One of the great things about the teaching profession is that you are presented with new challenges every year, whether you want them or not. This year, I have been asked to teach the 9th Grade Algebra Seminar. For most 9th graders, their Geometry class meets four out of the five days each week. The Seminar, graded pass/fail, meets the fifth day of the week for those students who have been identified as having had a weak performance in 8th Grade Algebra I. As you might have predicted, these students are NOT happy about being there.
I went into the course having little idea what exactly these students needed or wanted. Well, what they want is to have me cancel class every Tuesday, but as the saying goes, "you can't always get what you want." What I have identified over the course of this first quarter of the year is that these students, when they can concentrate on Math itself, are not as bad as they or other teachers make them out to be. Their issues are structural. These are the students who always are asking for a pencil, need batteries for their calculators and/or take notes on scraps of paper which end up in the detritus of the hazardous waste sites called their backpacks. They are just as intelligent, ok, within the margin of error, as their more successful classmates who aren't in the seminar.
So, I've implemented "the Plan." I must give credit to my colleague Chris D. for creating this idea as he was the one who taught this seminar last year. Students are required to have a pencil, notebook, calculator, any required handouts and be facing the front not talking to their classmates at the time class begins. The threat is that if they do not meet this "regularly", I will call their mothers.
I have seen a marked increase in their ability to have their items ready for class. It has been so effective that in any of my 9th grade classes, the mere threat of being put on "the Plan" has struck fear into their hearts. If I hear someone ask someone else for a calculator, I'll threaten the offender with "the Plan" if they actually use their peers calculator. More often than not they will forgo use of the calculator. But you bet it's there the next day!
Do YOU need to go on "the Plan?"
1 comment:
I do not need to go on "The Plan." I bring my HP12C to Real Estate Appraisal each class. Although, today, I was 7 minutes late, and it was the first time in 12 sessions. So I do not need to go on "The Plan" but its existence sends fear into my heart and I pray I shall never be late again. On the other hand, my Mom would probably love to speak with you.
If I do arrive at my Real Estate Appraisal class, or without my 12 - "Six Functions of a Dollar and Reverse Polish Notation" - C, I will email you with my mother's phone number, and I will expect that you will call her. The unintended side effect will be that she will love you and clench you to her bosom as if you were her own shamed, calculator-less son.
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