Recently, I was teaching in a 5th/6th grade combination class, where a group of girls were acting silly (not unusual) and directing their silliness at various other girls. Some played along and had fun, but it clearly annoyed one girl. She first politely asked them to stop, but they didn't. She attempted to physically remove herself, (we were lining up to go somewhere), but that also didn't work. Finally, albeit a bit late in the game, I realized that this was a good opportunity to give the kids the message that "Stop" means "STOP". So, I told the girls who were being silly that when someone says the word "Stop", it means that they need to "STOP". They weren't actually bullying anyone with their silliness (I think it was something like just saying a goofy word over and over again). I told them that, as long as the people around them didn't use the word "Stop", their silliness was just annoying, but once someone asked them to "Stop", then they needed to do so around that person. "Stop" means "STOP".
The young girl who was the target of this, but didn't like it, looked at me with extreme gratitude and it occurred to me that I should have been doing this MUCH more often. I can't believe it has taken me so long to get here. I guess it is because, in my family we would tease each other quite a bit. Sometimes "Stop" really meant - "This is funny and if it doesn't get worse, I am actually enjoying the attention." The problem is, the person doing the action isn't always aware of the point at which "Stop" ceases to be funny and crosses over to "STOP" meaning "This is enough."
Now I need to think of a word to use that means "This is funny and fun, but be careful, because you are getting close to my limits."
"No" means "NO" and "Stop" means "STOP". What would be a good word for "Watch out; I am enjoying this now, but I may have enough of it in a minute." -- "Careful"? "OK"?
Showing posts with label teachable_moment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teachable_moment. Show all posts
Thursday, April 03, 2014
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Why Do Some Capture Us?
As a substitute teacher, I see WAY too many kids in a week to remember them all. In fact, if I am in a particular class for only a day or a half day, I often have trouble REALLY noticing quite a few of the students. This is especially true of the quiet ones, the ones who seem to become part of their chairs.
One of my ongoing questions of myself is why do I notice some students and remember them and why do others completely fade from my mind? If I come back to that same classroom weeks or months later, which kids will I remember and which ones will I have no idea about who they are or what they are like?
As one might suspect, the naughty ones are memorable. And the class clowns. The kids with special needs that make themselves known to the sub. Those are easy reasons to remember particular students and they are all reasons why I remember some students. But that isn't the entire cast of the ones I remember. I am thinking back over the class I had just yesterday and trying to think of which kids I still can bring up faces or names for. Interestingly, many of the kids do not fit any of those categories.
Kids who speak to me personally are more memorable - even if it was just to ask to go to the nurse. Kids who help me with some piece of equipment or some unique classroom procedure are also memorable. Kids who display some part of their character are also memorable. Sometimes even the especially quiet students are memorable.
But, there is one category of kid that I remember especially well. It is the kids who ask memorable questions. And, yes, for me, the obviously gifted kids. Weeks ago, I wrote about one young man I interacted with and felt especially drawn to. During the literacy block, when the rest of the class was busy, this young man had told me all about a book he was working on - about American heroes. For some reason, he and I really connected. I was sorry when the day ended that I probably would not teach him again. He is in a grade that I normally do not sub for, but I like his school, so I had taken the job for that class.
I was wrong that I would not teach him again. I was in the grade one higher than his at that school a couple of days ago and he came into the math class that I was teaching. This confirmed my assessment of his probable giftedness - kids are rarely accelerated into a math class higher than their own grade, unless they REALLY need it. And, wonder of wonders, he was also delighted to see me - in a very quiet way. He is not a loud, assertive kid. But he did come up during a transition time and ask me if I remembered him. I did. Again, that mysterious and wonderful connection. But too short.
If I could teach kids like him every day, I would do it for free. They are that intriguing to me.
One of my ongoing questions of myself is why do I notice some students and remember them and why do others completely fade from my mind? If I come back to that same classroom weeks or months later, which kids will I remember and which ones will I have no idea about who they are or what they are like?
As one might suspect, the naughty ones are memorable. And the class clowns. The kids with special needs that make themselves known to the sub. Those are easy reasons to remember particular students and they are all reasons why I remember some students. But that isn't the entire cast of the ones I remember. I am thinking back over the class I had just yesterday and trying to think of which kids I still can bring up faces or names for. Interestingly, many of the kids do not fit any of those categories.
