Classroom Ponderings

A note on the Lemon Muffins. Use the Simplicity Chocolate cake recipe I posted and replace the cocoa with the zest of one lemon and cook the mixture in muffin pans instead of a cake tin. Voila, it's that simple. The recipe worked fine with regular flour and gluten free flour alike.

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Back to my original post....

Admittedly, I am completely new to working in the secondary school. Even then, I've only encountered up to Year 8 ~ so fairly juniour levels, at that. However, in yesterday's Food Technology class I was completely appalled at the behaviour of the Year 8's. The Year 7's, of course, had their moments, but were by and large respectful and obedient.

I cannot imagine a scenario where turning your back on the teacher and continuing your own little conversation while instructions are being given would be appropriate. Yet, there were a handful of girls who did just that all the way through the class. They offered their opinion of why they thought an instruction would not work and proceeded to attempt to give the teacher their advice to change things. I'm not sure when they decided classrooms were democracies where students should determine for themselves what the rules are. They could not seem to understand the concept of common courtesy and that they were being quite rude.

So late yesterday afternoon I was telling a friend about this class and her response was "well, secondary school should be less about rules and more about kids figuring out who they are". Pardon???

Perhaps you could attempt that style of authority with your own children, but when you have 25 kids who require direction to get from point A to point B in a lesson you kind of need some basic rules of etiquette and discipline so that everyone understands what is expected and what the consequences of non-compliance will be. Surely!

Or maybe I'm on a completely lone planet?

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On the upside, I was able to encourage my Year 7 charge that just because just because story writing is a struggle, it should not be the automatic assumption that the current story-in-progress will be "dumb". The draft was a more than reasonable attempt. Heaven knows, I find story writing a challenge. That would entail coming up with ideas, rather than just following instructions!!!!