Basically, Back to the Basics

The week was a challenge; however, with several encouragements, I have shifted my classroom management to a more traditional in rows, teacher directed, individual work classroom.

FOR NOW.

They have responded better. I guess my dreams and desires were just a bit too far from their comfort or capacity zone.

I am still doing Inquiry, it is just more directed and more inside a box set of boundaries.

I guess I felt some of the pressure of starting 3 weeks late (hence students having a 3 month summer) and changing classes after the first week, to get students up to speed sooner. I was also caught by expecting this class to be at the same place as the one I had the first week. I know better, and just kept hoping. I made minor tweaks to my teaching and learning opportunities instead of a radical step back that was needed.

I am looking forward to the week ahead. Some exciting projects that are still framed around the Inquiry of “What makes Canada the best place to live?” include:
– each student developing a cultural alphabet
– each student starting to design and create a page in the alphabet book of our classroom
– creating a classroom wall poster (5 meters long) with phrases from representative cultures
– orally reading Underground to Canada and several connecting activities like sculpting with playdoh parts of the story. (I will share some pictures once I have the media release forms collected)
– each student drawing a selfie, and now looking at building specific skills to improve it.

I still believe in high expectations; however, I have been reminded that students may not have all the dots in place to connect a path to meet the expectations.

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