I am inherently lazy. I'm not proud of that fact but I know it to be true. In my classroom I have to constantly fight my natural tendency toward laziness. During intersessions, I indulge it.
I plan my intersession classes to be as little work for me as possible. I do read aloud to the kids everyday. I do have to give directions for activities. But I really aim for most things to be as independent as possible. (It seems wrong that I get paid for this.)
One of the activities we did this week was to trace three-dimensional shapes to try and create a pattern to build our own copy of it. I modeled this for the kids and then gave them all paper and cubes. It was tough. They struggled.
Eventually one or two managed to make it work. The pride and excitement was strong enough to touch. The motivation for the rest of the group was unparalleled. They went at the task.
I put out pyramids and rectangular prisms. They grabbed them up. Those that were still struggling turned to the ones who knew how to do it for help.
My presence was only needed to celebrate the achievements. Kid after kid would bring their patterns to show me that they worked. "Wow! Awesome! Way to go!" And off they go with another shape. This is pretty close to heaven for a lazy teacher.
4 comments:
I don't think that sounds lazy at all---I think that sounds like fun. It must be nice for the kids, too, to have some "lazy" time to learn as opposed to more structured (and sometimes pressured) days we have to manage. Learning for the sake of learning. What's lazy about that? :)
I agree, this doesn't sound lazy. It sounds like teaching!
I believe, you are absolutely NOT lazy. Not only is what you're describing during intersession not lazy, but I would challenge you to ask yourself if what you're really experiencing is laziness. If you are avoiding doing something or confronting some activity, task, it's possible that there are other forces at play.
It's possible that you are actually holding yourself up to impossibly high standards. I suspect you work really hard at the things you care about but you're not willing to value them the way you value the things you think you *should* be doing.
Give yourself a break! :-)
Ha! Laziness! That's a good one. You're a mom, a teacher (who teaches during the intersessions), you're a blogger who writes interesting and insightful posts. And no doubt you're many other things we don't know about. If a few minutes in the day go by when you're not at 100% efficiency, I believe that's a good thing--a quick recharge of those batteries! PS the learning here sounds first-rate!
Post a Comment