Hmm, for some reason, my students haven't been as funny lately. Perhaps my novelty has worn off already. Last Friday a student did tell me, "Miss Heintz, it feels like you've been here forever!" Today I taught my first science lesson and the students were questioning me about what I was going to be teaching. One boy asked how long I was going to be here; I told him eight more weeks. He groaned... hopefully that was an "oh man, you're leaving so soon?" as opposed to, "oh man, we have to put up with you that long?" I guess I'll find out which one he meant sooner or later...
Today during morning meeting, the students asked me to share something with the class, so I told them that my calf had a baby girl. Hands immediately shot in the air. I figured they would ask what I named her, but the question I got was if I would take a picture of the calf to show to our class.
We were in the computer lab typing parts of a research paper about specific body systems (muscular, nervous, etc.). I was available for questions when they got stuck... it seemed that everytime I turned around another hand shot in the air. Mrs. J was circulating the room as well, but she concentrated her efforts on a student who had finished typing and didn't know what to do. That left me with the other 18 students. One thing is for sure, this exercise reminded me that it's most helpful for students to learn typing skills. So many of them were pressing the space bar to center a title and indent a paragraph. If they made a mistake, they'd backspace the whole sentence instead of moving the cursor to the beginning of the line. Then they'd chicken-peck the keys to get their new words written down. It about drove me insane! No wonder a lot of tech guys are crabby; they have to deal with people not up to their technological par.
Going back to earlier this week, Tuesday was absolutely terrible behavior-wise. I think there's something to the theory that people's moods are effected by the weather cause my 4th graders were absolutely crazy today! I met with some of the other student teachers for class and they said the same thing about their students. Crazy all around. One particular incident of this day stuck in my mind... the same boy who'd been bugging me about funny things was holding his scissors in his hand by his mouth. Then he had the sharp end of the scissors IN his mouth! I looked at him and mouthed, "take that out of your mouth please." He stared at me and slowly moved his hand a little. I gave him my best teacher look, complete with slight negative shake of the head. It didn't work. The girl next to him started elbowing him; she knew I meant business from the little incident we'd had earlier (something to do with finger poking and telling people they had the disease of stupidity- long story). Her elbowing had little effect. The boy finally took his scissors out of his mouth to show me that his hand was wrapped around the blades and only his fist was touching his mouth; so technically his scissors wasn't in his mouth. Then the little stinker put his fist right back where it was! I raised my eyebrows to amp up "the look." This, coupled with his neighbor's elbowing finally got him to put his scissors back on the desk. Sigh. 4th graders.
If Tuesday was like this, I'm scared to see what behavior Friday will bring. Mrs. J is going to be at a teacher workshop in the cities so we're having a substitute. I'll be taking over some of the routine work, but due to the presence of a sub and the fact that it's Friday (not to mention 3-5 inches of snow is expected), I expect behavior to be off the walls. Well, it's bound to happen sometime; may as well get some practice dealing with it. Perhaps my 4th graders will surprise me and be perfect little angels. We shall see...
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