Today was my third day and was the first rainy day since I've been at the school. It was a relatively bad day for the students today and I was able to see how my teacher handled the situation. It was a great learning experience and she also shared a few techniques with me on how she likes to handle these types of situations. It was also nice to see what a rainy day schedule looks like as well.
It was interesting to see what a Rainy Day Schedule is like. Since there is no gym per say in the school, students stay in their classrooms for recess and play with games and toys. The teachers are allowed to leave the room for the time and take a break. Students know that they are to stay in the rooms and play nicely. Teachers who are on duty will walk around to the different classrooms and make sure that everything is in order. This is quite interesting because I do not think this would ever be allowed int eh states because of possible lawsuits of children hurting themselves while not being "supervised". It is interesting to see how the laid back culture of Australia follows through to the schools.
According to my Cooperating Teacher (CT) today was the worst the students had ever been all year long. She told me that she felt super embarrassed that I had to see the students like that. However, I found it to be an excellent learning opportunity for me to learn from her and learn about her method of solving these types of problems. My CT said that it was partially her fault because she had noticed the bad behavior starting on Monday but did not address it then and the problem just grew and grew and finally exploded today. However, I believe that it also had to do with the fact that students weren't able to go outside and run around due to the rain. Many times during little breaks between activities, my CT will give the class a short break to grab a drink and use the bathroom. During this break, some students will choose to go on a little jog to get some of the energy out of them. However, due to today's weather, this was not feasible. I think this definitely caused some students to become rowdy.
I think the way my teacher handled the situation was a good method, but I think it could've been better. When students were not behaving properly, my CT would write their names on the board as a reminder to those students that they were not doing a good job. After having their name put on the board, students will usually start to behave and then they will get their names taken off the board. This is quite effective and seems to be a method that could be very useful in my future classroom. When students are being noisy when my CT is trying to explain something, my teacher uses the phrase "You're wasting your own learning time". This usually quiets the children down and they refocus. However, I remember using this with my 2nd graders last semester and it did not work at all. This technique did not seem to work well today in class probably because the students were very grumpy and/or jittery form not being able to go outside and play and run around. The students probably didn't want to learn and therefore that phrase did not work. I think that my CT should've realized that this technique wasn't working and tried another one. My CT also threatened to take away Computers (one of their specials) if their bad behavior continued. In the end, she ended up taking Computers away because students were not behaving so clearly this method did not work either. It is a good method, but I think something that might be more effective is for my CT to rearrange the children so that the are not sitting with children that they are being naughty with. This is a simple solution and often times works really well.
After my teacher took away Computers, she had the students do independent silent reading as a punishment for being loud and rude. After the students calmed down, my CT pulled out a wetlands coloring worksheet that was like and "I Spy" type worksheet where students had to find the number of hats, beach balls, and other things in the picture. My CT was saying that she also has a worksheet like that on hand that is easy and calming for the students and it relates to the topics that they are learning about. She was also telling me that the worksheet should be easy because it will help calm the students down because the students will feel that they know the information and feel confident. She said that the work the students were doing today and the past few days were quite challenging and that may have been the cause of some behavioral issues. I think that it is awesome that she plans for possible bad days and always has something prepared in advanced just incase she ever needs to use it.
One problem that I seem to face as a Student Teacher is that students don't see you as a teacher. I know that last semester when I would ask students to stop doing certain behaviors, they would say to me, "You're not a teacher". This happened today with one student who was trying to be smart with me. He said to me that I wasn't a teacher and when I told him I was, he just refused to listen to me and continued to say that I was not a teacher. I am wondering what is the best way to approach these situations where students question your authority. I hope to talk to my CT about this and see if she ever had this happen to her when she was student teaching and how she dealt with it.
I was also asking my CT as to how students are placed into schools and she said that it is based on zoning. However, if one year enrollments are low, they will pull students from other places. She said though that Carlton North Primary School is in a pretty affluent place and students come into school read to learn. She said that it isn't that most students come from affluent backgrounds but that the parents look highly upon learning and education. For this reason, the school receives a lot of funding and donations from the parents, which is one of the reasons why the school has four different specials (Arts, Robotics, Italian, Computers), which is a lot. The way funding works in Australia is that schools receive a certain amount of money per student and that is there budget. On top of that, schools will hold fundraisers to raise more fund for the school budget. Families are also able to donate money to the school, which will increase the school's budget. I think that this is a great idea and I think schools int he states should hold fundraisers more so that they can provide more services for students to enhance their learning.
To end on a happy note, today one of the boys asked me what were on my ears. I then realized that he was talking about my earrings and I told him that they were octopi and he was extremely excited. This was because the students are learning about wetlands now, which include oceans, swamps, lakes, ponds, rain forests, and any wet areas of land. He made a like as to how octopi live in wetlands and it made me really happy because he made a connection. It was also funny because I didn't even notice that I was wearing octopus earrings while the students were learning about wetlands.
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