Russ reports in from Oregon:
Hey Ben,
You said that we should send you our successes and failures. I should start by saying I have great kids. I’m really lucky for that. This year is going to be my best yet! But my 5th period is at the same time! disinterested, chatty, apathetic, and high energy (for a class right after lunch). It’s rough. Not only do they not want to stop talking, but they don’t want to do any of the stuff I want to do in my class. They don’t want to do OWIs, they don’t want to sit through story listening. We even started the year playing a super simple way to play mafia and I had to stop the game because they didn’t even seen to care that much! Of course they all said they did but body language says more to me. Thankfully we did a special person interview and they were respectful. All of my other classes are great! Normally this would be how all my second year classes are, but it’s definitely just them. I have been following the classroom management techniques laid out by you and Tina and they are great, but I already had to tell the whole class either it’s you or it’s me. And if it’s me that is great because I can change and if it’s you it’s great because you can change. If after today they don’t do their 50%, then I am punting. I thought about going to grammar and I can’t do that in good conscience. But I am going to go to scripts. Just gonna story tell everything. Basically no real student choice for them, and no planning for me. I will tell a story from a script then do some reading options. Do a dictation. And a free write but really it won’t even be a free write it will be a story retell on paper. Less fun for them but less work for me!
I hope it doesn’t happen but oh well I’m still gonna be having a blast teaching kids Spanish!
Russ