i have just started my fourth week teaching in a grade four class in ottawa. with the reputation of being one of the toughest classes in the whole school, i knew i was going to have my hands full. i have always been more hesitant about teaching junior grades because of their emerging attitudes - but what i didn't expect is that i adore them! through their anger, sass and denial, i have developed quite a fondness of them. they certainly are a really tough bunch: high needs behaviourally, academically struggling and highly impulsive and talkative. for some reason, i don't find their attitudes discouraging, i am only MORE motivated to develop a positive rapport with them. i figure that if i can work in this classroom and still walk out at the end of the day smiling, then i can work almost anywhere!
it would be impossible to fully capture the personalities in my class, but i will give it a try.
1. "miss. fleming, will we be invited to your wedding?"
2. "i am going to sue this school. and everyone in it. especially YOU."
3. "i don't have time to put my homework in my bag. you don't know my routine. i have to get up, have a shower, eat my breakfast and watch my show."
4. "can we have real darts and jousting and duals in the classroom?"
5. "we have to write in full sentences? WHAT? i hate this school."
6. "ummm. miss fleming... my tooth is stuck in a caramel..."
7. "i need a pencil? i don't know... what is this??"
8. "do i still get a point if i did my homework but i left it at home?"
9. "miss fleming... you should be principal. we would never get in trouble."
that's what they think....!
4 comments:
Yesterday, I did a presentation for a group of Montessori kids where one of the instructions was for one of the kids to come up with something simple and non-embarassing (point emphasized) for another kid to do.
Which, apparently, the boy decided meant: "Hit yourself in the face with a hammer as hard as you can." Yeah, he was about nine years old. :p
beat this, my dear. policeman, patrolling the schoolyard in one london city school. every day. normal procedure.
my kiddies upstairs in a stuffy 1960s eggshell white classroom pottering their way through optics (me, perhaps naively, entirely willingly describing Newtonian self experimentation with bodkins in his eye, figuring out the properties of light. a beaming and silent (more or less) class, entranced with the history of science...
policeman, complete with dorky little helmet, strolling the gated schoolyard below.
talk about dichotomy. oh, what fun!
xx
and pretend for a minute that I can indeed write complete sentences...good thing I'm not an english teacher. whoops.
will re-read next time.
x
(and yes, they were silent! for about 5minutes...but still! haha).
You are sooooo funny!!
JBW
ps- And you're right...kids DO say the darndest things!!
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