I've talked a few times about THAT class in my posts. I've said that they are overwhelming and I am not particularly fond of teaching them. So what makes THAT class so bad? One, there are 28 students, the sheer number of students in THAT class is overwhelming as it is. Two, THEY NEVER STOP TALKING! They do not understand the concept of don't talk while other people are talking. I know they're young, I don't expect them to do it while other students are talking/sharing but at least while I'm talking! Three, mimicry, in almost all of my classes, some of the students like to mimic me. In my grade one classes and my am grade two class it's cute. In THAT class it is annoying and it seems a bit mean spirited. You may know that I don't take to teasing very well (this is because I don't know how to react to it), and I don't want to get angry at a bunch of little kids (some of them aren't so little). Four, The Dynamic Duo of my Eternal Headaches, due to confidentiality, that is what I will call them. These two are the little hellraisers that always start up the commotion in the class. Whenever I'm targeting an individual, it's always one of them. The enigmatic thing about this class is that they're smart! Who would've guessed? When they're actually quiet and answering my questions, they know it! Even The Dynamic Duo of my Eternal Headaches are very smart! With all these problems, how did I figure out what to do? That is an adventure in teaching that I will explain now.
Speaking from a teacher's standpoint and not a student's, I finally understand why class size is an issue. I teach 4 grade one classes and 2 grade 2 classes. I have a total of 67 grade one students with about 20 in each of my morning classes and approximately 15 (or less) in my afternoon classes. It's very even and I have no complaints there. I have 42 grade 2 students with about 14 in my morning class and 28 in the afternoon class. The first day that I walked into that class the first thing I said was "there's too many of you! Move your desks!" The reason I did this was one, so I could possible maneuver around the tiny room and two it reminded me of a class in high school. My 12th grade English class was enormous in the beginning of the year (at least it seemed that way). I believe there were 37 students on the list and there were 40 some odd desks in the room. The original teacher had the desks in rows so we were crammed in there like sardines. It did make the class seem huge. When the new teacher took over the first thing he said was "I'm moving desks". At this point about 15 students were in different classes. He had enough desks in the classroom for all of us and we were in table groups that were spaced apart. It made the class seem less big. I tried this strategy for myself and it worked to no avail. Then I was faced with the 4 problems that made that class THAT class.
Solution 1: These problems don't exist. I attempted to carry on my class like I normally would with my bubbly personality that is funny and educational. I was only shot down by all the yelling, and The Dynamic Duo of my Eternal Headaches. Throw that out the window.
Solution 2: YELL! This is how I learned not to underestimate my own voice. I am able to talk over 28 yelling, screaming kids. This worked to an extent. I would have to countdown from 5 every 2 minutes but at least they would be quiet for a couple of seconds. :/ That little symbol is the equivalent of *sigh*.
Note: Doing this completely drained my voice for my last class.
Solution 3: THE DEATH STARE! I talked about the death stare in great detail earlier but sadly it's lost its effectiveness. I have to stare at a kid for a long time in order for it to work. I still use it so it has some degree of effectiveness.
Solution 4: Put the fear of lines into their hearts. Score one for collaboration on this one. This is the strategy that is working splendidly. The form of punishment here is to make kids write lines. You take them to the office after class and they write lines for whatever period of time you want or however many lines you want. It is effective because they lose their break and that's rough considering that some kids are here from 8 to 5. This was suggested by one of my colleagues Teacher Mike. Thank you so much!
Solution 5: This is my mad face >:( GRR! I used this while working with solution 3. It was a form of method acting, get surly! I would walk into the class and I would look like I was genuinely pissed (but not necessarily at them, like I've been having a bad day and now I have to teach THAT class). I have some genuine acting ability (from way long ago) because they bought it. I would be strict, and I would command attention. It worked! Until I realized that it killed my soul to do it and because of that I couldn't keep it up. There are some really cute kids in that class, I can't be mad at them! Because of that I had to abandon that strategy.
Now that I've adopted solution 4 I'm able to loosen up a bit. Since they actually behave a bit, I can maybe go back to my normal style of teaching (as explained in solution 1). This week is midterms week, after I grade them all I'm going to do a reflection piece contemplating whether or not I'm a good teacher. I will try to keep self loathing to a minimum when this comes up.
Till next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment