The Bow Tie Teacher

Getting back into the flow of bloging.

The last couple of weeks have been a grind. Day 60 really shouldn't feel like Day 160, but it does. I'm still in the fray and making it work. Can't wait to see how the rest of this year pans out. I have a ton of pictures and videos to post. Let's make it though the week and we'll try to post more pics. Check my Instagram page. 

A quick question

A quick question.

This is a human issue. It's not isolated to kids, but I need some help in shaping the next generation. I see this ALL the time in my class. Whenever a student does something new, different or even  dare we say high effort, all kids snicker, joke, and point. Basically they try to make the other student feel awkward or someway shame him/her for stepping out of line. 

I don't know why, but this really gets my goat. It's so refreshing to see a student try his or her best. It's equally frustrating to hear kids try to downgrade this child's gains. 

I guess jealousy is rearing it's ugly head. 

What do you do to squelch the awful effects of teasing/hating in your class? 

 

Don't make threats if you can't keep the promise

For some odd reason I've slumped into the bad habit of threatening my students. You all know what I mean. 

"I'm going to call your XYZ."

"Next time I'm sending you to the office."

I don't need to say that these are idle threats. The day gets away from me and my well meaning threat goes nowhere. Thankfully my students haven't caught wind of my complete fail. Yet. 

Not really sure why I started doing that. I've always been cognisant of not doing this, but low and behold I stepped right into it. The big bugga boo x 2 is this Social Studies project due Wednesday. The other is my students reading for 5 minutes every night. So far neither of these have been progressing properly. 

In steps my new bad habit. 

I've told my students no fewer than 10 times this past week that if I don't see 1 book a week plus one extra that I'd be visiting some houses to find out what's going on. Yesterday, it hit me.

"I don't want to go over these rascals houses. Why in the world did I just say that?" I honestly have no idea what I was thinking when I started saying that. 

So how do I fix it? I have to get all those projects and readings done ASAP! So here's what I did. I called everyone of my students houses and told mom/dad/voice mail what needs to be done. I got a commitment from everyone that I spoke to that they'd do the best to get it done. 

Hopefully, they'll keep their word so I don't have to be challenged on mine. 

How do you deal with your own bad habits? Have you started any this year that you wished you hadn't? 

Future blog themes

There's so much I want to blog about and there just isn't enough time in the day to do it all. 

 

I'm working on a few posts for next week. Here are just a few ideas. 

• "Idle threats do no one any good. A lesson from the Govt Shutdown"
• "Meetings, Teacher Burnout cause #1"
• "There's no strength in blame. Take some responsibility."

Hope everyone has a great weekend. What, you say? Tomorrow is Friday? Well, that's true, but we have an all day "training".  I'm pretty sure I won't feel like blogging post that wonderful exchange. 

Teacher's pet

Is it Ok for teachers to have favorites?

Teachers UNITE!

So now the October stretch has started. This is the time when teachers (ME) question: 

• Am I making a difference? 
• Am I in the profession?
• What the HECK am I doing? 

This week has been a trip. Just a lot of off task-ness and refocusing. I even had a kid steal one of my fidget bands from off the bottom of a chair. #WhoDoesThat!? 

The super frustrating thing is that this week's lessons/content weren't very hard. It was more of a stretch week than a new subject. So there was a lot of room for the kids to grow and feel successful. Can't honestly say that it panned out like that. 

The feeling that I'm getting from the group is "Mr. Whitaker, you're cool and all and I'm going to let you finish this lesson. But you ain't speakin' my language and I don't care to learn yours." I'm starting to get a sense of what it's like for a person from another country to come to America. Total immersion. Is there a Rosetta Stone for teaching in the inner city? 

This week I knew thoughtI was killin' it on my imagery and word pictures. I thought I was breaking it down to the very last compound. I thought I was making my case for them to desire to learn like Johnny Cochran.  What I saw was my words fall flat like a tire. I'm just not speaking their language. Now we can certainly debate culture, but that's another blog post for sure. These babies just don't know how or want to learn. 

All Therosist need not apply. I don't care what a book says or some gal on Oprah. I want trench dwelling teachers to tell me what they do to motivate the unmotivated. Help!

I know a lot of my teacher friends read, but don't comment on blogs. I'd love to hear you thoughts. Pass this question on to others in your circle, cause I cherish the feedback. 

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