Here I go again, on my own... Week four, the second time around

This was an interesting week. I continued with my 11th grade class and started discussing the upcoming week when I'll have all three classes to teach. The 11th graders are a handful. It's hard for me forget about my experience with the 8th graders, which makes working with the 11th graders more difficult. My middle-schoolers seemed to care much more than the high-schoolers. Also, the quality of work from 14-year-olds has been far superior to that of my 17-year-olds. They were also held to a higher standard than the high schoolers. It's so weird how a slight change in geographic changes everything.

The biggest struggle I face is classroom management. The room is set up in a way that keeps me from really seeing everyone at the same time. I also think my kids are used to a more casual sort of classroom, and it's been difficult for me because I am used to kids chatting while my co-op teaches, but then my co-op says I "absolutely cannot allow talking when I'm talking," so she's telling me things that are opposite from what she's doing.

It's tricky to go in and work with kids who flat-out tell me "I don't care." I gave an in-class assignment worth 50 points, and part of it was to write about a time when they had experienced "literary magic," through a book, movie, etc. I explained to them numerous times what I meant by this, but when one student turned in his paper I noticed he hadn't completed that part of it. I asked if he wanted one more night to think about it, since he started the assignment a day after everyone else. He looked at me and said "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," so I started explaining it again. He responded, "Well, I really don't care, so you can just take it." I said, "Are you sure? It's worth 10 points on a 50 point assignment." He shrugged and said again, "Nah, it's ok. I don't read. I've never experienced it. I don't care."

I think it's really sad that this is happening, but I don't know how to fix it. I have adopted a new slogan: "You have to do it anyway." I tell the students, "You have to be in school anyway, so you might as well try to enjoy it. You have to do the assignment anyway, so you might as well do it well." It seems like that worked pretty well with them, and now I leave it on the board all the time for them to look at.

Also, I've found that the most effective way to keep my class engaged is to give them "artsy" activities. I had them choose a scene from Fahrenheit, and they had to either write a script in class or draw a picture of it, then present it to the class. This is the second in-class drawing/writing assignment we've done, and they get really into doing this stuff. They're all focused and working hard. We also had a great class discussion the other day, where they all had to stand and couldn't sit down until they answered or asked a question. They could get extra credit for extra participation. It was a pretty good day, except one girl yelled out "GOD! Why are people asking such stupid questions!!!" I couldn't believe it. The next day, everyone had the chance to write their response to a prompt about respect and their generation. It was interesting to see their responses and realize that they all come from different places and different situations. Learning about circumstances that have changed them and made them who they are today has helped me understand why they say and do certain things.

Generally, I think I'm doing pretty well with this placement. I don't enjoy it the way I enjoyed my first placement, but I think that is a combination of the students, the school, and some of the other teachers. I don't feel as connected to the rest of the staff or the students as I did in the first placement, and the school is much more strict and less encouraging of its student teachers. I'm ready to teach the electives the next two weeks, then start phasing out the instruction of my 11th graders until May 7... Hopefully there will be some job interviews in there too!