting eaten by a monster because that sounds better too.
S1: "That's boring, I don't want to write about that."
Me: "Well...tough. It's important and we need to cover it."
S1: "Ummm....no. I am going to write about designer babies instead."
S2: "Yeah...that's way better than GMO's. I want to write about that too."
I think I am getting myself into a tight spot here. Are they seriously rejecting what I have planned for the class? Is this a mutiny? Do you not know who I am? I am the Juggernaut! I can insist they write about GMO's as planned, I know they will do a good job with it. They will follow the provided rubric and the students above will most certainly get an A+, but they will not really care about what they are doing. They will learn something because they just naturally soak up everything around them. My essential question of the day will be answered because they will have completed the work leading to that question. Had I been observed, admin would have said I met my learning objective. My standard #whatever would be rocking. But at what cost?
How often do we assign work to our brightest students knowing they will do it because they understand the game of school, but not necessarily because they enjoy doing it? I feel we (myself included) do this group of students a grave injustice. They will go on to college and get jobs and we don't worry about them because "they will make it". Instead we need to focus on those whose future is a little less certain. But I don't really believe that. If your objective is to prepare students for college and/or a job then fine. I don't feel that way. We need to hook and push them all. That student who we knew would go to college does. She goes to Generic University. What if we pushed her more, challenged her, let her control her education and now she is at UNC, Duke, Wake, NCSU? What bar are we setting for them?
Now, I have the opportunity to let them pursue something they are interested in. Tomorrow we can talk about GMO's, I can throw some stuff up on the board and we can have a little discussion and they will know enough to pass the test at the end of the year. But by letting them control the class I know that the work I get will have a little bit of passion in it, it's something that they might remember later on, it might actually change their view of the world...maybe.
Right after this great back and forth they asked to listen to Megan Trainor so we clearly have a long ways to go in terms of changing their views... I should have been writing my 40+ page paper for grad school tonight but as S1 said "That's boring..." and writing this was way more fulfilling. Now I need to go draw a picture of S1 getting eaten by a monster because that sounds better too.
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