An observation I have seen lately among teenagers and perhaps a few adults:
Last school year as I was on supervision duty I started to notice students beginning to carry around the same large novel. As I began to inquire, I learned about the Twilight Series. I also learned that a group of students had formed a book club called the Twilight Club and that some of the students in dance class were interpreting the novels through dance. I have since learned about all the other vampire and werewolf type novels. This seems to be the new Harry Potter phenomenon. After reading the first few Twilight novels to see what all the hype was, I thought it appealed mostly to girls. Oh no, I was mistaken! I have been surprised to find out how many boys have read the book and when given a choice to read The Outsiders or Twilight will often pick Twilight.
My point it that all of this werewolf and vampire craze has led to several bizarre behaviors among school children K-12 in the last little while. I believe that these incidents could have a link between reading these novels. On Wednesday I attended a monthly Assistant Principal of Discipline meeting for our school district. At the beginning of each meeting each Assistant Principal of Discipline shares major events that they have dealt with in the past month. City police and community outreach programs are also there to listen and also give a report of major incidents in the past month that might pertain to school safety. We share information on gang related incidents, tagging, fights, drug and alcohol use and sometimes a bizarre story. This month's meeting was all about werewolves and vampires. We had several incidents this month from Elementary, Middle and High School where students thought they were a werewolf or a vampire. While I can not share all details, suffice it to say, some of it was comical but left me puzzled how anyone could think that they might possibly be a werewolf or vampire.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Lessons in Classroom Management
Almost eight years ago I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to teach high school at an expulsion school in San Jose Unified School District. An expulsion school is an alternative program for students who have been expelled from their comprehensive high school for gang related or drug related reasons. I was often asked what I taught. Instead of replying "History or English" I often replied jokingly that I taught "Behavior Modification." In the five years that I taught there, I learned a few things about classroom management that any teacher can benefit from.
1. Choose your battles! Figure out what issues you want to stress the most in class and then let the rest go. You can not fight with students over every little thing. For example, I always greeted my students at the door with a pen/pencil and paper. Some teachers feel it is important that students come prepared with materials to class. However, when working with students who had little if any motivation to be at school, coming "prepared" was the last priority on their list and a fight I was not willing to fight. I found that by providing supplies, I was able to reach my end goal: having productive students in the classroom.
2. Do not get in arguments with students. When students challenge or confront you, do not get into an argument with them. Do I always adhere to this? No...but I have found that when I remember to do this, I usually am able to get the student back on the right track. Also, when you find yourself leading down the path of an argument, you can always stop yourself and tell the student that you are not going to argue with them further and then stop. I promise it works. It also helps with the stress level.
3. Create consistency and routines. This is my number one piece of advice. Kids termed "at-risk" or in "chaos" have a love/hate relationship with consistency and routines. At first, they will fight you about the routines that you establish (i.e. getting folder from bin and sitting at desk and working on warm-up upon entering classroom). However, at some level they eventually realize that they crave this. One of the greatest joys of my job was to provide a place where they could feel like there was some kind of consistency amidst their chaotic life outside of school.
1. Choose your battles! Figure out what issues you want to stress the most in class and then let the rest go. You can not fight with students over every little thing. For example, I always greeted my students at the door with a pen/pencil and paper. Some teachers feel it is important that students come prepared with materials to class. However, when working with students who had little if any motivation to be at school, coming "prepared" was the last priority on their list and a fight I was not willing to fight. I found that by providing supplies, I was able to reach my end goal: having productive students in the classroom.
2. Do not get in arguments with students. When students challenge or confront you, do not get into an argument with them. Do I always adhere to this? No...but I have found that when I remember to do this, I usually am able to get the student back on the right track. Also, when you find yourself leading down the path of an argument, you can always stop yourself and tell the student that you are not going to argue with them further and then stop. I promise it works. It also helps with the stress level.
3. Create consistency and routines. This is my number one piece of advice. Kids termed "at-risk" or in "chaos" have a love/hate relationship with consistency and routines. At first, they will fight you about the routines that you establish (i.e. getting folder from bin and sitting at desk and working on warm-up upon entering classroom). However, at some level they eventually realize that they crave this. One of the greatest joys of my job was to provide a place where they could feel like there was some kind of consistency amidst their chaotic life outside of school.
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