This chapter had wonderful ideas for balance in all avenues (instruction, discipline, & our personal lives).
** By the way, my Kindle had a typo and said, "Balancing Lift with Teaching."
Pretty sure it meant "Life." **
Several takeaways for me were:
1) Model, group practice, & independent still works: "I do, We do, You do." We also have to keep our instruction full of options to engage all students.
2) For any discipline to work, "you have to show the kids that you care about them and find wags to make them like being around you and in your class."
3) "We can't teach about life if we don't have a life... We have to allow ourselves breaks."
Choose one of the topics (instruction, discipline, or life) and share how you use balance.
Several takeaways for me were:
1) Model, group practice, & independent still works: "I do, We do, You do." We also have to keep our instruction full of options to engage all students.
2) For any discipline to work, "you have to show the kids that you care about them and find wags to make them like being around you and in your class."
3) "We can't teach about life if we don't have a life... We have to allow ourselves breaks."
Choose one of the topics (instruction, discipline, or life) and share how you use balance.
I am pretty tough on my kids in class. I have high expectations which I make them aware of from day one. We have a policy in 4th grade: If you receive a citation during the same 9 weeks as a field trip, you lose your right to attend. While I am hard on my students, we also have a lot of fun. We joke around and are often sarcastic (in fun) with one another. We have a close relationship with one another and feel like a family. It's especially easy this year with such a good class of only 15 students.
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ReplyDeleteOf course, you know how I feel about Home Visits. To me, taking the time for home visits in the summer sets the tone for my discipline all year. The kids know I care enough about them to come to their home. This also makes the phone calls to parents easier, too. Also, attending their extra curricular activities (ball games are huge!) seriously improved my relationship with these kids. "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
Instruction-I think giving students choices(which gives opportunities for easy engagement) and keeping in mind how each one in the classroom can be successful is very important. I think that way it discourages bad behavior.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bethany. I am tough on my kids too, and yet I still show balance with that by having fun with them and showing them I care. My students know when its time to have fun and time to get down to business. I never want to be so hard on my kids that they feel like they can't feel comfortable coming to me. However, I want them to know my expectations and that when the fun is over I want them to do the best they can do.
ReplyDeleteDiscipline-I used to be very good about balancing my discipline in my classroom by not only contacting parents when kids are having a bad day, but also when students have had highlights throughout a day. I have not been very good at doing this, this year but in years past I found it helpful to call parents and let them know that their child either had a great day (which some students here may never experience) or just a time throughout a day when I see a student being kind, or helpful or on task. For some parents the only time they are contacted by teachers is to hear all the negative things their children have done, so I found it helpful to contact especially these parents with highlights as well. Then when you have to contact them for discipline purposes many times you find that they are more attentive to what you have to say!
ReplyDeleteI balance moments when they think I am completely insane with times when they think I am a total genius.
ReplyDeleteI feel like my life is a whirl wind. If I'm not at work, I'm at the ball field. When I'm at the ball field I'm also working. If I'm at home, I'm working. I decided that I need to have a little more balance in life. I think I need to be more present with my family. Yes, I am physically with them, but I need to be more mentally and emotionally with them. I like the quote, "In order to teach life, you have to have a life." I feel like my "life" revolves around work and sports. I need to take a little more time to just enjoy my children while they are still young. I need to talk to them not at them more. I need to take more time to clear my head, which is very hard for me to do. The other day I was hurrying Kiefer along and I was so aggravated because he was lagging behind, but when I turned around he was stopping to smell the flowers. When I realized what he was doing, I thought I need to do that more. Starting today I will start doing better at having a life, and not just going through the motions.
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