Wake Up!

I was somewhat disappointed with what I saw in my 3rd grade classroom last week. The children did so much sitting and writing or reading, and even sitting and listening. I could tell they were getting so antsy toward the end, and needed to do something creative or use their hands or just be able to move around. It may not be the teacher's fault that she has to teach a reading, writing, and math block all before lunch, but she should make it more engaging and interactive. Eight-year-olds are not made to sit still for so long! Plus, they will only remember about 10% of what they hear from an oral lecture, but much more if they are discovering it themselves. I can think of many different activities they could do that involve learning and movement, or discussion, or competition. All of these would get the students much more engaged than listening to the teacher and then going and filling out a worksheet or writing a list of ideas for a poem. It just frustrated me to see some of the kids (especially boys) get snapped at or get in trouble for spacing out and fidgeting when the lessons were so disengaging. I wasn't even paying attention. And I see this whole cycle playing out where kids get in trouble for not paying attention, and then they learn that they are just troublemakers, and start to play into their own ideas that they will be troublemakers or they are students who are always off task, instead of being enabled to learn. Put that energy to use. Use the outgoing and boisterous students as leaders and allow the creative jokers to come up with ideas for the projects. I think that, although this might not always work, enabling students and putting the qualities that they already have to use is so much better than trying to get 16 students to sit still and be quiet for even a short amount of time. If they finally comply, they will just completely space out rather than being focused and engaged. I wish I could have jumped in during some of these boring lessons and figured out ways to engage the students with more active and hands-on activities, instead of having to sit in the back and watch half of her students fall asleep as she talked.