Thursday and Friday in review.

Well, I've finished out the first week of the new year.  Only 39 more weeks to go!  If the school year were a human gestation, we'd be a blastocyst approaching embryo status.  We've got a long way to go, baby.

Thursday was the first full day of the new year.  I taught five periods.  My morning went well.  I taught the first three periods of the day straight through without much of a hitch.  I did a little icebreaker activity with the kids so they could get to know me better.  I had them answer a series of true or false questions about me based on observations and inferences.  They did pretty well.  I tell a lot of personal stories in class when appropriate to hook them onto a certain topic.  We're going to spend a year together, so they may as well get to know me as I plan to know them well by the end of June.  I drudged up my comprehensive whopper of a syllabus and laid it on the kids.  Most seemed overwhelmed, but I find it necessary to put all of my rules, expectations, and procedures in writing at the beginning of the year.  I show them my hand, letting them know that I hold all of the cards, and let them decide if they really want to play with me.  Most get the message the first time around, but there are always a few who wish to challenge my authority at some point, and I merely refer them to my rules, expectations, procedures, and consequences outlined in the syllabus.  I don't put up big posters with rules and procedures; I make them known and I make certain that they are common sense.  This approach seems to work with high schoolers, but I think I would have to modify my methods should I ever find myself in an elementary classroom.

I had my fourth and fifth periods free and basically wasted them talking to my colleagues.  I enjoyed their company, but I made no progress on my lesson plans.  I ate lunch.  It was a healthy, depressing lunch.  

I taught sixth period and things began to get wonky.  The kids were drifting into conversations and I had to start reeling them in, giving me a chance to model some ways I use to correct behavior.  Mercifully, the junior-senior lunch period and a free seventh period hung out like a bright orange carrot, so I put my blinders on and made sure to survive that class.  

Eighth period.  I could begin to loathe you eighth period, but it's too early to tell.  A smart bunch of kids.  A talkative bunch of kids.  They like to interrupt and interject.  This does not jive with me.  I made my rules and consequences clear, causing them to calm down.  When the bell rang, a wave of elation crashed over me.  One full day down.  Not so bad, not so good, overall okay.  As expected.  I have some work to do, but once I begin my content next week, I know they will buckle down and get to work because they have no viable alternative.

Friday rolled around.  First friday of the year, the end of the first week.  I plowed through my syllabus in all of my classes, making sure that I wrapped it up in a timely fashion, left no stone unturned, no policy unannounced.  It is not exciting stuff, but, like I tell the kids, I get through it once, we all understand it, and hopefully, I never have to speak of it again.  What they don't know is that they will be immediately quizzed on what they heard over the last two days in class.  As soon as I finished, I took a breath, a nice long pause, and announced the quiz.  They shrieked objections!  I gave them five minutes to review my impossibly long and detailed syllabus.

I asked them to take everything off of their desks except a writing utensil.  I passed out the quizzes and searched their faces to see the familiar look of panic.  As expected, some took it in stride and began working on the quiz, answering the questions to the best of their ability.  Others, completely dumbfounded due to their inattention over the last few days, scribbled down generic, nearly nonsensical answers just to have something written down on the paper.  After a few minutes, I asked how it was going.  A universal sigh spread across the room.  I let them turn and work with a partner.  They were shocked.  A quiz, with partners?  Yes, I said, talk to someone, get the answers you missed.  I let them talk for a few minutes, making sure they stayed on task.  After that, I let them take out their course outline to fill in anything that their partner could not provide.  I got a lot of weird looks.

"Isn't this supposed to be a quiz?"

Which is the question I need to segue into my reasoning behind this activity.  Some quizzes are announced, some are unannounced.  Some quizzes will be solo endeavors, others may involve a partner.  Occasionally, you may even have the opportunity to use your notes.  I like to change things up, keep things lively and unpredictable, and I like to kick that off with my first pseudo-quiz of the year.

This received a positive response.  I try to do things a little differently, but I would say I'm traditional most of the time.  Even the tough kids in each class seemed to jell with this idea.  Friday went fairly well in that sense.  I even used my planning periods wisely and I am prepared to say that, yes, I am in school mode once again.  I'm looking forward to next week, hoping that the kids will like what we're doing.