Unimportant Ramblings

It is the last day of my first semester of teaching. I get all new students tomorrow and essentially a fresh start with my philosophy of teaching. I think I went about things all wring last semester, putting far too much focus on the algorithm of how and didn't allow enough time to explore or test out their knowledge. I honestly didn't give enough of the right kinds of feedback either. People need to know if they are doing something correctly or incorrectly in order to build confidence and they need confidence in order to be invested. Today we played a game called "trashketball" and I regret not having employed it earlier in the year. Kids seemed to be invested and wanted to win. We split the class into two teams and each team picked their own team name--"The Spartans" vs "The Shopping Center." Hilarious. Anyway, one person from each team came up and raced to solve the same problem. Whoever solved it correctly first won a point and then got a chance to shoot a wadded up piece of paper into the garbage cans for 1,3, or 5 extra points, depending on how far away they stood. I heard so many students saying, "Ohhhh, Now I get it!" Amazing how a little interaction can spark the mind.

Next semester I am going to be less no-nonsense in the sense that we are not going to power through things so much but rather have a deeper understanding of them, and more no-nonsense in the sense that I want stricter management, and I want every kid doing their work and paying attention well enough to ask questions. BUT, that management won't come from a place of control, it will come from a place of care and concern. I think this last semester so much of what I did came from a place of fear of an unruly classroom, and thus my focus was on control rather than healthy interaction.