Monday, March 7, 2016

Give it some thought

Have you ever considered how much time teacher's spend preparing lessons for students?  It has taken me since 8:30 this morning to cut cards for a vocabulary assignment.  It is now 1:07.  I have not been cutting cards all of that time. I've been juggling students for part of it.  You've heard the phrase cleaning when you have kids is like shoveling the driveway while it is still snowing out.   It's like that.

I do not like giving seat assignments and then sitting down to do something that needs to be done.  There are several reasons for this.  I feel guilty working on something instead of being in front of the students teaching.  I can't work with continual distraction.  I struggle to focus anyway.

Students today are so needy!  It amazes me how "helpless" they are when it comes to basic things.  How many words are there?  Um....how many did you count?  What page is chapter 7 on?  What does it say in the index, or when you turn through the book?  Do we have to write the question?  Seems like a valid question, other than I tell them the SAME thing every single time and have tried to make this clear since day one of work.  Do I need to write my name on it? Do you want credit?  I don't understand what we have to do. Have you read the instructions? No. *Raised eyebrow.

Do I know the answers to many of their questions?  Yes. Could I simply tell them the answer?  Yes.  Are they developing any type of self sufficiency when I just tell them the answer?  Not a bit.  When I first met Mr. MckTchr I hammered him on this.  His kids would ask him for an answer to one of their homework questions and I would get all over him if he just told them the answer.  Parents, help your child find the answer. Ask them questions, guide them to it.  Stop just giving it to them. It is not making them smarter. It is not making them self sufficient. You are not helping them and you are making my job harder!  I want to save my time for the real questions and real misunderstandings.

“If you will discipline yourself to make your mind self-sufficient you will thereby be least vulnerable to injury from the outside.”  Critias of Athens 

2 comments:

  1. Well said! They need to find their own answers. That's just how the real world works.

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  2. Hi! I'm the minion patrolling your portion of the A to Z Challenge list.

    I agree with you that children need to be taught how to reason and think for themselves. It's so easy to just give them the answers, but it doesn't help them.

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