Stickin' to my Guns

Alright, so I was supposed to pick a class and stay consistent with my rules for two weeks. Well, I tried, but, honestly, I don't know if I succeeded. Its hard enough to be in a classroom with thirty kids, trying to teach, while still having an Ole Miss homework assignment lingering in the back of your head. I hope I'm not the only one to admit this, but - I don't think about my assignments while I'm teaching. That's not to say that I don't think about Teacher Corps. So much of the advice, suggestions, and encouragement has followed me into that classroom every day, and I am so grateful for it. But, when it comes down to a situation with a student, and he/she is putting their learning at risk, and other students learning at risk, my highest concern is handling the situation in the most effective way possible. Now, in the course of my last three months of teaching, I've discovered that consistency with my rules does not always prove to be the most effective way of de-escalating a situation. However, I do not want to make the claim that consistency is poor advice given by the teacher corps - if anything, consistency is GREAT advice that I wish I was able to follow. What I have learned from the experience of not finding it effective to stay consistent, is not that the advice needs to alter,but that my rues need to change. I am trying to implement better rules for my classroom so that they are somethig I am comfortable staying consistent with. What makes this task so difficult, is the number of unique details and circumstances that each new day and incident brings with it. Soemtimes, I'm not in the best mood - and, sad to say it, this will effect how I want my class to run that day. Sometimes, a whole class is being disruptive, and - instead of giving them all the consequence - I might choose to make an example out of one of them. Other days, thoough, I might just stick my head out in the hallway and invite the assisstant principal t come in and slowly start pulling them out one by one. It just depends. That seems to be my most consistent rule, actually - I will dtermine the proper disciplinary action for each individual action. It may not be fair, but, what I say goes. Wow! Sometimes "teacher-me" is such an *!%**!.

Learning Style Assessment

Just finished reading through all of the Worksheets I passed out. I definately got some interesting results, but I'm not quite sure what is accurate, and what I should even think about the results that do seem accurate. The one reult of the questionairre, the result that struck me before the students even finished filling out the assessment, is that these children DO NOT know how to read or understand a question. Yes, yes, I've known for a while now that these students can't read, and that is awful in its own right - but, that's not what I'm referring to this time. If I were to ask these kids a question about themselves - for example, "do you have opinions that set you apart from the crowd?" - they stare at me, some with glazed eyes, others with twisted mouths, and eventually one of them says in a loud and childish voice, "huh?" Every other question/stement on that inventory, I had to explain to those kids - and even after explaining it, I'm not quite so sure that they understood everything. Of course, I'm willing to give them a certain amount of grace by acknowledging that the inventory was not built for Middle Schoolers, and that many of those words were, perhaps, above the 7th grade standard vocabulary. BUt, C'mon!! A 14 year old who cannot understand what someone is referring to when saying "set you apart from the crowd." That's Sickening!! And, of course, when I looked at the questionaiire, every student - the whole crowd of em - checked "yes" for that box. But, I suppose that is a typical response for any person - everyone is trying to be a unique.
Moving on, apart from these kids not really understanding the questions on the inventory, there were some other points of interest for me. First off, the questions seemed silly. I don't want to knock any of the doctors/scientists/scholars/whoever who have put years of study and effort into making these inventories - Lord knows I wouldn't know where to begin. But, alot of it just seems insulting to me. First of all, I don't like when people refer to me as a certain "type" of learner. What the hell does that even mean? I understand thag what makes sense to one person may have to be explained in a different way to another person, but, personally, I find that the more ways you can explain it, the better I'll be able to understand it, no matter what my "type." And, getting back to these questions - one section consisted of the following questions: A) Have you attended counseling sessions or personal growth seminars to learn more about yourself? B) Do you have opinions that set you apart from the crowd? C) Do you have important goals in your life that you think about on a regular basis? D) Do you consider yourself to be strong willed or independent minded? E) Do you keep a diary or journal to record the events in your inner life? So, if you answer "Yes" to most of these questions, you are considered "Self-Smart". Now, with the exception of A and E, lets face it, evrybody's gonna answer yes. And, being someone who has attended counselling, and who once kept a diary, in no way do I consider myself someone who is more "self-smart" than a person who has done neither. I guess what I'm trying to say is, the questions asked on this particular assessment, do not seem good enough to etll a person anything of reall value.
Well, now that I've basically admitted to not buying into the assessment, let me state my results and my plan of action from here on out. While each student filled out the inventory differently, there were some similarities that I found: 1) The majority of girls are PEOPLE SMART 2) Most of the students I gave this inventory to had the lowest score for LOGIC SMART 3) The majority of boys are BODY SMART 4) Most of the SPED students had a high score for PICTURE SMART. What will I do with these results? Well, I feel as though I am already trying to cater to all of these different "types of smart" in my lessons, although, I will probably try to use more pictures/graphs/charts, etc. Also, it may not be a benchmark - and, God forbid I should stray from the pacing guide - but, I want these kids to learn to ask questions, and to learn how to think about questions. Personally, if these Learning Style Assessments have any value, and my kids are scoring lowest on Logic - I'm not OK with that. Yes, every learning style is beautiful and meaningful in its own right, blah, blah, blah... but, if these kids could learn to think about things, learn how to answer a question - any question - then, screw the tests. Teach them how to think, and the tests are take care of.