At Well Managed Classroom Training. I think that this would have been good for me ten years ago, but right now, it’s too little, too late. So now, I have two days of service.
Two things I wanted to touch on from earlier this day:
We had to describe positive communities, and one person’s contribution for a sign of “positive communities” was that people would vote for bonds. She didn’t say vote in bond elections, but vote FOR the bonds. I’m sorry, but I have a problem with this. I am allowed to disagree with my school district. Just because I disagree with my school district doesn’t mean that I don’t support it – in fact, I would like to think that I am making valuable contributions. I know that I part of a small minority that welcomes constructive criticism, but I think it’s needed.
Another group had to describe positive student behavior, and they listed “compliance”. I don’t know about you, loyal reader, but I bristled at that word. I have never been described as a compliant person. Does this make me a bad person? I don’t think so. I’m a fan of iconoclasts, of civil disobedience, of questions. Isn’t this a part of education? Do we want sheeple or do we want independent thinkers? This doesn’t mean that I don’t care if my students follow my instructions or not, but I want them to do so because they made the independent decision to do so rather than just out of blind obedience, out of instilled compliance.
We’re on rules and procedures right now. I’m a little lost on the pencil bag analogy the speaker is using, but he did say one interesting things – we have vague global rules, and it’s the procedures that define those rules. For example, be respectful to self and others. That’s the rule, but it’s the classroom procedures that give that rule definition.
And once again, I hear that a consequence of negative behavior is the loss of computer (and this from another 1:1 school). Loss of computer should NOT be a consequence. When the computer becomes the instructional aid, it’s NOT a privilege. Again, I’m in the minority here. We have a culture founded on penalty.
About to break for lunch – we’ll be moving to a school-wide focus when we come back. I’m sitting with a few other random teachers, so I suspect that we’ll be together when we get back.
How to Skin a Cat 