ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER

Day 36, Friday, October 26

Today we spent about five minutes in each class reviewing the entire week's lessons, and it was time well-spent. It was good for the kids to flip back through the four lessons, reminding themselves of what they had learned during the week. I think it gave them a sense of accomplishment, a sense that there was a purpose for all the work they had done. It was a relaxing few minutes -- no pressure, no quiz, just a casual look back at our achievements.

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While I was passing out papers for a creative writing exercise, I made a "spur of the moment" decision to allow the kids to not write anything, if they would prefer to just listen to the music. Bad decision, Ham! It turned out that fully half the students decided not to write, which made the exercise more a failure than a success. Half of the class simply listened to the song and then sat quietly while others wrote. When will I learn that impulsive decisions never work ? When will I learn to think carefully before I decide to do anything in the classroom?? Yikes!