Nothing really exciting has been happening this week other than the buzz about the Balul Bobocilor (freshman prom) that the 10th grades put on for all of the students from the 9th grade to welcome them into the high school. I gave some tests this week to the classes that I haven’t been splitting and they all fared decently well. Today, while with my 12A class, I jokingly said “who wants to in to 9B next hour and teach for me? A bunch of them jumped up at the opportunity and even though I wasn’t serious at first, it got me thinking. Since we had about 20 minutes to kill after going over their test papers and I didn’t want to start a new lesson in that short period of time, I decided to let them plan out a lesson for my next 9B class. I let the two most eager students come with me and participate in an “experience exchange” to teach which were Daniel and Toader. We went over what the book had planned we laid out what they would go over, how they would conduct the class, all well knowing that I would be there just in case anything were to happen.
After English class, I went and spoke with their head teacher and he let them come with me. When we entered the classroom, the freshman class was beyond confused as to why there were two seniors coming into the class with me. I presented them to the class and told them that the boys would be their teachers for the day. As talkative and energetic as the boys are normally in class, they were a little bit more reserved as teachers. I could tell that they were a little bit nervous to not only teach to a class that they don’t really know, but also teach a subject in a foreign language. Even though they were very rocky to start off with and it was a little bit difficult for them to keep the 30 some students quiet the whole time, they did a pretty good job. They reviewed some past simple and past continuous grammar rules, did some exercises, and did some speaking and reading activities as well. When the class was over with, the first thing one of the boys said to me was “Wow, i now know teaching is much more difficult than learning.”
All in all I’m very proud of the boys and I was really impressed to see how well they were able to help the 9th graders with words and phrases that they were not familiar with.
I leave you with this; I was talking to the school psychologist yesterday about a project we plan on doing and she showed me this quote with which I couldn’t agree more:
„Am ajuns la concluzia înspăimântătoare că sunt elementul decisiv în clasă. Starea mea de spirit dă tonul. Ca profesor am puterea incredibilă de a face viața unui copil nefericită sau veselă. Pot fi o unealtă de tortură sau o inspirație. Pot să umilesc sau să binedispun, să rănesc sau să vindec. În orice situație eu sunt cel care decide dacă o criză se va amplifica sau se va liniști sau dacă un copil ca va fi umanizat sau dezumanizat.”
-Haim Ginott
I found it in English as well:
“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”
― Haim G. Ginott
Jo in Ro 