Today was a little crazy. It was one of those days where if it were my own classroom, I would changed our schedule to better suit the energy level of the students. For my lesson, after discussing what self-esteem is and its importance, we signed our names on pieces of paper, crumpled the paper into a ball, and “tossed” them to the front of the room. We then went and grabbed a letter and wrote compliments to that person, anonymously. The physical aspects of the lesson were a bit too much for them at that time of the day; As well, the concept was too serious. They were just too energetic and goofy to partake in that material. One thing that I could have changed, and should have, was rather than throwing the papers to the front of the room, they could have just left them on their desks, or placed them on the table at the front of the room. This would have lowered the craziness a notch or two for sure; I guess that was just another “on the fly” decision, a dash through classroom management for me.
Part of why they were so crazy could have been because we were going to debate right after Health. They were looking forward to debating with each other which I was happy about! I had made a bunch of evaluation sheets to record how each debater was at speaking publicly, arguing appropriately, and listening respectfully. I had a stopwatch and gave each student about a minute and a half to make their debates…however, they ended up being no more 30 seconds. This made grading difficult as before I could even write anything down, they were done! That night, I tried my best to come up with an evaluation and a winner for each debate but I couldn’t, I hardly had anything written, and because I had spent half of the time looking at the evaluation paper, I missed part of their debates! I hope this turns out to be a great learning experience because right now I feel terrible. I know that next week they will be wanting to know who won but I honestly don’t know. Maybe I will have them do a peer evaluation within each debate group to give me a better idea…
I still like the idea of having a debate. The only real issue, in my mind, was that I was not their during the week to help them and give them time to research. Because I only see them once a week, I have no idea how much work and effort they were able to out into their research which would have helped them in preparing, and would have helped me in grading. I look forward to debating with students in the future nonetheless.
Miss. Tiana Waldbauer 