Teaching Reflection Week 7

I survived my first spirit week! It seems amazing to me that my students could be crazier than normal but they managed it this week. This week brought a huge challenge of engaging my students in the content, and not have them talk solely of homecoming, and keeping them on task. In order to do this, I allowed my students some time to discuss spirit week/homecoming. I think it's important to remember that students are still kids and need to be allowed structured off task time. As an adult, teaching has been the first job I've had that I haven't spent time off task. In my other jobs, a portion of time was spent doing things at our leisure. Perhaps this is how lab work is and other jobs are different. However, I do believe that some downtime increases productivity. I try to incorporate this concept into my classroom. I do this in little chunks at a time so that I am still able to regain their attention and focus. Off task time also encourages relationship building with students. Having conversations outside the curriculum has allowed me to connect with my students on a deeper level. In fact, from talking with one of my at risk seniors, and talking to him as a person, has encouraged him to complete more tasks in the classroom. It's really encouraging to see that taking a few minutes to connect with them increases their classroom productivity.
I am currently teaching three at risk seniors. These students have struggled throughout high school and are in danger of not graduating. What I have done with these three is learn their history and I don't mean their school history. I've tried to learn their outside of school history, figure out what interests them and make a point to ask how they are doing. With one of them, a student that failed my class last year, I've reached out to his mom and have started an open dialogue with her. I let her know when her son is struggling. I also make a point to let her know when he does well. Just last week, his mom punished him and took his car away because another teacher contacted home about his poor performance. I contacted home on Friday to let her know how great he did in my class, not knowing that he was on punishment. On Monday the student came to me and thanked me for getting his car back. Instead of saying you're welcome, I told him that he earned his car back. Yes I made the call to mom but I wanted him to see that he put the effort in and did the work.
A video circulated on Facebook this week in which teachers told students that they were the reason that the teacher came to work everyday. They told their students how much the student was appreciated. Every student reacted with shock, many of them being brought to tears. The video really struck a nerve with me because students need to hear they are appreciated as well. I've decided that I want to start doing this with my students. I haven't quite decided how to handle this but one idea I have is to use post-it notes. I would write a quick positive message on the note and place it on the students belongings. This allows the act to be more private so that students don't have to save face on front of their friends. I'm excited to try this out in the near future.