You’d think that they’d be glad of the opportunity to read the mark scheme and improve their answers. But no; I am so naïve it turns out. Instead they just messed about chatting. I moved students, I shushed them and still they weren’t working. Then someone from senior management came in a yelled at them. It was annoying to be a bit undermined but on the other hand they were wasting their own time.After the lesson I got to thinking about it. Why should I get so annoyed with them? It makes me quite annoyed that so many people are applying pressure to me to ‘get results’ when really, I can’t force the kids to write. There is a limit to what I can do. I am happy in my own mind that I have provided them with ample support and opportunities to maximise their marks. However when it comes round to results day there will be plenty of stakeholders letting me know that I have let them down and not done enough because, when it comes down to it, what is enough?
2 comments:
i as a student have found one thing really gets a students attention. one of my teachers sat at the front of the class for one whole lesson, said not one word and we messed about the whole lesson.
at the end of the lesson she simply and honestly said "you've just missed out on me teaching you the most important info for your exam, and that's your own fault. i'm still getting paid, and i'm not taking the exam. so next lesson mabye you'll keep your mouths shut, your ears open and learn what you need for the exam. that way you get your reward for passing your exams and i don't get shouted at for not teaching you what you need to know and forcing you to learn it without actually forcing your eyes open with match sticks."
we all sort of went :O
and realised she was right, it was our own fault we weren't learning anything.
That's a pretty cool idea. I would like to try that strategy; I tried once before but I lost patience with it and yelled at them. However, I have walked out before and then the next lesson told them that they had missed out on that lesson.
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