Cheating, I know...
More Notes
education and teaching
Notes
The Response
Absent
If any of my colleagues ever suggested -- or simply thought (then how would I know?) -- that they were more productive a given day because I wasn't there, I would feel such shame that it might be difficult to show my face again among those folks. I would reflect on my behavior, on what I'd always considered my contributions, and I would likely realize that I shouldn't have simply been second-guessing myself; I would realize I'd had a completely false self-image.
Today, several students were absent, with most of them were suspended. The types that are likely to get suspended are the types that are likely to disrupt class, and so today, two classes that generally leave me wondering about my decision to stay in education were absolute pleasures. They were productive, polite, focused. They were unlike they'd been in a long time, if ever. (Is it really only September? Are we really only in the second half of the first quarter?! I feel so tired of it all that everything in me screams that it must be March.)
What if I tell these students that? How would that conversation go? I think we all know: they would be indifferent. At least one of the students admitted openly that he is disruptive because he knows it annoys other students, and he likes to annoy other students.
Several of them will be back tomorrow -- will it be business as usual? No. I've seen what we can accomplish: if they are unwilling to cooperate, I will do what is necessary to protect the education of all the other students.
The Reality of Teaching
At Work
Sometimes
you just want the day to wash away in a blur and say nothing about it...
First Socratic Seminar
Fire
This year I'm trying a new starter: Write Into the Day. Basically, it's a short writing exercise that is intended to get their minds in a literary space. I've tinkered with it, changed a few things, altered how we share, but so far, I've left the core idea alone: write a few sentences about a given prompt.
Last week, one of the prompts was this: "What lights that fire in you to give it your all?" When I was reading the responses this weekend, I found this one:
Mr Scott because he wants me to be my best in school so everytime he talks to me in the hallway about how much brain cells I have. After we finish talking in the hallway and when I go to my class I'm ready to learn so He always fires me up every time in class so Mr scott fires me and I give it all I have.
These kids kill me: it takes the smallest thing sometimes. This boy was telling me early in the year that he couldn't do any better because he "only has two brain cells."
"What are you talking about? You've got something like 120 billion brain cells, and they all work just fine as far as I can tell."
The next day I saw him, I'd done some calculations, and I told him, "You know if all your brain cells were one second each, you'd have 3,800 years worth of seconds!"
"Really?!" He couldn't believe it.
The smallest things...
Planning
