Teaching during this time of year can be extra exhausting and challenging and yet so rewarding.
My students have been acting crazy. They have spring fever! And I am so so tired and the week was busy with grades and meetings and weird schedules. So, yesterday I decided to show a bit more of West Side Story and use it to review plot, characterization, recurring themes, etc. We came to the part where Maria is singing "I feel pretty . . ." She gets to the part where she says 'gay" and every period snickered and I reminded them of what gay means in our classroom. But when it happened in 5th period the least likely child did it for me. ". . . and gay" is sung, the class snickers and this boy who is always bored and who acts out and I am surprised he has heard anything I have said all year speaks, "geez, grow up, she just means she is happy and there is nothing wrong with being gay!"
At that moment a smile found its way to my face and I thanked him. It was so priceless.
Today we were working on creating arguments for issues in the world as part of our persuasive unit. They really seemed to want to talk so I introduced them to debate. I explained they had to be active listeners and speak when it was there turn and I would only ask clarifying questions. They chose the topics. When we discussed immigration one of my least productive students announced she had watched the news about the Arizona immigration law and she wanted to understand it better.
Okay so that is the end of that day back in April of 2010. And now it is 2012 and I am still exhausted. CSTs start a week from Tuesday. I feel done and oddly enough I went looking for my blog in order to clear my head and also get back in the game tomorrow morning.
I did have the realization last week that this is not the way I had decided to teach. Reviewing for CST for 4 weeks is ridiculous. Of course, the moved the date back after we already started. Now I am faced with keeping my students ready, relaxed and rigorous. Tomorrow will be about goal setting for each of them, plus independent reading, sentence correction, and dealing with informational texts. UGH it sounds as boring as it is. I better did deeper and think of something to get them thinking.
Okay so that is the end of that day back in April of 2010. And now it is 2012 and I am still exhausted. CSTs start a week from Tuesday. I feel done and oddly enough I went looking for my blog in order to clear my head and also get back in the game tomorrow morning.
I did have the realization last week that this is not the way I had decided to teach. Reviewing for CST for 4 weeks is ridiculous. Of course, the moved the date back after we already started. Now I am faced with keeping my students ready, relaxed and rigorous. Tomorrow will be about goal setting for each of them, plus independent reading, sentence correction, and dealing with informational texts. UGH it sounds as boring as it is. I better did deeper and think of something to get them thinking.