Kids who speak to me personally are more memorable - even if it was just to ask to go to the nurse. Kids who help me with some piece of equipment or some unique classroom procedure are also memorable. Kids who display some part of their character are also memorable. Sometimes even the especially quiet students are memorable.
But, there is one category of kid that I remember especially well. It is the kids who ask memorable questions. And, yes, for me, the obviously gifted kids. Weeks ago, I wrote about one young man I interacted with and felt especially drawn to. During the literacy block, when the rest of the class was busy, this young man had told me all about a book he was working on - about American heroes. For some reason, he and I really connected. I was sorry when the day ended that I probably would not teach him again. He is in a grade that I normally do not sub for, but I like his school, so I had taken the job for that class.
I was wrong that I would not teach him again. I was in the grade one higher than his at that school a couple of days ago and he came into the math class that I was teaching. This confirmed my assessment of his probable giftedness - kids are rarely accelerated into a math class higher than their own grade, unless they REALLY need it. And, wonder of wonders, he was also delighted to see me - in a very quiet way. He is not a loud, assertive kid. But he did come up during a transition time and ask me if I remembered him. I did. Again, that mysterious and wonderful connection. But too short.
If I could teach kids like him every day, I would do it for free. They are that intriguing to me.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Ideal Class Size - Opinions
On Linked In, in the Elementary Education group, there has been an ongoing discussion of what the ideal class size would be. This question hasn't addressed, for the most part, funding or teacher quality, but simply the straightforward question, about IDEAL class size. Interestingly, the answer seems to hover around 12 students. As most people know, this number is between one-third and one-half of the currently common classroom sizes, which range from 20 to 36 students.
My own comment was, "The best classes I have taught have had from 4 to 12 students. What fun they are! You can actually talk with the kids and enjoy the teachable moments. You can treat each child as an individual and not just as members of a huge group."
The key for me is the teachable moment. In a class of 24 or more, there is little opportunity to take advantage of the teachable moment. Teachable moments are directly applicable to individual children. Sometimes these teachable moments extend to quite a few individual children at a time, but the real focus is on getting individual children excited about their learning. Children are quite different in what really excites them. Novelty, of course, will excite many of them at a time, but true interest in something usually is much more specific. With classes of 20 or more, this becomes a time and classroom management issue, especially when there are specific curricular goals to cover - and there almost always are specific learning goals mandated for the day.
Intuitively, I think most classroom teachers know that small group instruction is better than large group. That is why most classrooms I have subbed in have small reading groups for reading instruction. Very rarely, is reading taught as whole group instruction. A bit less frequently, but still often, math is also grouped. And sometimes spelling lists are individualized or grouped. But rarely does grouping extend to any other subject areas. This is especially noticeable for science and social studies. The most content-oriented (as opposed to skill-oriented) subjects are the least likely to be taught in small groups.
What is so great about 12 students? 12 is enough to provide a lot of variety. 4 probably isn't - variety in terms of viewpoint, gender, personality, background, etc. 12 is a good number to provide interaction. It is also a good number for dividing into even smaller groups, pairs, triads, quartets, and hexads. 12 means that talking is manageable. 12 children talking all at once isn't an aural assault. A class of 24 or 36 is. A class of 12 means that the teacher can talk to each child in a reasonable time, close to when they need it. In a class of 12, you are dealing with individuals as often as you are dealing with a group. There is time for the teacher to ask questions that will excite specific students, but not, perhaps, the whole group. The teacher can ask a student about a project and go in depth, where this isn't possible with large groups. The whole quality of the classroom changes.
I think groups up to 20 can operate like this, but with groups larger than this, the instruction seems to change. What do you think?
My own comment was, "The best classes I have taught have had from 4 to 12 students. What fun they are! You can actually talk with the kids and enjoy the teachable moments. You can treat each child as an individual and not just as members of a huge group."
The key for me is the teachable moment. In a class of 24 or more, there is little opportunity to take advantage of the teachable moment. Teachable moments are directly applicable to individual children. Sometimes these teachable moments extend to quite a few individual children at a time, but the real focus is on getting individual children excited about their learning. Children are quite different in what really excites them. Novelty, of course, will excite many of them at a time, but true interest in something usually is much more specific. With classes of 20 or more, this becomes a time and classroom management issue, especially when there are specific curricular goals to cover - and there almost always are specific learning goals mandated for the day.
