Connected to the discussion on technology is its effect on classroom discipline. Doing the hard work of having to follow rules that demand that a child show up beyond the level of a robot in class is hard for kids with no experience in that area.
A colleague recently heard the words “This is boring!” during a CI class from one of these kids who would prefer to be entertained than entertain. What we do challenges kids to be more human in a world increasingly permissive that they function only in robotic terms, and we all feel the pushback from those kids every day.
When the teacher hears a comment like that in class and doesn’t do something concrete and agressive about it immediately, they acquiesce. They give in. They punt. They go limp. They lose control of their class in a matter of seconds.
Even the less rude kids see the power exchange in those three words. Hey, even they can maybe push the same envelope. If their teacher is a milksop, maybe they can find love and approval in this class just like the bully who got away with the comment. In this case of egregious error by failing to forcefully deal right then with the comment – not in a negative way but in a professional, adult way – the teacher may as well just hand the keys to the classroom over to the kids at the same time.
Even worse is when the kids tell the parents that the class is boring (read “the class challenges them to show up as people to be a part of the creation of a real human discussion”). When the parents support this view in their child, they utterly fail to do what real parents do – tell the kid that the class may be boring but it is not their place to say that aloud in class, rather they must do what the teacher asks because the teacher is an adult (certain rare cases of teacher incompetence excepted of course).
When my classes stray from my rules, I deal with this in two ways: I go immediately away from stories and songs – things they like. I don’t pull out the grammar books, however. I just do many reading classes – a whole book over two weeks. Reading Circus. The whole book, kids!
Here is how a 55 min. class breaks down with this reading approach, which is really a discipline thing mainly:
First, they read (the novel or some text at their level) in TOTAL SILENCE for the first ten – fifteen minutes of class. I read with them. If a kid whispers, I say in clear tones, “We don’t talk during silent reading. Stop.”
We then chorally translate the text. When their mouths are moving in translation into L1 as a group, they can’t break my rules. Any kids not joining in the choral work are told to join in with, “You are asked to join in the translation work so that I know you understand. Read aloud with the class.”
Then, we discuss the text using comprehensible input. I don’t care if it’s boring. I want it to be boring. They begin to miss stories. I’m fine with that because this is easy for me where the stories were too much effort because they chose to push on my rules. (Stories are rarely boring when the rules – properly enforced – are working their magic).
So far, twenty to thirty minutes into class, the kids haven’t had a single chance to visit with each other. I have been in their faces about reading in total silence and everyone translating chorally nice and loud.
Now, the next step in this process is to use CI to process the text in L2. It may spin into some cool PQA but I try to curtail that. I want things boring. I want them to remember, if they ever get back to stories, that these “fun” reading classes (why doesn’t anybody write a fricking interesting novel for a level one class??) await them unless they fully embrace my rules, those same big rules staring them in the face just over my head all period.
After class the really bright kids complain. Too easy. Too slow. No fun. I say, “You want more stories? Help the class prove to me that you all can do my class my way following my rules. You are not the only kids in the class. I have to teach a wide variety of decoding speeds. Work with me on this. No stories until the class gets what I am saying in those rules up there on the wall.”
Next, and this is the zinger, every single day I have a simple scantron yes/no prewritten Quick Quiz – based on the actual reading and not on any CI that came out of it – that holds them fully responsible for the content of the class, which functions as a natural muzzle because their grade is involved. If they don’t pay attention during class, they fail the quiz.
Many of us who get too involved with the CI and thus fail to give a daily quiz are just asking for discipline problems. Kids behave in relationship to their grade – it is the way schools function. No grades and schools tumble into instant chaos.
If kids have to pay attention or fail three or four quizzes a week, wrecking their grade, they will show up in class with a much better attitude. They won’t do it because they are suddenly developing a social conscience, but because their grade, in some cases the only point of contact between the kid and the parent, is involved. Besides the grade, however, this general plan works because the teacher is telling the kids exactly what to do in each moment of class and not giving them an opportunity to do anything else.
To review:
– ten to fifteen minutes of silent reading
– five to ten minutes of translation
– ten to fifteen minutes of CI discussion around the facts of the text
– ten to fifteen minutes of spin out discussion, either during step 3 or as a separate step 4
– five minutes of Quick Quiz
So when the kids say, “This is boring!”, show them real boring! This reading plan is an example of reverse borification. Reverse borification puts a muzzle – a nice thick muzzle – on the kids who insist on talking during stories. How can they talk when, in each segment of the class, there is literally no opportunity to do so, because you are a hawk on these ten to fifteen minute segments? The kicker is the quiz, though.
Does this way of handling reading turn them off to reading? No, not in my opinion. They need to read a lot more than most of us have them read, anyway. FVR is lightning in a bottle for language gains. And, when the kids move out of the first two years and start reading the good stuff, and the discussions grips them, then those early reading classes will have been a direct benefit to their introduction into the good stuff.