June 27, 2018
Today is the day before the last day of school and I am once again with the grade 3s. I was eager to join them on their field trip to the grade 4-7 elementary school, however before we could go on the field trip, there was a morning that needed to be lived through… The main teacher decided that we would begin the morning with our read aloud of The One and Only Ivan, quite a good book in my opinion except for the fact that there is blatant anthropomorphization. Other than that philosophical qualm, I love reading to students… But when is it too much?
There were moments during the read aloud where I awaited some interjection from the teacher to move on/continue with a different activity; I kept reading… and reading….. and reading……. until I found that it was difficult to engage and read to my students when some of them were becoming very “shifty”, just waiting to release pent up energy. At the end of the read aloud, when we finally transitioned to talking about the field trip, there was obvious relief. Mind you, I engaged the students in as many ways as I could, prompting their thinking with questions, rereading significant sections, using gestures, making eye contact, and asking for opinions time to time, but they were quite reluctant or aloof in sharing their ideas; perhaps that was because sharing their ideas during reading time was something unfamiliar to them. Nevertheless, by the end of the read aloud, we had gone through 60 pages. Sixty pages. That’s a significant amount of time spent sitting and listening. I mean, sure I am an engaging reader in my humble opinion, but that is a long time to stay still…
What I wonder is: To what extent will we compromise behaviour for desires and to what extent will we compromise desires for behaviour? It was quite clear to me that the students needed to move or engage in more active-activities, but on another note, the teacher with me had run into some difficulties regarding a few final reading assessments and report card business amongst other stressors in her life, thus she was using the reading time to do some catching up.
I wonder what I will do when I am in that situation. I hope that I would adequately implement my reporting structures and marks such that I would not need to cram my reports in during the last week or two. I feel very blessed to be able to see both ends of the spectrum: one teacher finished all of his report cards a week early, whereas the other is just about to finish hers. Live and learn.