Once, when I was in what I guess you might call high school, my math teacher Mrs. R. was so upset by the rowdiness of my class, she left in tears.
My friend X was stuck on trigonometry, so I, as a good friend, tried to explain it to him. The class was still far too loud to hear a word being said, so X stood up and shouted "Oy! Clive's trying to tell me how to do this, so just shut up alright!". I carried on, but, being terrible at explaining with only one medium, I laughed and picked up Mrs. R's pen and explained on the white-board.
Meanwhile Mrs. R. had visited our head-of-year to complain and get some empathy. So our year-head, Mrs. T, burst in on me lecturing a silent class. She was completely shocked and asked how I'd managed to get them to behave. I told her, "I think it's just a matter of respect", the entire class burst out laughing and Mrs. T. left me to continue my lecture.
A few moments later, and I'd nearly finished by now, Mrs. R. came back in grinning. I finished off and asked Mrs. R. if I should to the other type of example and she laughed and told me that she would take over from there. So she had gone from leaving the room in tears, to laughing, simply because I'd managed to silence my class and explain trigonometry.
Wednesday 16 June 2010
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Yes!!! This is exactly the kind of class I want to run. One that offers learning through teaching, and peer collaboration, and all sorts of other awesome stuff that I could rattle off but will save you :P
ReplyDeletethat is insane!
ReplyDeletei remember in middle school there were two honors classes. the blue team and the green team, and we competed against each other.
so we competed in grades, and got rewarded for good behaviour. but our favorite competition was in who could bring the most terror to substitutes.
one day though, our class was (i was on the blue team) up first. the sub was screaming at us by the time we were through. and we thought we had this competition in the bag. as we walked out, and the green team walked into the classroom, we challenged them. top that! but the green team pushed her over the edge and she ran out crying. so the green team won.
this is what we did for sport. Eighty 13 year olds. 40 at a time.
i haven't thought about that in a long time. and teachers always think it's the "dumb" kids that are the trouble makers. we were smart. and we acted like quiet angels whenever there were witnesses. so the subs looked like psychos.