Teaching 2 year olds in the morning and 12 year olds in the afternoon is an interesting leap in the space of a day. Each come equipped with their own unique sets of joys and perils, especially as a roaming Language and Technology teacher.
2 year old highs: Putting French Caillou on the laptop for kids to roam past as they play, while sitting with students one on one and engaging them in a social French moment, playing a guessing game about colors. I am discovering that one on one face time with these youngsters makes a huge difference in the quality of their engagement.
2 year old lows: Showing a student my iPad and watching him unplug it an and announce, "I unplugged it." To which I say "Great! Can you plug it back in?" Naturally he responds by moving to put the plug in his mouth. I am recording this whole thing, and the video ends as I fumble for the cord and say in a much different tone "No, don't put it in your mouth!" The learning experience about 2 year olds here is pretty obvious.
12 year old highs: So many sweet wise souls that I get to spend 10 minutes with one on one. I am constantly amazed and challenged by how much they know and how much they can do. How can I keep ahead of them? How can I keep their momentum going when I only see them once a week? I want more time with them to accomplish even greater things. This high is really a combination of all sorts of bittersweet highs when it comes to teaching 12s.
12 year old lows: This is my favorite, and has become a high in retrospect because it's just too dern awkward and funny. A particular 12 year old emailed the following to his mother from my email account: "all the babies all across the world were decapitated and slottered
love headless horceman aka joe*" along with this picture:
What's cool is that he edited this photo and wrote the email, addressed it, gave it a subject ("headless babies"), attached the image, and wrote something in the body of the message with minimal involvement from me. He followed all the parameters of my instructions and accomplished all my goals for the engagement perfectly! It's only too bad his silly Language and Technology teacher didn't think to specify that all content "shared" had to be appropriate. Of course Joe's mom was NOT THRILLED about the creepy email from her son... the worst part is probably that I did read what he wrote, but I didn't really THINK about how inappropriate the content actually was. After all, I am the one who had doll heads decorating my house for halloween in the first place. I watch violent movies and laugh at gross jokes and count South Park among my favorite shows. I'm probably not a very appropriate person in general. Which is why I am grateful for this incident, simply because it taught me that I'm going to have to sharpen that appropriate-dar if I'm going balance working with 12 year olds and parents and my own depraved twisted home-life. I'm sure a few more embarrassing lapses of judgment like this and I will have it down. NOTE TO SELF: 12 is not old enough for headless baby humor, particularly when said humor is sent to Mom without further explanation. Supervision still a must, or metaphorical plugs will be placed in metaphorical mouths and result in metaphorical electrocution.
2s and 12s! SO different and SO the same.
2s and 12s! SO different and SO the same.
1 comment:
Katie! Your writing continues to amaze me…2's and 12's- I cannot imagine. I love your statement about engaging with student- I, too, have found that creating those special relationships are crucial within the walls of a classroom. I agree that the more time we spend one on one, the more they are likely to engage. While at the same time, it sounds like there is a lot to learn about 2 year olds and I bet you learn something new everyday! The 12 year olds sound like they have a lot of independence and I bet you enjoy working alongside students and seeing where their minds take them. While the ages seem so different, I hope you are able to enjoy time with each of them and continue to appreciate all that they have to offer. You sound like such an incredible teacher and I feel like I have learned so much from you over the past several months. Keep up the good work!!
Christian
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