I remembered substitute time as party time (that hadn’t changed, either). I had brought my digital camera, and whenever everyone behaved for 10 minutes straight, someone got to take a picture. When chaos broke out, the clock started over again. The girls ALL took pictures of each other—either the whole group or their best friends. The boys all took pictures of objects. I especially loved this:
It was taken by a boy who seemed smart and super-bored by school and I can’t say that I blame him. It was sad: all that money spent on the school – 18 kids per class, a teacher who is obviously great ( not me, their regular teacher!), special ed teachers and aides and computer labs…..and so much of what they were learning was so boring! But at least every school day includes 45 minutes of independent reading and they all love that, and they can all read.
I took that picture (and yes, those are BRGs books they are reading -- I brought in a big stack of them -- and they were all well-loved: somewhat to my surprise, one boy read Anna's Three Little Kittens out loud to all his frieds, giggling -- and wrote down her name very carefully so he could order the book! Not surprisingly (4th grade is the age I'd expect for this one), another boy wrote Meghan a fan letter and drew an alien.....the book the girl has spread open on her desk is Linda's Magic Hoofbeats.
They were such great kids!
It's too bad that they don't get more intellectual stimulation at school. If *I* ran the circus I'd let the teachers choose their own materials (you KNOW by looking at those text books that a commitee picked them out!) and have people come in and visit a lot: not just artists and writers but scientists and mathematicians and historians -- people who are passionately interested in what they do and can pass that on to kids.
4 comments:
What a great idea to have the kids take pictures! Gives them incentive to behave AND be creative!
As a teacher, I have to get written permission from parents to photograph their children, and further permission to post those images in any format, including the web.
FYI,
Frank
frankwdormer.com
Libby, you should run the circus!
meghan
Ah, but they can't let the teachers rule the school and choose what to teach. The poor school has to have every kid pass the "No Child Left Behind" tests or else the school fails.
No time can be spent on things to stimulate brains. No money can be spent on making school exciting for the smart ones.
Nope. All effort has to be expended on bringing every kid up to some committee's idea of "average." and then when the school meets that, they have to improve that score every year or be thought of as failing.
Have mentally retarded in your school? too bad. get them up to speed or else. Have the slow kids made tremendous advances? too bad. it's still not enough because they didn't pass the test.
Teach to the test. teach to the test.
No wonder most of the kids are bored.
And they don't have time for guest speakers.
(except for career day when they shuffle 18 groups of 6 kids each for 20 minutes at a time in front of every working parent volunteer who offered to talk about their job-- making you lose your voice by the end of the day because you tried to talk above the noise of the other groups in the gym where it was held.)
=librarian, writer, mom
been there/ done that/ lost my voice
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