This is a third repost. I’m just going to keep reposting it:
I took the “Suggest Cute Answers” rule off of my Classroom Rules.. It never really worked and made many kids feel uncomfortable, as if they couldn’t relax under this heavy class requirement. Tina supports my decision below:
Ben, I got rid of the rule, too. There are several reasons for that:
1. It favors the louder, bolder, and more privileged kids. Some kids would rather die than suggest an idea for their peers to hear, reject, or worse, use against them. Requiring that as part of a kid’s grade just does not make me comfortable. I have done a lot of reflecting about myself in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991. Those were some shy, awkward, quiet, and basically petrified years for me. I was 12-15 years old. I had not yet found theatre. I had like two point five friends. I was super-creative, and highly motivated to learn Latin and French, the languages I studied in that time period. I would have never, ever, ever, EVER have volunteered any of the cute answers that were bouncing around in my head. If I had been required to do so, I am not sure if I would have, even though I was usually an A-type student. Kathrin made me think about this last summer in Agen. She was reading a book on introversion. She got me thinking about myself at that age. And I thought, “That rule is kind of bullying kids who are like me!” (Well, like me in the 80s! NOW I am pretty confident, and super-outgoing. Theatre saves lives. Art saves lives. Compassionate teachers save lives.)
2. It is OUR responsibility to make kids want to pay attention. Beniko wants us to change the name to Compelling Comprehensible Input. We need to take responsibility for finding stories and ways to communicate and ways to build stories together, that are naturally compelling. This is just me, and I know I am pretty radical on this, but stopping the practice of repeating certain words and phrases over and over (i.e. “circling”) is the issue here. That is why we have this idea that we need to get cute ideas from the kids. We need their cute ideas like we need the ham around the doggie pill, to make the dog eat it. If we can get rid of the pill, the language we deem that the kids need to learn at that time (so unnatural anyways), then we find (or at least I do) that the language just springs back to life, and our classes can rise to a more interesting level without requiring kids to take on that responsibility.
My husband has a culinary diploma from attending cooking school in 1999. They had to do “black box” exams, where they got a black bus tub of ingredients and had to produce a meal. It is like we are running a restaurant and we are giving the kids a black bus tub of three things, instead of the whole pantry, and then grading them on how much stuff they can go scrounge up elsewhere to make the meal taste good. When we could just use the whole pantry and then everyone would have an easier time cooking a tasty repast.