Each day as my 70+ students walk into the classroom, they are expected to get their notebooks and sit down and start their "bellwork". This is a 5-10 minute exercise to teach a principle or review something we did yesterday. Sometimes it is a journal entry. Sometimes it is a reading passage. Sometimes it is a sentence to correct. These exercises come along with our textbooks and are always related to the subjects we are currently reading. A couple weeks ago a girl said, "Hey, these sentences are about the stuff we're reading!" Yes, isn't that funny. Then last week, a kid said, "Yeah, like on the ACT, like I had to find, like, what was wrong, in like, um, yeah, the sentence, just like these, um, things we always, like, gotta do, like, yeah. For real." Really? So then each day, I'm preparing you for the tests you will need to take? And I thought I was just trying to give you something to fill time while I took attendance. It is so nice to have validation!
Along with this bellwork, the students have a "word of the day" (WOD) to copy into their notebook. I have been asked why don't the authors just say "greedy" instead of "avaricious"? Today one of my kids pointed out that he took a practice ASVAB test (military placement test) and there were lots of words on the test that we have had for WOD. Again, amazing that we have that in place, almost like we are trying to help.
It makes me smile and I feel like some kids are benefiting and when they see it and they tell the other kids, THEN, kids take it more seriously. There is no validation like a student's testimonial. A small happy moment in my life.
2 comments:
Very nice!
It makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it, when you actually see results of your hard work? I remember having such a bad attitude my first year having to deal with the lowest of the low math students, but then I had some of my least likable students make comments that they were actually learning stuff from me when they felt like they never were before. It's enough to bring tears to my eyes, but not enough to make me keep teaching, unfortunately. You go girl (sorry, I couldn't resist)!
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