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5 to 7 Kids Can Ruin a Class
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5 thoughts on “5 to 7 Kids Can Ruin a Class”
I did cwb this year for a few weeks along with owi… what I noticed is that because I picked everyone, there was a spark in the eyes of the shy kids. Then i started to play and invite them to play themselves by spinning of a story but I was careful to spin off stories with the quiet but warmer students. Now those very students fly their freak flags while story asking. In the beginning of the year, it is a tightrope of classroom management, creating community but giving a voice to the voiceless and creating a purpose to those who have been taught to fail at such as early age. So what about starting with story listening first? As the kids warm up?
I hate to put kids in categoriea but there is a spectrum of shyness or willingness to share out. How do we address all students? My blurters and social butterflies love personal interviews and PQA from stories and acting. My shy kids love drawing and excel at reading and writing. Some consistently response with “what does that mean” type of questions. Superstars dont care about bad output. Then there are middle kids who if supported at the beginning will give the craziest, zaniest details but if not supported, can be silenced. Some students have such thick skin that they perfer not to show up has human beings they look away when you look at them, their voices are small, some have the hoody and.make a mean face when you tell them to show up… probably because you do it in front of others.
This is a pretty important comment and I have just the place for it in a future book Steven if you can send me permission to use it. It talks about how to actually work with the different personality types to build community. It’s the most accurate statement I’ve yet seen on how to include everyone. It very much reflects something Tina said yesterday:
…I taught ELA and SS and French for nine years before coming over to full-time French/Spanish. There is a definite difference – in the CI classes, it is so much more, so much, about community….
It also provides a response to Krista’s concern:
…shy students who are brave enough to volunteer a suggestion but then don’t have their suggestion chosen, are, in my experience, quite reluctant to ever volunteer again. The stories then revolve around the 5-7 most talkative kids in class, leaving others out….
Steven I have been thinking about this a lot. Mostly because it is in my face. All the time.
“I hate to put kids in categories but there is a spectrum of shyness or willingness to share out. How do we address all students? ”
I am dealing with a few different effects of my lack of community building, and would love suggestions to get through the next 6 weeks. Then these courses end. Then I will need to start fresh at the end of January with serious targeted community building. That is going to be my target. I
I gave kids drawing time last week to create characters. I now see that my timing is all wrong. I did not build up to this the right way. But here I am now. There are many super cute / interesting characters, and there are others that are questionable bc I did not catch the reference or just edgy enough, or kids ask “can I draw xyz (with a vague cryptic reference to Islam and terrorism)? Others have suicide references. Others are just otherwise inappropriate (body parts and such).
Aside from the protocols of guidance etc. to which I am legally bound, and aside from simply censoring certain topics (which in the heat of the moment, I do)…how has everyone found effective ways to discuss or help kids process these bleak feelings and ideas. I feel like I should not ignore it and make them try to engage in a happy rainbow unicorn, but I am not sure how to proceed. These are 9th graders. I have never had this happen to this degree before. Things seem to go from zero to chaos in under a second.
Steven what you wrote and jen commented on above re to the topic of shyness is with your permission going in my next book. Finally people are talking about the five to seven taking over the class, which is neither good nor normal for our work and so thank you Krista Kovalchick for saying that.
Jen a few things:
a. Create the characters using One Word Images. I will send you something that you can read in the next six weeks that should solve all the problems and make how to create the images 100% clear. You must be freaking. Don’t. It’s gonna be o.k.
b. Any suicide refs go to counseling, as you know. We have our own lawsuits down the block at Columbine High on that topic, as the shooters wrote about such things in their English classes. It’s a law that you report this kind of thing in Colorado and probably nationally. I know everyone knows that but just to say it again.