Classes that put a smile on your face

My Spanish I kids are amazing this year. They work hard. They ask the best questions that truly show they are thinking. I often hear them practicing Spanish in the halls. The work they do is quality. They are just fun. They are what make my day almost every day.

And then on top of it I got to teach one of my favorite lessons today (conjugating verbs). So that class was just fun today.

I have learned this year that it is so important to sit back and just smile on a regular basis. My first hour class was slowly getting started this morning and one girl says "We should have a half day on Wednesday" (we have Thur and Fri off already this week for teacher convention). And so I just chuckled and said "Why don't we take the whole week off?" It was a very light hearted way to start the day. A way to connect with the kids and start the way in a positive mood. One kid then responded with a smile "We'll go talk to Mr. Principal and tell him it was your idea."

Talkative students

I got a new group of middle school students starting on Wednesday and they just won't stop talking. Things that I have tried so far:
-waiting patiently and not talking over them
-making it clear that I dismiss and not the bell (this allows me to quickly dismiss the students who weren't talking first)
-hold a few after both days
-asked individual students what consequences should follow if they continue to talk (thus they are creating their own consequences - this worked with the few I had trouble with in my last group)
-talked with my mentor (who sees these kids 4 times a day) who says she will bring it up at the student-led conferences they are having tonight and Monday

We will see how things go tomorrow. Several of them are kids who do not have the support at home and calling home would do nothing. So if things aren't better tomorrow, I'm not sure where I will go from here. There are some great kids in there I can tell but I can't see or hear them when the rest of the class is a three ring circus.

A student who was gone

Today a student comes into class who was gone yesterday. He sits down and copies the notes from his table partner (kudos to him for at least starting to figure out what he missed). I ask the class to get out the sheet we worked on yesterday and students write the answers on the board so we can go over them. At some point I realize that this kid had been gone yesterday and has yet to ask for this sheet that we are working on. By now, probably close to 10 minutes has passed in class. I then ask the students to complete the next part individually which we then go over on the board. We spent probably about 25 minutes on this worksheet and this kid never once asked me for the sheet nor did he go back to the basket where I keep extra handouts to get one. He just sat there.

And then later today I was looking at my gradebook. I have 4 students who have never passed ANY of the competency tests this year. That means they have a zero for 20% of their grade right now. These are tests that I let them take as many times as they need to as long as they get the required grade on them. They are essentially free points if you take the time to work with me and get them done. I have NEVER had a student who was trying fail one of these tests!

Many of these kids are the same ones that are all mad at me because they get a zero on them if they don't ever earn that required grade. If I had just taken the score they got on it and entered it in the gradebook, yes their grade would be higher. But they would still be failing because they wouldn't know the material any better and so they would still be getting 30% on the chapter tests (yes, all 4 of the ones who have never passed any competency tests got right around a 30%) on the chapter test. And so those kids would still be failing (along with tons of others who were happy with the first score they got on those competency tests regardless of whether they knew the material)!!!!

Responsibility

One of my biggest struggles is helping students understand their responsibility in learning. Too many of them show up in my class expecting me to just hand them everything on a silver platter and that they won't have to do anything. And then when they do poorly the first person blamed is the teacher.

At some point in the year I like to sit down with my classes and talk about their responsibility as a student and mine as a teacher but it doesn't always help like it really hasn't this year with one of my classes. Even when I'm soliciting the information from students, they still see it as coming from an adult. And of course we all know that adults know nothing, right??!!

I guess I'm just at a loss as to how to approach this problem. I hate to see my students not doing well. But there is only so much I can do if they aren't pulling their weight.