Tomorrow is world car-free day -- good thing I'll be scootering to work. It's also perfect timing for the 6th graders' lesson on environmental pollution... Their textbook has sentence patterns like, "The river was dirty last year. The river is clean now." So I'm going to show them some before and after photos, and have them discuss what changed. I'll also tell them about the burning of the Cuyahoga River. Hopefully it will be an interesting integration of subjects and push them beyond the textbook a little. This grade has been the most challenging thus far. It's a challenging age, but I think there's potential for some real interaction. Last Monday marked the end of the observation period and I started co-teaching officially. To get to know the 6th graders better I had them write a little about themselves... below are two of my favorites (and just in case you weren't sure, Wayne is not in fact twenty years old... sometimes they get confused between twelve and twenty).
I think we will be happy in this year, too, as long as classroom management doesn't become an issue. One of the students has a history of tantrums - purportedly he once stormed out of a class and hitchhiked to Su-ao. Fights have broken out in the other class (not while I was teaching), compelling my co-teacher to spend more class time on disciplinary measures. Anne's mother was also a teacher at our school for many years, and her advice was to find ways to relate to the students. For now some of the girls have been teaching me Taiwanese phrases and games (paper rock scissors, jump!) at recess.
2 comments:
Hey Miranda! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply (and that I'm doing this through your blog...). It looks like you're doing so well, and I'm so glad you were placed in Jhong Sing. The sixth grade (fifth for me, obviously) was hard to get to know, but when you click, you'll absolutely love them. They ended up being my favorite last year (shh, don't tell the other grades!), and I really had a great time teaching them. Best of luck, and let me know if you need any help/have any questions!
They are also my favorite year, though they may have been cuter as third graders. If your steven is the one I'm thinking of, he was one of my favorite students.
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