Attention and Enthusiasm

Wednesday was a tough day. I don't really know why. But all my classes were talkative, 9 students in one class didn't have their English notebook, and when we stood up to practice Head Shoulders Knees and Toes in music some students tried to crouch on the floor and not participate. Sure, my lesson plans could always be better, but I thought these were decent. Certainly no worse than Monday and Tuesday's lessons.

I asked my Chinese cofellow about one of the classes which he taught right after me. How were they? Not good, he said. I had observed them with a local teacher that morning and they had been extremely quiet. And then I realized that might be why. Maybe they'd used up their attentiveness in that class. Not that that explained the other classes.

I had also noticed in the class of mine that was observed the week before that although the students were much quieter and better behaved than usual their quiz results were not as good as usual. I think sometimes the well-behaved class is an illusion. If the students are too well behaved they're putting too much effort into that, instead of the lesson. Perhaps it's even okay if they sometimes tune out, so long as they also sometimes tune in.

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out what success looks like in my classroom, but I taught the same lessons again on Thursday and Friday and they went pretty well. Friday's class got switched from my normal period to an earlier class to accommodate the homeroom teacher. There's nothing as heartwarming as students cheering when you walk into the classroom and asking excitedly if the next class is English (admittedly, it's only some of them, but still).

Some of the girls are particularly sweet. This week I've been gifted all of these and more. Occasionally, however, I've had to tell them off for working on these sorts of crafts during class time.