me: do you want to put that phone away so i can get on with the lesson?
the student: no
me: are you listening to me?
the student: what?
me: five minutes before the end of the lesson so, that's clear to everyone, right?
them: erm.. not really
me: are you sleeping in my lesson?
the student: silence
me: does anybody want to do some extra reading to help me decide which text to pick next year?
the students: silence
me: in the plenary can everyone write down five new things they've learnt today?
the student: what if we've not learnt anything?
me: do you want to try and teach this yourself?
the student: shrugs shoulders ok (and did a better job)
me: do you want to stay behind with me at the end of the lesson?
the student: i wouldn't mind that much (for the benefit of his freinds)
me: don't you think the cleaners have better things to do than clean up after you?
the student: not really,that is what they're paid for
me: what do you mean, you're dropping English and picking up Sociology?
the student: i mean, i'm dropping English and picking up Sociology
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12 comments:
Scary.
One of the reasons I can never be a secondary teacher!
ha ha they're good kids really.
the point of the post is, it was really my fault for asking the wrong questions.
eg i say "can you put the phone away" instead of just "put it away" a lot if i'm not careful.
giving an option is just asking for it!
I'm baaaccckkkk! =D
You have too many new entries to catch up with, I may not read them all as they are rather smelly, much like you.
However I have received much merriment from reading this entry. It made me chuckle.
Subhan'allah...I wonder...o you teach n a mixed school ukhti? cause in a girls' school like mie, that rarely happens in set 1...although it seems quite frequent in the lower sets.
by the way, which set do you teach?
One of the reasons I have all the outmost respect for teachers especially high school instructors. You guys, know how to tackle these rebelious minds and their sarcasm... You guys are so underpaid and deserve a salary higher than a circus act of people throwing hoops or hitting a ball with a racket. Reminded me of those highschool days when some of my classmates were smart aleks just like this student. Hugs ;)
Hehe.. yeah Hema you really have to give them orders/commands instead of asking questions, I learned that too!
Carimuslim, I like your comment that we "deserve a salary higher than a circus act of people throwing hoops or hitting a ball with a racket" and because of that, I think you're an amazing person and I don't even know you :D
hahaha your too nice for your own good!
We did a few sessions on how to react to these sort of situations in tecahing studies. One of my fave ways is to give options where the end result will be to your benifit. So for the putting away the phone it would be something along the lines of 'either put the phone away or give it to me to put away' Your giving a command and an option its suprising how well it can work. Oh and NEVER smile whilst saying and if you have a difficult student, after giving them the option/command turn away from them and address another student or carry on talking. This gives them time to 'choose' what they going to do and do it without having the eyes of the entire class on them.
If they still don't do it address them with something like 'come on slow couch, how long does it take you to choose what to do' (some thing friendly) again your stating its their choice follow this up with ur command/option again 'you either give it me or put it away yourself'
If after this they still don't do it you can happliy state that you gave them a choice, go on about how great you were for giving them the choice, how rude they are for carrying on even tho you had asked them to put it away twice - you'll know what degree to take this to basically your shaming them into putting it away. At the same time your showing your reasonable etc
mishy- don't worry you didn't miss much. just me waffling on and on and on..
snowdrops- i don't teach in a college.the boys in the post are all GCSE resits. to be honest, i get bored teaching set one students all the time..
carimuslimah- that's it, you are officially my favourite person. will you move to the UK and become the next prime minister or something.
liya- exactly- everything in that post was totally my fault. except for the comment about cleaning. he got a huge lecture about that.
ymiss- thanks for the reminders- that brought back memories.
they are genuingly good kids really. most of the comments were said in a cheeky way to gain some laughs.
i ask questions rather than give commands out of habit, but the way you phrase things really does make a huge difference.
eg "put that away please" implies they have a choice
whereas
"put that away,thank you" assumes compliance.
i always try to reflect when the behaviour in a class goes wrong. it's easy to blame the students and think "typical teenagers" but teachers need to assume some responsibility too.
i tracked a low ability set once, and they were little angles for one teacher and totally rebellious for another.
aww sweet your so funny. Its true the way you say things does make a big difference. Are all teachers as nice as you?
Faz
i don't teach in a college.the boys in the post are all GCSE resits. to be honest, i get bored teaching set one students all the time..
ahhh...no wonder =D
difference. Are all teachers as nice as you?
if that was the case, then we'd all love all our teachers wouldn't we =P
LOl!! that was funny! i always used to think doesn't the teacher find us funny!! but not so when you're the butt of the joke.........
OMG, this reminds me of like, my entire class, some days.
Me too ^_~ It's fun being cheeky.
{Poor teachers. We don't overdo it, but it must be aggravating nonetheless.}
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