[Note, names have been changed and details have been left out to protect student privacy. For my last log see this link.]
This week I went back to Michael's fourth grade class with some plans to try to get Michael to interact with me a bit more. First of all I timed my visit to correspond with recess and math - two subjects at which I excel. For the recess period I brought my super special, attention grabbing juggling balls. To my good fortune, nature was on my side and it was raining. So, the kids had to spend recess inside, which would give me a captive audience.
When I got into class I waited
a few minutes for the recess bell,
picked a corner of the classroom for my informal showing off, and
started into the short list of juggling tricks that I can usually do
without dropping all the time. Immediately, about half the
kids
in the class swarmed in my direction to watch. I say that
half
the kids swarmed over, but of course Michael was not one of
them.
He was quite content playing "Battleship" with another child and pretty
much ignored me as usual. Oh well.
I didn't try to go drag Michael
into joining the audience because
I'm concerned that he might be one of those kids who doesn't like to be
singled out. That's how I felt sometimes when I was a little
boy,
so I'm not sure if I'm projecting that feeling onto him or if maybe he
might really feel that way. I think this might be one of
those
things that teachers have to be really careful about: assuming that
other kids think like they do. Anyway, I decided my strategy
for
the day would be to establish myself as part of the classroom
environment, and then maybe after that Michael would feel more natural
interacting with me a bit if I wasn't just picking on him.
I spent most of recess juggling
in the corner surrounded by
kids. As with every audience I've ever encountered, their
first
question was whether or not I could juggle more balls than just the 3 I
started out with (I eventually worked my way up to five).
Also, a
lot of the kids were curious about the juggling balls, so every once in
a while I would stop and let them have turns at squeezing them and
throwing them around a bit. Then when they would get too
competitive about having their turn, I would ask for the balls back so
I could show them some more tricks. I pretty much ran through
my
bag of tricks by the end of recess, so I might have to think of
something else next time I want to provide entertainment for the
class. I guess next time I can bring my clubs - assuming I
can
get them to back up a little bit more next time.
Towards the end of recess I took Michael aside for a minute and told him that I was studying to be a teacher, and that I would need his help by letting me practice being a teacher with him a little. He didn't say a word in response, but he nodded his head and seemed to indicate he was okay with it. I think maybe Michael's teacher had clued him in on what I was up to as well. I made some kind of joke about whether or not I would need to learn to be bossy in order to be a teacher (Michael's teacher is a good teacher, but like all good teachers she is a little bit bossy), and Michael just kind of shrugged but also smiled a little bit. Recess was then over so I didn't have a chance to say much more, but at least I had a chance to get him involved with the fact that I need his help, and I think that was a good step.
After recess a woman came in with a guitar and the kids spent maybe half an hour learning some songs. I joined in on the singing as well, even helping to lead Michael's little corner of the class in our part in a roundelay. I guess my year in a high school singing group finally paid off! Then the math part of class started up, and I had a few minutes to give Michael and one of the other kids some hints on some math problems. Michael had a little bit of trouble on one of the word problems. His teacher had said that Michael has problems relating English to math, but so do most kids - so I'm still don't have a really good handle on the extra challenges created by his ESL status. Immediately after the short math homework time the teacher got them started on a formal test, and my chances for interaction dropped down to roughly zero. So, I decided to make my exit.
Quite unprompted Michael gave
me a little backwards wave as I was
walking back to the door area, which was an unexpected indication that
I might be gaining a little bit of trust and/or connection with
him. I actually felt quite good about that wave, as small a
gesture as it might have been.
I'm still having a lot of
challenges figuring out how to fit my need
for one on one time with Michael into the busy curriculum of a fourth
grade classroom. I feel awkward pulling him away from the
stuff
he needs to learn, and I'm having some trouble asserting
myself.
Actually, I'm not really a very assertive person in a lot of ways, and
this is just an example of one of the big challenges I'm going to have
to face as a teacher. Fortunately I'm not ever going to have
to
face the professional challenge of asserting myself against grade
school kids all day long (I'm aiming at secondary school).
That
looks pretty exhausting.
Next week I'm going to do two sessions to try to catch up with my schedule a little. This time I'm going to overlap my time slot with lunch a bit so that maybe I can keep Michael for a few minutes after class. I'm also thinking about trying out the "book about me" idea that Dr. Baird showed us. Michael seems to communicate fairly well through writing so this might be a good tool to use. Unfortunately, I'm going to need to find time to make my own book first before I can get Michael started on his (sigh).