Giving students school time to work on personal projects?! (say what!?)

It wasn’t all that long ago when during the last 2 – 3 years of high school, I was expected to complete many projects at a time, sit several exams on the same day and work on multiple independent study units. I didn’t only get these done but had to make sure that my work was up to par, that I got the grades, made the cut!

Note that no teachers were expected to give up any of their own class time to give students extra school time to complete projects. We completed projects on our own time (as we should).

I worked super hard at school and still had plenty of time to socialize at reasonable hours as well as participate in extra curricular activities!

What’s happened to that drive in students?!

I don’t teach the 10^th grade but I was nagged to be a supervisor to a student to guide him through the only personal project that carries a large percentage of his final grade all year.

Did he show up for meetings?....no! (in fact he was dragged into my classroom by the skin off his teeth by another teacher!) Did he follow up on his project?... no !Did he have a focus to his project? … no! Did he know how to write a report, be it structure, language or bibliography?...NO!

The BIG question… did he WANT to learn… you guessed it … no!!

Does he want the grade?... but of course!! (this applies to about 95% of the grade 10 student population)

So, what I want to know is this: Why give students who don’t care to work for the grade extra time during regular school hours (ie missing classes) to work on projects they have no interest in? Is this time well deserved?

I’d also like to see what would happen to those students if and when they get themselves into university (emphasis on the IF). What sort of future are we building for ourselves?

Sad but true...

I just came across a tweet on my account from Craig Kielburger (founder of Free the Children and Me to We).

The tweet said:

Children in Nature: kids can identify 1000 corporate logos but fewer than 10 plants/animals native to their backyards.

I’m not sure where this statistic came from but I would trust that Craig’s source is credible.

It’s certainly food for thought.

What should we do as educators?

Confused

My students were walking into my class for their last period of the day.

Student 1: Miss! How was your day?
Me: It was very good!
Student 2: You had a DATE?!?! (BIG smile)

:@P

Student 2 was very disappointed to find out that I, indeed, did not have a date!

Is this a compliment?!

So it's the first day back after the weekend and I actually did take the time to plan out what I was going to wear to school this morning. I don't usually dress up in skirts and suites all the time but I enjoy it from time to time and I was in the mood today. I wore a knee length, eight piece, navy blue skirt with a white ruffled shirt (3/4 sleeve), a red, tight fit jacket and flat ballerina shoes.

And the day began...

(conversation with student)

Student: (puts hand up)

Teacher: yes?

Student: I don't know if this is a compliment but can I just say something?

Teacher: Yes what is it?

Student: I just want to say that I think you look something like the '70's today... i like it!

Teacher: Well thank you very much! I would take that as being a compliment!

Student: (big smile)

I'm not all too sure if I did "look like the '70's" or not... but that's beside the point

Some kids are just too cute.

Smile for the Camera!! :@D

Yesterday was year book picture day. Students got all excited as they were taken out of classes an hour at a time (so much for that class!) to get their pictures taken for the year book. Each grade year were asked to have individual and group shots as well as goofy pictures with friends of their choice.

Talk about having a good time! I love the way students' personalities really shine in a different light when you see them outside of the classroom.

It's even more entertaining to watch as boys laugh about being boys and girls worry about their hair! Very interesting how sweethearts look purer than ever and the bullies pose as such for the cameras. The girls flaunted their stuff in front of the flash too. (making it even more obvious who actually spent hours practicing their poses in front of the mirror the night before and who went for the natural 'what you see is what you get' look).
It was an interesting 2 hours of observing.

One thing I wasn't very fond of was how the photographer was asking students to shout out certain things while taking pictures (which was fine!). There was one chant that got me on alert though: "Too cool for school".... well you know what ... that's not so cool in my book. We as teachers and staff spend forever trying to get children to love the school they're in and value the importance of education and here you are cancelling out what every school stands for in the middle of an educational institute!! I'd prefer "School is cool" if you wanna stick to that rhyme. and I wonder if they're asking the primary school students to chant the same... quite worrying if you ask me. But what really sets me off is that I didn't actually muster up the courage to verbalize my thoughts and actually stop and replace that chant! Why didn't I say anything?!?! I just wondered who would back me up... well ummmm other teachers maybe!!
I guess I'll know what to do next time though... if there is one.

Call me old fashioned but...

I can't help but agree with the saying: "It takes a village to raise a child."

It boggles me that so many parents out there leave the raising of their child to be left up to chance and then blame their mistakes and their childrens' on "today's world"

But oh well... it is what it is! But it's the children who get the short end of the stick.

Giving Instructions...

My ESL students had just finished a study unit titled "How did you do that?" where they learned all about how to give good instructions. The grammar unit attached to this was based on verb recognition and how to write imperative sentence.
The assignment:
To choose an activity they are already familiar with and write their class mates instructions on how to do it. This was followed by presentations.
I got all sorts of interesting ideas like magic tricks (one of which was more of a comedy skit), making a hotdog, frying eggs (where the pan was heated on the stove top for 5 minutes... just to make sure) and lots of origami!
Presentations were great! From videos to power points to demonstrations. All students performed well.
The best part was: the three students who gave origami instructions then combined their three creations to make a team project. By the end of class each of us left with a paper chinese hat, worn by a paper penguin who was sailing in a paper boat.
It was great!! And loads of fun for everyone involved!