My Principal likes to say, and I think he actually got it from Oprah, that we as teachers have the awesome responsibility to teach our students to " do differently". Unfortunately we are not only teaching a microwave generation (want everything immediately without working hard and waiting for it to payoff) but a generation of followers. Sadly for our students, and many of those in inner city schools, the path they follow does not end on a college campus. We are constantly challenged to show,model expose our students to alternative paths. However the road less traveled for anyone is scary, it is imperceptible for the majority of our students. So how do we get our students to " do differently"?How do we teach them to do the opposite of what they have been taught, (explicitly or implicitly) from their environment?
If there is an answer or a solution I believe it lies in what we learned this week in class-social skills. In creating small groups in my classes, I really wished I would have focused on teaching my students how to interact with one another " differently" then they are accustomed to. How to be assertive not aggressive, how to disagree agreeably and most importantly how to resolve conflicts civilly.
I started group activities today and assigning students into groups. You would have thought it was the north against the south as I began assigning groups. Friends were devastated and ethnic alignment was pushed to the brink of calamity. Some of them were down right hostile toward each other. I had to give time outs and explain that this is a work group and how everyone was expected to act. After the initial shock they settled into the groups and we did some team building activities and things started looking up.
ReplyDeleteMelanie the good thing is it’s not too late to impact them socially and help them realize that the world is a wonderful place to live and work. Teach them the fighting and bickering doesn’t have to be the norm. I loved your verbiage and will use the quote if I may. "Teach them to be assertive not aggressive, how to disagree agreeably and most importantly how to resolve conflicts civilly". I’ll tell them that a very astute and profound teacher once said that’s what she wanted to do.
I like your post. To often we are seeing the same distructive behaviors with the same distructive results. For some reason the kids have this belief it want happen to me or I don't care attitudes,despite seeing bad choices leading to bad consequences all the time. The one thing that they do have is a willingness to fight and, I must say some do it well. What I told a student recently is I appreciate her willingness to fight. Then I asked her but what are you really fighting for? I went on to explain that if you must fight. Why not fight for a cause. Fight to make a better life for yourself. Fight for an education but not control of my classroom and having your way. I'm not sure if I reached her yet, but the next day her behavior was better in class.
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