On Point!

Some days while teaching, lessons flop. There are days when it is a struggle to keep kids engaged. Some days it's like pulling teeth to get kids to respond to the simplest of questions and as a teacher I stand in the front of the room feeling like a idiot waiting in awkward silence. There are definitely way too many of those days and it's one of my goals to cut down on those days.

But then there are days like today. Days when your lesson is fun and engaging. Days when you can get kids to laugh and enjoy the lesson while still making sure that they comprehend the material. Days when your assessment acutally feels worthwhile and has a purpose beyond grades. I have this one class that is silent. Half of the class is made up of international kids and the other half are the quiet/shy kids. So getting them to participate and engage in the lesson is struggle to say the least. But today was different. Today I was excited about the lesson and about some silly ways that I was able to interact with another class the day before. Most of my lessons involve me explaining a concept, showing the class and example and then working through and exampel with the class. After that I will usually check to see how well they are able to apply that concept by having the  class try a problem on their own and then we go over the problem together. Usually I tell the class to turn to their neighbor when they are finished and check their answers with them. Well, with this class, that rarely happens so I start having them say the words "I've got it" when they are finished so that I know that they are done and we can go over the problem and move on with the lesson. Even the "I've got its" are hard to get my students to say because they are just silent. So today I tried something different. I had a little bit of leverage because they wanted to see what grades they got on their tests so that definitely helped. But I told the class that we would not move on until I heard every single person say "I've got it." But that was sort of boring. So instead of saying "I've got it," I told them they had to SING "I've got it." When the first couple of students wispered "I've got it" I told them that we would not be moving on until I heard the whole class singing. Believe it or not, it worked. The kids started giggling and snickering about having to sing, but it woke them up. They start participating more than they have ever participated in the past and seemed to not only understand the lesson, but enjoy the lesson. The next problem I switched it up and instead of having them sing "I've got it" I had them say it in spanish "Yo lo tengo." I can't tell you how funny it was to see my Chinese and Vietnames kids saying "Yo lo tengo" but it was the ice breaker I feel that we desperately needed.

I don't know if that was the trick and I highly doubt that I will go in on Monday to a completely transformed and enlightened class, but for today, I felt like I was not only doing my job but that I was doing it well.