This is from Annemarie. We need to get some good responses to her asap. Middle school teachers please step up here:
Hi Ben, I am struggling so much with my 7th graders, especially one of the classes. They are 25 kids in each class, never enough chairs and some major behavior problems. I tried a few strategies to help kids not chat with their neighbor or blurt out, but on Halloween day it all went to hell (ha). I decided to next day to take a break from CI and storytelling with them and do some grammar instead. They are bored and so am I but I won’t do the storytelling. Have you ever just done grammar and worksheets with a class because they can’t handle the openness of CI and PQA? I’m at my wits end with them. And I’m giving detentions left and right, which I almost never do. Is it damaging to do grammar for just a little while? Any advice in terms of class management, because I know that discipline precedes instruction…
My response is that this is serious because those kids are so young. I’m not even sure that they can get their minds around the reasons for the rules. Therefore, if the rules are not working, I would make it a grammar fest for a few weeks at least. When they complain, and they will, you can just curtly explain that the other way of doing it is too messy and that they couldn’t step up to the plate because they couldn’t understand and make the rules work, and that you don’t want to do the other way because of that. Don’t tell them about the two weeks, make them think it is for good. Just tell them how you feel. Interestingly – not sure about this – but I believe that abstract reasoning kicks in right about now, in the 12th or 13th years. When I taught those 8 years in middle school, I was always struck by how much maturity happend so fast from their arrival as 12 year olds and their leaving as 14 year olds. Amazing. In fact, this is a question for a true expert like Carol Gaab. I will ask her. And, of course, you always have the phone, it is not an option, to call parents if you are able to identify the jerks who NEED, ARE ASKING FOR, your phone call home.