Questions of the Day
This week I started my final substitute teaching assignment of the 2006-07 school year. I'm covering for a Biology teacher who's out on maternity leave. Sure, this means I need to find a new job in less than a month, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
This assignment is quite different than any other job I've had all year. I only teach two periods, which means I'm out by 11:00 each morning. That's kind of nice. What makes it challenging is that I'm working with two small Resource classes. That's right, we're talking about Special Education. And I don't have a lot of The kids in the two classes I teach are classified as having mild to moderate learning disabilities. There are a couple that are not very good readers, and a few that have bipolar or ADD/ADHD issues. Generally they seem like pretty good kids; it's just a little hard to keep them focused sometimes.
The first period class I cover is Directed Studies—in other words, a structured study hall period. As part of this class, the students have a journal to help them improve their writing skills. Every other day in class, they have a journal assignment, a topic about which they are supposed to write a paragraph of so. Some of the topics looked interesting, so I figured I'd write along with them. Here are the questions, along with my responses:
May 2nd: What is your favorite song and why?
This is a hard question for me to answer. There are so many songs that I like, and so many of them could be 'favorites' at different times and under different circumstances. But if I had to choose a single, all-time favorite song, I suppose I'd choose Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son". The music is catchy, complex, and well-performed. But what I really love about the song is the lyrics. They tell a story of a man on a journey to enlightenment. As he tries to rise above the noise and confusion of everyday life he meets with struggles and sorrow and self-doubt. But in every circumstances, the voices encourage him to carry on. In the end he finds meaning, fulfillment, and rest. Sometimes I need to be reminded that good things await me if I will only 'carry on' through my current trials.
May 4th: What is something that really bugs you?
People quitting really bugs me. That's something that's really been driven home to me this school year. I've seen too many students who, at the age of 15 or 16 or 17, have already decided that they're failures. They may not actually admit this, even to themselves, but their behavior tells me that they've given up on themselves. They've decided that they can't succeed, so they've stopped trying, and not surprisingly, they fail. It's a classic self-fulfilling prophecy. That really bothers me. I wish I knew how to let these kids know that there is so much more awaiting them if they would just hang on and keep trying. I wish I knew how to keep their spirits high through multiple failures until they get a real taste of success. Because I know that once a lot of these kids begin to feel success, they'll find that it suits them and they'll be unstoppable.
This assignment is quite different than any other job I've had all year. I only teach two periods, which means I'm out by 11:00 each morning. That's kind of nice. What makes it challenging is that I'm working with two small Resource classes. That's right, we're talking about Special Education. And I don't have a lot of The kids in the two classes I teach are classified as having mild to moderate learning disabilities. There are a couple that are not very good readers, and a few that have bipolar or ADD/ADHD issues. Generally they seem like pretty good kids; it's just a little hard to keep them focused sometimes.
The first period class I cover is Directed Studies—in other words, a structured study hall period. As part of this class, the students have a journal to help them improve their writing skills. Every other day in class, they have a journal assignment, a topic about which they are supposed to write a paragraph of so. Some of the topics looked interesting, so I figured I'd write along with them. Here are the questions, along with my responses:
May 2nd: What is your favorite song and why?
This is a hard question for me to answer. There are so many songs that I like, and so many of them could be 'favorites' at different times and under different circumstances. But if I had to choose a single, all-time favorite song, I suppose I'd choose Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son". The music is catchy, complex, and well-performed. But what I really love about the song is the lyrics. They tell a story of a man on a journey to enlightenment. As he tries to rise above the noise and confusion of everyday life he meets with struggles and sorrow and self-doubt. But in every circumstances, the voices encourage him to carry on. In the end he finds meaning, fulfillment, and rest. Sometimes I need to be reminded that good things await me if I will only 'carry on' through my current trials.
May 4th: What is something that really bugs you?
People quitting really bugs me. That's something that's really been driven home to me this school year. I've seen too many students who, at the age of 15 or 16 or 17, have already decided that they're failures. They may not actually admit this, even to themselves, but their behavior tells me that they've given up on themselves. They've decided that they can't succeed, so they've stopped trying, and not surprisingly, they fail. It's a classic self-fulfilling prophecy. That really bothers me. I wish I knew how to let these kids know that there is so much more awaiting them if they would just hang on and keep trying. I wish I knew how to keep their spirits high through multiple failures until they get a real taste of success. Because I know that once a lot of these kids begin to feel success, they'll find that it suits them and they'll be unstoppable.
posted by Michael at
7:29 AM
1 Comments:
Nothing clever or deep to add. I simply like those questions and I like your responses. Hope your week is good and that job hunting is a positive and quickly successful experience.
By
Wendy, At
May 07, 2007 6:48 AM
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