Intuitively, I think most classroom teachers know that small group instruction is better than large group. That is why most classrooms I have subbed in have small reading groups for reading instruction. Very rarely, is reading taught as whole group instruction. A bit less frequently, but still often, math is also grouped. And sometimes spelling lists are individualized or grouped. But rarely does grouping extend to any other subject areas. This is especially noticeable for science and social studies. The most content-oriented (as opposed to skill-oriented) subjects are the least likely to be taught in small groups.
What is so great about 12 students? 12 is enough to provide a lot of variety. 4 probably isn't - variety in terms of viewpoint, gender, personality, background, etc. 12 is a good number to provide interaction. It is also a good number for dividing into even smaller groups, pairs, triads, quartets, and hexads. 12 means that talking is manageable. 12 children talking all at once isn't an aural assault. A class of 24 or 36 is. A class of 12 means that the teacher can talk to each child in a reasonable time, close to when they need it. In a class of 12, you are dealing with individuals as often as you are dealing with a group. There is time for the teacher to ask questions that will excite specific students, but not, perhaps, the whole group. The teacher can ask a student about a project and go in depth, where this isn't possible with large groups. The whole quality of the classroom changes.
I think groups up to 20 can operate like this, but with groups larger than this, the instruction seems to change. What do you think?
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Each One Counts
For a long time now, I have been harping about class size and today, I would like to compare two of the classes I have had this week. They aren't strictly comparable - they were different grade levels and in different districts, but since I am not going to make a statistical appeal today, it doesn't really matter that they are not as comparable as one might wish. Both classes were in relatively well-to-do neighborhoods, with fairly privileged children. One class had around 24 students, the other had around 32.
In the first case, as a sub, I had 24 names to learn and 24 new students to interact with. Learning 24 new names each day is doable, though difficult. Learning 32 names is probably not doable for most subs. How would you feel if your child was one of the ones the teacher couldn't learn the name of? Probably, most people would let it slide. But during the course of his/her schooling each child will have nearly a full year of subs. One year of being nameless?
In the first class, I could spend a couple of minutes talking to a boy who wanted to tell me about his project; I could spend another few minutes with the know-it-all girl, who needed to show me how competent she was as a teacher's helper; I could talk individually to each child during the literacy block. In the second school, I got to talk individually to some of the students, but not most of them.
You know what kids remember most about their schooling? - how the teachers made them feel. I could feel so much better about my interactions with the class of 24 students than with the class of 32 students. 24 is still a bit bigger than I would like, but 32 is definitely past the point where it is possible to have a significant number of personal interactions. With 32, there is a lot more time spent keeping kids on task, correcting behavior, and take care of administrative tasks. With 24, there is room in the classroom to move around to different areas for different types of activities. With 32, the room is so packed with desks and chairs that there is frequently very little room to maneuver. With 24, it is easier to get to each student to answer a question or to point out a problem. With 32, it is much harder.
Each child counts. Each interaction counts. When people say that class size doesn't matter, according to research, they are looking at test scores. Maybe there, it doesn't matter. I don't really believe that, but that isn't my point today. Children are much more than test scores. They are real people who need personal interactions, even the surly kid who doesn't want to talk to the teacher. Each one needs to know that the teacher cares. Even if that teacher is "just a sub".
In the first case, as a sub, I had 24 names to learn and 24 new students to interact with. Learning 24 new names each day is doable, though difficult. Learning 32 names is probably not doable for most subs. How would you feel if your child was one of the ones the teacher couldn't learn the name of? Probably, most people would let it slide. But during the course of his/her schooling each child will have nearly a full year of subs. One year of being nameless?
In the first class, I could spend a couple of minutes talking to a boy who wanted to tell me about his project; I could spend another few minutes with the know-it-all girl, who needed to show me how competent she was as a teacher's helper; I could talk individually to each child during the literacy block. In the second school, I got to talk individually to some of the students, but not most of them.
