It's February, and here in Tennessee we are having some rather unseasonable weather. By now in our school district, we would have already missed about five or six days from snow and be well on our way to adding an additional 30 minutes onto our school days in the Spring to make up for it.
So far, we've had one, single, solitary snow day. On the plus side, we won't have to add those thirty extra minutes, and we'll probably get out of school on time. On the down side, my students have lost their mother-lovin minds. We're past mid-year now, and my students are very used to having some de-coompression time around this time in the school year. Sure, they get two weeks off for Christmas break, but once you actually get relaxed and settled past the hubbub of the holidays, it's already time to head back to school. Those little snow days give everyone a little extra time to relax and break away from the monotony of the every day school routine.
Without those breaks, my students are restless. To boot, I am currently teaching a unit that they struggle with, have a hard time relating to, and one that I admit is my weakest.
It's been a trying time in 'ole Mrs. McFadden's classroom this week. Rather than be miserable, rather than complain about it, and rather than suffering through it all, I've tried my best with each day to do SOMETHING to help it all work out.
I started with immersing myself in some of my favorite teaching books for inspiration. I am currently reading Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them. Ms. Kittle, a high school teacher, shares how she implements writing notebooks into her classroom and leads by example by writing when her student's write, modeling her writing, and thinking aloud how her thought processes work when she writes.
I need to do more of this. I read her book the summer before i started teaching, and I tried implementing these things into my classroom, but I fell short and never really achieved what I wanted. This doesn't mean we give up- quite the opposite. We say: what can I do INSTEAD to make it work.
Also, just because it is almost March, doesn't mean I can't add something new into our daily routine. This is where I've gone wrong. I've said to myself, "Hey! I have a routine. I can't break into that." I'm not ready to begin doing this yet, but in the next couple of weeks I will give it a-go and see if I can achieve the results I want. Future report to come.
My students spent this week wrapping up all the details and skills they need to start conducting research this Monday for a research paper they are writing. I tried my hardest to include some activities to get them up and out of their seats. With lesson topics such as: summarizing vs. paraphrasing, MLA format, and how to make note & source cards, it was a DRY week. Our MLA lesson was particularly dreadful. My classroom was stuffy, many kids were falling asleep, and I was at a loss for how to get them back.
One of the most successful moments in my room this week was a short five minute review of the skills we had learned. I told them all to stand up and begin circulating around the room while I played music. When the music stopped, they were to find a partner close to them. I gave them a topic, and they discussed. When the music started back, they circulated and found a new partner when the music stopped. At times being completely out of the loop as to what kids listen to, I chose the YMCA. They loved it. The particularly brave kids danced around the room to the music. The shy ones shuffled, but that's ok. I spit out my topics: what is paraphrasing, why do we do it, why do we cite sources, etc. When I was done, they returned to their seats, and we had a great conversation when we shared their answers. There were many, "See! I told you so!" and other shouts across the classroom. These comments prove they were TALKING, and they were talking about some of the most BORING topics to middle school students, but they enjoyed it.
It's very easy to get down this time of year, to get wrapped up in the negativity floating through the hallways, and to show up each day with the "is it almost Friday?" face. I pride myself on being a positive person, an optimist. I spend five days a week from 6:30-2:30 in my school, and I spend more time at home planning and thinking about what's going to go on in there. If I don't love my job, I'll be miserable, and that's not ok with me.
