Today was not so much a good day, and for the first time since I started teaching (a scant month ago), I am not so much looking forward to tomorrow. This morning we started out the day with a lecture about grades, turning in work, and behaviour, given by me. I was pretty cranky for reasons that don’t bear getting into (hunting down recalcitrant students to force them to do their missing work, and the bathroom break. Don’t even get me started on the bathroom break!). After that, they were steadily terrible all day, even in my smaller class, which is usually much quieter and more diligent. Did I set them on a path to resentful misbehavior by starting out the day negatively?
Worse than the bad behaviour was the feeling that we didn’t learn anything all day. Science was especially excruciating. I taught the lesson the way I usually do: having them read from the text book and explaining each new concept as it comes up. Today I felt more certain than ever that I was mostly talking to myself, and not a single person grasped the concept. It’s a terrible feeling. Better science lessons will mean much more planning than I’ve been able to devote and some real soul searching about how to teach these topics. Science and Social Studies are the two subjects that I most keenly feel the limitations of a bilingual classroom - concepts which fairly complex to understand in your native language become a minefield of opaque vocabulary in a new language. Some of my kids speak almost no English at all, and I have not been successful so far at arriving at a good balance between slipping into too much Spanish (to make sure everyone understands) and neglecting Spanish altogether (and thus losing a portion of my audience).
I’ve more or less given up on teaching Math in English, but since I have never taken any Math in Spanish myself, I have to stop and look in the kids’ textbooks all the time because I don’t recognize the vocabulary they use. (Yesterday I was stumped by a word that turned out to be “integer”). Still, at least in Math we are learning. (A longer Math post is forthcoming)
All of this is a buildup to what my post is really about, which is Sheer Dread for tomorrow. The sixth grade is the only grade level that lives entirely out in temporaries. We traipse in and out of the building several times a day for lunch, Fine Arts, and bathroom breaks. Other grade levels (in the school building proper) are taking standardized test benchmarks tomorrow, and in the interest of maintaining a sacrosanct silence, 6th grade is not going in the building tomorrow. No P.E. (which means no planning period for me), no recess, and lunch will be eaten in our room. The whole day, we’ll be in the same room.
ooof.
I took a train trip down to Austin last weekend, and it afforded me time not only to grade papers but also to finish a Robertson Davies book.If you’ve never read anything of his, skip The Cunning Man and read the Fifth Business, which is the first book of the excellent Deptford Trilogy. I can’t recommend him highly enough as an author; his prose is meaty and satisfying, and I find myself constantly nodding my head at his insights.With that said, I can’t recommend The Cunning Man very highly if you’re not already a Davies afficionado. It’s all writing and no book.Will expand more on this soon….





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