You know what kids remember most about their schooling? - how the teachers made them feel. I could feel so much better about my interactions with the class of 24 students than with the class of 32 students. 24 is still a bit bigger than I would like, but 32 is definitely past the point where it is possible to have a significant number of personal interactions. With 32, there is a lot more time spent keeping kids on task, correcting behavior, and take care of administrative tasks. With 24, there is room in the classroom to move around to different areas for different types of activities. With 32, the room is so packed with desks and chairs that there is frequently very little room to maneuver. With 24, it is easier to get to each student to answer a question or to point out a problem. With 32, it is much harder.
Each child counts. Each interaction counts. When people say that class size doesn't matter, according to research, they are looking at test scores. Maybe there, it doesn't matter. I don't really believe that, but that isn't my point today. Children are much more than test scores. They are real people who need personal interactions, even the surly kid who doesn't want to talk to the teacher. Each one needs to know that the teacher cares. Even if that teacher is "just a sub".
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Unclear on the Concept
I was subbing in a 6th grade recently and the warm-up question for the math lesson (directly from the teacher's manual) was something like this: A certain state has chosen to use the following format for their license plates: a single letter, followed by 5 digits. How many different license plates could they make that start with the letter A? The students were supposed to write their answers on their individual white boards and then show them to me to verify their answers.
The first answer I got was 28. I was completely baffled. Then came the other answers 15, 59, 25, etc., etc. NONE of the answers was even above 100, let alone near the correct answer. When I told the class (of 29 students) that their answers were all way too low, they started guessing above 100. But their guesses were completely (to me) random.
I decided to give them a hint: if they could use only 1 number after the A, you would have license plates A0, A1, A2, A3, ..., A9 - for 10 license plates. With two digits, you would have A00, A01, A02, ... A99 - giving you 100 license plates. They still didn't get it.
Pedagogically, I was so baffled by their lack of understanding, that I missed a golden opportunity to ask them what their reasoning was. I wish I had asked. "My bad", as they say. But now I am left wondering how they could possibly have thought that 28, 15, 59, or 25 could be anywhere near reasonable. This was a charter school, where the kids had to be delivered to the building in cars by their parents every day and picked up at the close of the day. How could they possibly think that 28 license plates starting with A, 28 starting with B, etc., would be enough? There are nearly that many cars at that one school in one day.
I was left thinking that the thinking habits of those kids were pretty bad.
Then came the lesson. It was on the number of degrees in specific turns. Though this wasn't in the teacher's manual, I had them stand up and demonstrate turning clockwise and counterclockwise. That isn't nearly as intuitive was it was in the days of all analog clocks. Our digital kids nowadays don't seem to have quite as much familiarity with the rotation of the hands on clocks. So I had them practice. First we established that a full turn, either CW or CCW was 360 degrees. Then that a quarter turn was 90 degrees and a half turn 180.
As I expected, a lot of the students mixed up CW and CCW, until we had practiced quite a bit. What surprised me a little was that several students refused to participate at all. This is a fairly strict and structured charter school and the non-compliance was unexpected. I didn't make a big deal of it, however, since it was an unplanned part of the lesson. I was more interested in the fact that this was actually a fairly difficult exercise for 6th graders.
That was just about the whole lesson - that and a few word problems. I was not terribly impressed with the curriculum, but this is a curriculum that I am not terribly fond of, anyway, so I am not going to name it. I was more interested in the seeming lack of comprehension of the students. They could do the rote problems, but the applications seemed to baffle them.
I would love to blame it on the curriculum, but I am not so sure that that is the problem. I have seen similar things with other curricula. What seems to me to be more evident is that kids are not particularly interested in making sense of things. They are willing to learn the arithmetic procedures - essentially just memorizing "how to do the problems", but they have very little (no?) interest in understanding why things work as they do. How have we gotten such disinterested kids? Was it always this way?
I remember hundreds of years ago, when I was a child, that I wasn't particularly interested in math. I could do the problems reasonably well, but the mathematics behind the arithmetic wasn't compelling to me. I don't remember if it was taught. I just remember that I was good at math, but, to me, that meant that I was good at arithmetic.
Then came my own 6th grade. The math teacher taught us about number bases - the reason behind carrying and borrowing when you get to the number of the base. It was, for me, a whole new ball game. Math became much more interesting. But that kind of enlightenment was sporadic. I remember asking several times in calculus classes how calculus was used, but I usually got either completely useless answers (It is used in everything!) or vague answers (In physics it is used to derive the laws of motion).
