Calling All Teachers!

Don't smile before Christmas.

Remember, you are not going to like every single child--and even more importantly, every single child is not going to like you.

Courtesy is very important coping with both these situation.

Swimpy - don't smile until Christmas? Why?

Noddy, good to keep in mind.

It's an old adage. The point is to lay down the rules from the start and enforce them so that by the end of the first quarter the kids have internalized them. Then you can be the nice person again.

Also good to keep in mind.

Remember, each kid in the class will have at least one lousy, rotten, nothing-goes-right day during the school year.

I'm not a teacher but the best teacher I ever had was my 8th grade science teacher. On the first day of class he laid down his class rules. We decided that he was a tyrannical s.o.b. and we all wanted out of his class. He certainly got our attention and scared the bejesus out of us from day 1. He was all business, or so it seemed.

He never repeated the rules, never raised his voice, and he taught in a manner that was interesting. Because he had our undivided attention, we learned.

One of the 'rules' was that any time taken from his teaching time due to disruptions would be made up at the end of the day. One day at the end of class, he pointed out two or three kids by names and told them the could leave school at the end of the day. The rest of us were to return to the classroom where he would teach that day's material again. He reminded us that the time in his classroom was his time and we had taken his time away from him that day. We would pay it back after school. We all arrived after school and he taught the day's lesson. He never mentioned the behavior from earlier, he simply retaught the lesson. This was about mid-way through the school year. We never had another after school session.

I don't remember the rest of the rules except one. His rule (policy) on exams was that the lowest score would be 50%. He felt that anyone could get the easy half of any exam correct so he was only going to give us the hard half and spot us 50 points. Because we were all paying attention in class, the hard half wasn't that hard. The other part of his exam policy was that any question that was missed by more than half the kids would not count. He felt that if more than half the kids got a wrong answer then the question was either poorly asked or the material poorly presented - both of which fell on his shoulders. We would be spotted those points as well.

By the end of the year we all realized how much we enjoyed his class and how glad we were not to have switched over to the 'easy' (read, friendly) teacher. The girls all cried on the last day of class. At least one of us (raises hand) pursued a science related career because of the impact of this one teacher.

Will ask my husband for some and report back. Onyxelle out.

Thank you Onxy!

JPB - wow. these days, protocol has us (at least in elementary schools) caucusing with the kids about classroom rules so that they OWN them.

Here's a question for you (geez! I feel like I'm dominating this teacher section....).

The situation: I sit with the child I 1:1 with during lunch. He sits with 5 kids and me at one table. I am usually bored, he is usually busy eating and not doing or saying things which I need to chat with him about. So, I chat with all the kids. It's sort of fun. I pick up packages and read ingredients because I am interested in what's in food. I do that all over the place - grocery stores, lunchrooms, my kitchen, other people's kitchens, etc.

Anyway, I noticed the kids had raw broccoli with their pizzas one day and I wrinkled my nose (I mean, come on! Raw?!). One child said she liked raw broccoli, but she had brought her lunch. One kid with raw broccoli said it was gross. I suggested they share the broccoli. They informed me that they weren't allowed to share food in the cafeteria. I thought this was because of colds and flus (turns out it's more because of allergens).

I assured them it was ok, I was giving them permission. I checked to make sure the boy with the broccoli hadn't touched it. She ate it all. Now, this is a girl who brings, I had noted MENTALLY, crappy food to school. I thought this broccoli thing was great. But, I didn't make a big deal about it aloud.

Her mother spoke to the principal. What was I doing talking to her child about food choices? I actually got in trouble - sort of. Turns out that there's a little history of parental rants against the liberal indoctrination of the girl. It's a good thing I didn't fill her in on ALL the facts of evolution when she asked me why god made us start out as squirrels.

Oh yeah - I had a question. As a classroom teacher, down the road from now, how would I handle that situation? If an irate parent came in to tell me that I shouldn't be telling their child about evolution or the healthfulness of broccoli?

They thought I was judging them. I hadn't been until they called and I found out more history.

The teachers I most recall for being the best for me are those that were wide of knowledgebeyond their subject. I had one standout PAD teacher in 9th grade who taught us as much about Byzantine architecture and fly fishing and German Cooking as he did PAD.

Ihave tried to use him as my model for my own teaching. I now teach 1 grad and 1 undergrad course every 2 years.

Well, I dunno what PAD is, but I do know a bit about a lot of things. That's one reason I thought I'd best be suited to elem ed.

I don't know what PAD is either - process oriented design??

I too liked teachers who brought relevant if tangential information into discussions. But you could guess that about me..

But I'm not a teacher in a school system, so have no handy advice re the appropriateness of your conversation.

A lot of teaching now is politics and dancing with rules. The principal needs to make sure you know what the politics and pitfalls of this school are.

I learn one pitfall at a time.

Problems in AMerican Democracy. (It was a 9th or 10th grade unit).

What did you do with the chipmunk kid? SHow her how supermarket bar code information is similar to how we classify different lifeforms , especially as we get into a evolution/ development based system of classification

littlek, you're going to run into parents like that all through your career. let it roll off your back. You challenged the kid to try something different. Wow! What a concept!

I like that kid's style of rebellion--bring on the broccoli and circumvent parental authority.