Weekly blog #8 "Being Mean...& What not?"

   Apparently I'm mean. Or so I am told. Hysterically enough, one of my English classes told my English teacher that I was 'mean'. When she asked them what they meant, they told her that I got after them for talking and packing up early and therefore I was 'mean'. This was by far the highlight of my week. She told me that she laughed when they told her this and then told them that she also did that all the time and much worse!  It was a good lesson to me that first must come the relationship and then comes the respect. The students respect my teacher and have a good relationship with her and therefore do not complain when she gets mad at them, but when I do it, they are hurt. This was a funny moment for me, but my teacher reassured me, "It's better to be mean, than a pushover."
      Something that surprised me this week was how diverse the same lesson can be for two different class periods. I always knew that lessons would vary based on the different students in a class but I figured out this lesson even more this week when i was leading a discussion for each class period. Some discussions were incredible and needed very little prompting from me. Other class periods couldn't get passed the first question without needing assistance. This taught me how to be flexible and move with the class the way that it needs to move. For some periods, it is success if they have simply read the chapter. In other periods, it is success if they can analyze the author's purpose behind the chapter and so on and so on. I was able to learn, rather quickly, not to expect the same thing from class to class. I truly had to treat every class like its own entity.
      One thing that I saw this week that I would like to adopt is having students read their books outloud as a class. We had the option of either having just the teacher read, having them read in groups, or having different students take turns reading aloud and the last one was definitely the most profitable. We were able to read more, discuss more, and the students had a better knowledge about what was going on. This definitely took up the entire class period and was more work as the teacher, but if the students are gaining more from this style then I think it is the right one. We also changed our styles of reading the book from period to period. We differentiated the instruction based on what the students truly needed. This was good for me to see because it helped me to realize that everythingt doesn't have to be planned out the same way nor do we have to cover the same material from period to period. As long as the students are learning what they are supposed to be the end of the year, then the structure of the class isn't applicable.