Last Friday marked the end of the first quarter of my first year of teaching full-time in a public school! I tried a variety of strategies including lecture, working in groups, pair activities, gallery walks, jigsaws, and other methods to try to capture the attention of my students. Listed below are a list of positives and negatives to take away:
The Positives:
1) Students respond well to positive reinforcement. The raffles and class points system really encourage students to work harder.
2) Most of the students are trying their best. I would say about 80% of all my students put in a decent amount of effort. That’s relatively decent compared to most schools that have it much worse (this also includes my non-accelerated classes). (Santiago was I’d say 50%).
3) Students like me for the most part. To get on students’ good side, I try to ask them how they are doing, give them unnecessary compliments, and build some rapport with them. As a result, they are much more willing to learn.
The Negatives:
1) There are always going to be “bad seeds”. Some of these kids are bad because they choose to be, while others have behavioral issues because of certain things that have happened in their lives (parents being neglectful or dead, etc.). To remedy that situation I put all the bad seeds in different corners of the room. Too many bad kids in one area creates a plague that ultimately disrupts the learning environment.
2) Students are all at different levels. Some students can’t read. Some students read really well. Because of the differing level of students in the class, it becomes hard to teach to all their needs. I would make the argument that smaller class sizes would remedy this situation more. When students enter you class you expect them to be at a certain reading level. To remedy this I attempted to do more pair share and group activities. It’s too bad that the federal government thinks a one size fits all model will work for everyone. Common Core will do nothing other than make the lives of teachers more difficult.
3) Motivating kids is hard. To the students that don’t care – it becomes difficult to encourage them to care. It’s hard to explain to them how exactly schoolwork translates into the real world. It doesn’t do so directly, but having the reading and critical thinking skills necessary will only improve their overall future as they get older. Eventually I will get better at doing so, but it still remains much of a challenge.
My room is finally decorated after all this time, including my door which was decorated for a Halloween contest. Fingers crossed that I at least place first second or third!
I am working on building friendships in Las Vegas. I spend many weekends volunteering for the Opportunity Village or the Nevada State Museum, which keeps me slightly more preoccupied than usual. Here’s to hoping a future game night is in the works with the friends I’ve made.
It looks like you had a good first quarter overall. It’s quite a shame that some students in your class still can’t read, but I suppose many of those are likely the ones that don’t care as much as the other students. It’s definitely hard to find ways to motivate those students, but you just have to keep trying (without being overbearing) to figure out what can give them the initial push they need.