Week 4: Pink Shirt week. I get to participate in the school talent show in “call me maybe” rendition (I’m the guy mowing his lawn).
Week 5: Started teaching three Marketing classes. The mature culture of these classes is such that I often give them more opportunity to have a bit of fun and be silly, without fearing classroom my management will crumble (like with grade 9s). I think older students have more situational awareness and can transition from silly to work mode quicker and more easily. I do need to work on showing them I am the leader in the room, that I control the lessons.
I have strived to earn the trust and respect of my students partly by avoiding confrontation with them, instead focusing on inspiring and pulling them towards learning. For most students, this has worked well. However, a firmer approach was required for two groups of boys, who in two work periods had only half-completed tasks to show. After consulting with my SA, I proceeded to:
-Email individuals, requiring them to come to Thursday tutorial and complete their business plans with my supervision. Laid out the consequences (meeting with me, Mr Kam, and possibly administration).
-Tracked down and spoke to the students individually in their lessons right before tutorial. This was meant to show them I knew where they were and to minimise the risk of them saying they never received my email.
-Advised them to call their friends/parents if they were expecting to be picked up after 3pm: this indicated to them that I was serious about keeping them until their tasks were finished.
This was very effective in getting these students to complete their work. The downside is that the follow-up and consistent discipline required make more work for me. However, on balance I think it’s very worthwhile.
Vancouver District Science Fair at Langara College: I had the privilege to judge at a science fair on Friday evening. The ideas were astounding, though nobody had foaming volcanos the usual mid-century science fair clichés (I was hoping for some!). One amazing student created a gray water pasteurization system (using a reconfigured kettle) which would address Greater Vancouver’s summer droughts. She expertly compared the efficacy and cost effectiveness between that and other forms of water amelioration, and arrived at a very strong conclusion. Many of the students exhibited statistics skills that rivaled first-year universities. One issue for me was that a few students had help from parents (e.g., the student who conducted a very niche test on knee angles, and had a physiotherapist father who gave him the idea and free run to experiment on patients). As a judge, I tried to compensate for this leg-up (terrible pun) through the “Creativity and Uniqueness” portion of the rubric. Nevertheless, these students on the whole did better than those who didn’t appear to have parental assistance.