Why, hello! I have decided that I am just going to update this blog once a week--on Sundays. If there is no post by Monday evening, someone should call me and yell at me, okay? I feel as though I really need to keep you all up to date with my experiences, specifically those that I do not see daily. I feel like I am cheating you all out of some wonderfully hilarious and frustrating stories. I think that if I were to do this much more regularly, my posts would be shorter and I would not have as hard of a time deciding what to write about. Fortunately, there are an abundant number of stories I'd like to share with you all. Unfortunately, there is only so much time in the day and I spend too much of it staring at my computer screen writing lessons.
And now, for the biggest story of my week. On Friday of this week, during the start of Social Studies activity, I had divided my students into five groups—one for each section of the chapter. Their job was to be working together as a group to complete a worksheet with focus questions about their section. While walking around and checking in with my groups, I realized that one group in particular was really struggling to work as a team. Two students were completely off task, two others were semi off-task, and one student was attempting to work.
I held a short conversation with the group about working as a team and explained to them that it was very important to me that they work together as a team to complete this activity. I told students that my intention for them working in groups to read/discuss each section was so that those students could become our class’s experts on that section and help me when discuss it as a whole group. Throughout the conversation, I made sure to mention the phrase, ‘important to me,’ several times as a way to convey that they and what they are doing is important to me. Just then, out of left field, a young boy states, “We’re not important to you anyway, so why should we do this?”
It hit me harder than almost anything I’ve ever heard. How could I not care about them? I’m there every single day trying my hardest to help each one of them learn as much as they can. If I didn’t care about each one of them, I wouldn’t be there. There was a long pause before I could say anything because I was so stunned. Finally, I managed to say that what he had said was completely untrue. I told the group that I care for them very much and that I am in the classroom with them every single day to help them learn and grow as people of the world. While four of the group members seemed to like my response, the young boy, however, kept saying that they didn’t matter to me. I was very glad to have one of the young girls ask me why I wanted to be a teacher. I simply said, “I want to be a teacher because of all of you. I want to be in the classroom with you and help you learn and answer your questions and inspire you all to be lifelong learners.” After this, the young boy did not say anything else, but it seemed as though he was still wanting to.
While I realize that his statement could have simply been a mechanism to get a rise out of me, as this young boy and I go back and forth a lot. It is possible that he knew that I would be hurt by his statement, but I think that he was surprised to see me respond so strongly.
I will be the first person to say that I have been frustrated this week, particularly with my students not following expectations/directions. I have recently had an epiphany regarding my frustrations in the classroom. I am expecting too much out of myself and my students. I am a student teacher—there is no way that I can expect that I will have everything figured out by now (or ever), particularly with classroom management. I, just like my students, am learning. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a process—it’s not something that just happens. As much as I hate to, I really need to lower my expectations for myself in terms of classroom management and accept that I will not be perfect. As far as my students go, I need to also remember that they need for me to model a way of being that will help them best to grow and learn. Right now, I’m definitely not doing that by being so frustrated with them and displaying that frustration so easily. They’re kids and they’re doing the best they can.
And quickly, before I finish, I thought I'd end this post with a short and happy story. Friday afternoon, around 5:45 pm when we were finally leaving the school, as I was crossing the parking lot to my car, I hear a shriek of a little girl as she screams, "MISS HAAAWWWLLLLEEEY!" I turn and look into the sun, squinting, attempting to see who this young girl is. As soon as I recognize her, she hits me running full speed with the largest hug I've received in a long time. She had run all the way across the parking lot to tell me that she was going camping with her girl scouts troop and would be staying in a lodge--all weekend. I share in her excitement by asking questions about her trip. Smiling, I look past her to see at least five parents, three other 3rd/4th grade girls, and their younger siblings all looking my way. All had seen (and heard) this young girl scream my name and hit me with the hug. To know that she was that excited and wanted to share it (with me!) made my entire month. E.L., thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment