Last week we had a stop or at least a pause. I was desperately trying to work through a lesson about nouns before the teething baby woke up. Much to my chagrin, both of my students were kicking each other behind me on the couch, kicking me, wiggling and making potty jokes over my teaching. I reminded them that their behavior was not particularly respectful and they stopped for about 5 seconds and then continued to be disruptive. They were just unable to listen and learn! I was getting angry, feeling the pressure of getting things done while we could focus on school, but I decided to stop and try a reset. We all got up and played a very active game of Simon Says. They each got to be Simon and make me do silly things including standing on my head till all the blood rushed to my face. After 10 min of giggling we sat down and they actually listened. It wasn’t perfect, I’m not sure they could tell you all the things we discussed about nouns, but we did the lesson and they participated. One of them may have even liked it. I want to be more willing to audible and change directions when we need to stop or divert in order to regain our smiles but I don’t want them to think that if they act badly they get out of school…I’m working on the balance and discerning the real issues at hand when we’re having a rough day.
Thank you Cait for your encouragement!!