What I See and Dare to Believe
Yesterday between classes, I looked up from my Kindle to see one of my students repeatedly hitting another boy on the back of the head. He was clearly angry and exclaiming something in Korean I couldn’t understand. I immediately sat up and started yelling. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The hitting stopped. “BOTH OF YOU OUTSIDE […]
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Sometimes I think teaching has literally made me insane. Or perhaps I was simply insane to decide to teach in the first place. Sometimes my students are great. Everyone comes on time with their books in order and their pencils sharpened, having gone to the bathroom and drunk a satisfactory amount of water. Whatever candy or […]
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A middle schooler ran away from class on Tuesday. He wrote on the wall with a pencil. I got angry and told him to “get out” of the classroom. He did. In fact, he left the building entirely. I was shocked. And even angrier than I already had been. How dare he leave! How dare he write on […]
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Most teachers have a soft spot for a particular type of student. Some teachers like the cute, quiet ones; others are drawn to the confident, ambitious ones; some prefer the consistently obedient ones. I’ve realized I have a soft spot for the kids with a sense of humor. I like the kids who know how to have […]
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I’m sure every teacher runs into their fair share of shy students over the years. Students who are hesitant to raise their hand. Kids who speak softly no matter how enthusiastically you encourage them to be emotive. I was one of those students way back when. But I currently have one student who never talks. Ever. And I’m […]
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It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged about my students, but they are very much still a part of my life, and noteworthy things have been happening. For instance…
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There was this moment yesterday when I caught myself scolding some students for playing the dot game wrong. (You know, that game where you try to connect dots on a piece of paper into squares, whoever finishes the square gets to claim it?) Some of my students had not understood my explanation…
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Cheating I caught one of my students cheating yesterday. Well, a student in the following class caught her. The girl had written the longest vocabulary word on her test (delicious) on her desk and left it plain as day for the next student who used that desk to see. Not the most subtle technique. But even though the truth […]
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