I am glad I am only in the elementary school for two days a week. By the end of today I was exhausted. It was a busy, busy day. I am wondering if 40 kids in one room with two teachers is such a good idea. I am also wondering if letting kids choose where they sit every day is also a good idea. They invariably choose their friends and then that leads to chatting which leads to not paying attention which leads to discipline. It's so frustrating when a good amount of time is spent saying 'don't pick so and so up,' 'stand in the line,' 'find your seat,' blah blah. Sometimes I think kids are given too much freedom in the classroom. There should be times when they get a choice, such as picking a book for a book report and there should be times when they do not, like when to switch math centres. Do you think a grade 2 student is going to be able to accurately gage how long they have been at a centre and when to switch? If their friends don't switch, neither will they. It leads to chaos and then accusations of 'so and so never switched and I never got a turn on the computer,' or whatever. I'm all for free choice....controlled free choice. Is that such a thing? Anyway, these last two days have been really interesting. There are things I will adopt in my own classroom and things that I will not do as well.
On a happier note, yesterday we were drawing the flag of Saskatchewan, which has a tiger lily on it. One of the boys was having difficulties and he looked at his neighbour (who was a girl) and said, 'how come your flower looks so good?' And she said 'because I am a girl and we just know how to draw flowers.'
No comments:
Post a Comment