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Ok, I know it's been forever since I have posted anything decent. Not that all of my adventures in my technology haven't been fascinating for you all. :)This is a long one, so you may want to sit down for it.
Last week I got to go to my friend Mandy's 6th grade class, and it was a blast! A funny thing happened while I was there though. So Mandy teaches the advanced math class for 6th grade. So for math all of the advanced students come into her class room for over an hour of math. The day I was there they were reviewing for a test. Mandy had all the students get into groups at their tables and told them to pick a team captain. She would write a problem on the board and give them a couple minutes to work as a group and figure it out. The first team captain who stood up would get the points if they answered the question right, but if they got it wrong the points would go to the next team captain who was standing. Mandy would work out the problem on the board and then check the tables answer to make sure it was right. However, not everyone was excited about this review game.
There was one little boy...let's call him Toby...who refused to sit at a table and participate. Mandy kept asking him to join tables one or two, and he just continued to sit on the big bean bag and make comments like "why would I want to be at a table with all girls, or mostly girls. It's a ridiculous choice, and I'm not sitting with either" (Obviously he hasn't figured out that being out numbered by girls is a good thing). Even the other kids in the class were saying "Just come sit down" and "sit with us". To each and every one of the kids he had some rude comment so say back to them. He had pretty good vocabulary of negative words (if I do say so myself) that he would just mumble to himself anytime anybody asked him to do anything. I wish I could remember some of them because it was so hard for me not to laugh. So after multiple attempts by Mandy and the kids to get him to participate Mandy gave him an assignment to work on in the hall. As he was leaving the classroom he said under his breath "I'm going straight to the principal's office to report this!" Unfortunately Mandy didn't hear what he said and continued with the review.
About 10 minutes later an older teacher came in and told Mandy she was needed in the hall. Mandy left the classroom after a hushed discussion with the older teacher and disappeared for 15 minutes or so. This next part is my favorite.
So when the older teacher came in the class had just finished the problem that Mandy had given them, and started to stand up. The class was a little noisy, but not above anything that is unreasonable for group activites like the one they were doing. So this teacher comes in and tells all the kids to sit down, be quiet and get back to what they were supposed to be doing...she didn't know that they already were. So when the kids tried to explain to her taht they were playing a review game, she wouldn't listen and ordered them to be quiet. When she saw that not everybody had out paper and a pencil to do math she started questioning them as to why nobody was working. Finally somebody explained to her that they were supposed to be revewing as groups from the problems on the board. So she went up to the board and wrote a math problem. Then as the tables started to work together to figure it out she said "why are you talking? I shouldn't hear your voices." The student explained again that they were supposed to work together as groups to figure it out. The teacher said "fine, but as long as I don't hear you talking." You should have see the frustration and confusion on the kids faces. I so wanted to jump up and say, I know what they're doing I'll take over...but she scared me, so I didn't. She would solve the problems in the most confusing way i've ever seen, and then award points to the team who got it wrong. Needless to say when Mandy finally came back the kids were all in an annoyed mood. lol.
You thought it was over but there's more. Oh yes. So Mandy came back in followed soon after by a rather cheerful Toby. While the advanced class was leaving she came and told me what had happened when Toby went to the principal. When Toby went to the principal's office he announced that his teacher was disrespecting him. His principal sent him back to Mandy. Toby sat down in the hallway outside of Mandy's class and started bawling. Mandy went out to talk to him and he started yelling at her saying "Teacher's will be the death of me!" Pretty dramatic. He proceeded to tell Mandy all that was wrong with the world and continued yelling at her. She got a little queezy and sat down on the floor next to him. When she did this he yelled at her saying "why are you sitting down?" lol. She asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted to be homeschooled. She said that she was sure he didn't want her to home school him and it was something she couldn't help him with. So she asked him again, what can I do to help you? He told her that she didn't need to stand up in front of the class to teach. That she should just give an assignment and sit down. He told her that because she didn't grade the reveiw games she shouldn't do them, and that she should just homework and assignments that can be graded. She explained that there were 31 other kids in the class who wanted to play the review game, so that's how she was going to do it, but she could give him assignments to work on individually if he really wanted. He agreed, and they both came back to class where he proceeded not to do his assignment but walk around the classroom making cheerful comments.
Little side note* Apparently that morning after the principal told him twice to not ride his bike on school grounds he said "Principal's are going to send me to my grave."
So I know I'm going to sound crazy, but all of this makes me so excited to be a teacher!