Rough Day and Banned Books

This week has really been a roller coaster since coming back from Belize. On Monday and Wednesday I was fighting an extreme uphill battle to control my classroom and promote listening. Tuesday and today, for some reason, were much better and I am not sure I can explain why. Yesterday I sort of freaked out at the kids and later on at the apartment. In class, I became so fed up with the talking during instruction and all the dozing faces that I slammed my hand down on the table. The slam was a bit louder than I thought it would be, but it got everyone's attention, and fast. I let my patience get the best of me and in a brief escape I ended up scaring my class into submission.

It is hard to maintain a positive-reinforcement environment when the students are not focused on the goal they are working towards. But the truth is using discipline ends up making me crazier and doesn't work half of the time. You basically just have to find the students who are following directions and acknowledge them for it every 5 seconds; this makes others seek the same type of approval...or so they say. I tend to take a more wholistic approach and have class goals, but I have recently changed directions because it is always the few who ruin things for the many. Essentially I have begun to flood the market with Smackers (our classroom money). I think it is working. If the Republic had national holidays, today would have been Let's-all-act-really-nice-for-Don-Josh-so-that-he-will-put-beans-in-the-bean-jar-and-give-us-a-bunch-of-Smackers Day.

Regardless, I felt guilty about the hand smack and reflecting on it later, even though it worked, and it worked well, I am not running a tyrannical republic; we are more of an oligarchy, except I have 51% of the vote.

But this one incident led me to have sort of a break down at home. I feel like I am not teaching them anything. Like they are not moving forward. Every measuring stick that we have to go off of here (teachers notes from last year, our new English curriculum, other teachers) is ahead of where I am. We are reaching the end of the first quarter and I have to do all of these final tasks that take a look back at everything and I just feel like I am not moving forward. Samira help put things into perspective and was a good person to talk to. She is a returning teacher who has tons of insight and is a great resource to have here. She basically reassured me that I was teaching them and that it takes time to understand what it really means to be an effective educator. And also not to set the bar so high. We are already doing a great thing here and it is important to keep that in perspective.

Onward!

The second part to this blog is more of an ethical question that I encountered today.

I have two really high-level students who enjoy reading more than anything else. One of them is a overly studious girl who just happens to be a Jehova's Witness (I mention this only because it seems like all of the JW's, as I call them, are super smart and speak English really well) and the other has early-onset teenage angst at the age of 10 and doodles all day in class. Anyway, I handed them both a copy of the first Harry Potter book to start reading, knowing that they would enjoy it and want to read the whole series (which we have in the library). I gave them these books on Tuesday and they are already deeply involved in one of the greatest fantasy series children should read.

Naomi, the JW, comes to me today to tell me how much she loves the book and how awesome all the characters are (She already likes it and there is so much more to come). But then she mentions to me that her mom does not want her to read this book. WHAT!?

I am pretty sure it has something to do with being a Jehova's Witness, but I am not sure and the fact is, if her mother tells her she can't read it then what can I do?

So Naomi mentions to me that she will just keep the book at school and take a different book home. I didn't really acknowledge this comment because I didn't want Naomi to think that I supported her openly defying her mother. But I do believe she should clandestinely read this book, and all of the ones that follow. Naomi has such a mind for learning and is an incredible student who should be allowed to read whatever she wants. But as her teacher, it would be wrong of me to support such blatant insubordination of her mother and of her families religious beliefs.

This is my dilemma and I truly do not know what to do. For now, I am going to let her continue to read and finish the first book. But I will have to dig deeper when she asks me for the 2nd.

Pictures will be up on the "interweb" shortly. Click the link at the top of the page.