So now, I am wondering: it is counterproductive to try to explain mathematical reasoning to young children? Perhaps they just need to learn to do arithmetic very well. Then, in middle school or high school, with a bit more mature brains, they should take a class called number theory - and learn the reasoning behind the algorithms.
It is scary, though, to think that kids have so little practical understanding of math that they can't see the unreasonableness of the answer 28 for the number of license plates starting with A and having 5 numbers following the A.
The first answer I got was 28. I was completely baffled. Then came the other answers 15, 59, 25, etc., etc. NONE of the answers was even above 100, let alone near the correct answer. When I told the class (of 29 students) that their answers were all way too low, they started guessing above 100. But their guesses were completely (to me) random.
I decided to give them a hint: if they could use only 1 number after the A, you would have license plates A0, A1, A2, A3, ..., A9 - for 10 license plates. With two digits, you would have A00, A01, A02, ... A99 - giving you 100 license plates. They still didn't get it.
Pedagogically, I was so baffled by their lack of understanding, that I missed a golden opportunity to ask them what their reasoning was. I wish I had asked. "My bad", as they say. But now I am left wondering how they could possibly have thought that 28, 15, 59, or 25 could be anywhere near reasonable. This was a charter school, where the kids had to be delivered to the building in cars by their parents every day and picked up at the close of the day. How could they possibly think that 28 license plates starting with A, 28 starting with B, etc., would be enough? There are nearly that many cars at that one school in one day.
I was left thinking that the thinking habits of those kids were pretty bad.
Then came the lesson. It was on the number of degrees in specific turns. Though this wasn't in the teacher's manual, I had them stand up and demonstrate turning clockwise and counterclockwise. That isn't nearly as intuitive was it was in the days of all analog clocks. Our digital kids nowadays don't seem to have quite as much familiarity with the rotation of the hands on clocks. So I had them practice. First we established that a full turn, either CW or CCW was 360 degrees. Then that a quarter turn was 90 degrees and a half turn 180.
As I expected, a lot of the students mixed up CW and CCW, until we had practiced quite a bit. What surprised me a little was that several students refused to participate at all. This is a fairly strict and structured charter school and the non-compliance was unexpected. I didn't make a big deal of it, however, since it was an unplanned part of the lesson. I was more interested in the fact that this was actually a fairly difficult exercise for 6th graders.
That was just about the whole lesson - that and a few word problems. I was not terribly impressed with the curriculum, but this is a curriculum that I am not terribly fond of, anyway, so I am not going to name it. I was more interested in the seeming lack of comprehension of the students. They could do the rote problems, but the applications seemed to baffle them.
I would love to blame it on the curriculum, but I am not so sure that that is the problem. I have seen similar things with other curricula. What seems to me to be more evident is that kids are not particularly interested in making sense of things. They are willing to learn the arithmetic procedures - essentially just memorizing "how to do the problems", but they have very little (no?) interest in understanding why things work as they do. How have we gotten such disinterested kids? Was it always this way?
I remember hundreds of years ago, when I was a child, that I wasn't particularly interested in math. I could do the problems reasonably well, but the mathematics behind the arithmetic wasn't compelling to me. I don't remember if it was taught. I just remember that I was good at math, but, to me, that meant that I was good at arithmetic.
Then came my own 6th grade. The math teacher taught us about number bases - the reason behind carrying and borrowing when you get to the number of the base. It was, for me, a whole new ball game. Math became much more interesting. But that kind of enlightenment was sporadic. I remember asking several times in calculus classes how calculus was used, but I usually got either completely useless answers (It is used in everything!) or vague answers (In physics it is used to derive the laws of motion).
So now, I am wondering: it is counterproductive to try to explain mathematical reasoning to young children? Perhaps they just need to learn to do arithmetic very well. Then, in middle school or high school, with a bit more mature brains, they should take a class called number theory - and learn the reasoning behind the algorithms.
It is scary, though, to think that kids have so little practical understanding of math that they can't see the unreasonableness of the answer 28 for the number of license plates starting with A and having 5 numbers following the A.
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