10.21.2008

Teaching Methods

Today in school my kids were learning about the Associative Property of Multiplication.  They needed to write that down in their math journals so I wrote it on the board.  As I was writing that on the board, one of the kids asked me a question.  I got distracted as I was answering it and didn't finish writing all of it.  The answer I gave turned into a 5 minute discussion.  Meanwhile, the first three letters of what we were learning about remained on the board until one of my students gasped and pointed to the board.  It's fine, I just had a swear word on my board for a good 5 minutes.  No big deal.  I erased it as quick as I could, but not before 3/4 of the class had noticed and was in shock.  At least I had their attention now!

Later I told another teacher about what I had done.  Then we heard someone say, "That's a bunch of B.S."  I said, "Oh maybe I'll teach my kids that word tomorrow."  And my co-worker said, "That would be perfect.  You introduced them to a word today, and you can teach them what that it does tomorrow.  Way to build on their background knowledge!"

Sometimes it amazes me that I actually get a paycheck for what I do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One day when I was in third grade, my class had a test. At recess, my friend Zach said, "I wrote bullshit at the bottom of my paper." We all gasped and said, "Ms. Rose is going to be so mad!" He gave us a skeptical face and he said, "She doesn't know what that means!"

Shannon said...

Teaching stories are the greatest! That's definitely a classic.