#teaching success

[walnutwordsalad]

new teaser for a doc film I've been working on with Schools That Can about the teachable skills that lead to success 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dNjg7zwc4g

[doushiyo-doshi]

It's interesting how almost every morning starts out crappy, and the rest of the day gets better.

Instead of actually practicing the speaking exercise for ordering at a restaurant, my JTE has my students memorize the sample conversation, copy it into a test, and moves on. Without even trying out some of the other words, or possible conversations. How are they supposed to learn that? It's in one ear, out the other.

Then in my next class, I was asked to help out a boy who's really struggling with English while the rest of the class went on. This was good for me, 'cause I could use Japanese to help him understand the grammar and piece the puzzle together. After about ten minutes, it looked like he was starting to get it. Just that alone was enough to cheer me up - I had something to do, and I felt useful.

So I was able to start the rest of my day with a smile and have some fun grading tests. I have two more classes today, the most I've ever had at school, and then I'm going to the elementary school, which is always really fun. So I think it's going to be a good day.

[nataliewritesablog]

Alien Abduction

This semester, to teach composition, I am using a book by Michael Shermer called Why People Believe Weird Things. It's about just what it says, if "weird" is aliens and magic and ghosts and God and conspiracy theories and...you get the picture. I'm from the south, which means believing in most of these things is required by my DNA. So basically, Shermer has been calling me a dumbass all semester.

Anyway...

Today, we discussed Aliens and Roswell and the video of what is supposed to be the first alien autopsy ever done on American soil. (You can Google that junk and find it. It's...yeah ok...weird.) We got to the end of class and I posed the question, which I pose at the end of every class: "Well, do you believe the weird thing or not?"

One kid...a really decent, smart, level-headed kid...looks at me, and in all seriousness says, "Yeah, I believe. I've been abducted."

This is the moment in every teacher's life when you don't know what to do. I mean, who am I to look at this kid and say, "No. No you haven't been." And how do I even know? So, the room got very quiet. And he thought that was a signal for him to tell us his story.

Needless to say, by the end of the story, when one kid asked if he was high, he just grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

I tell this story because of this:

After class, he came up to me and said, "I never would have been able to tell any other class about that. I told this class because I knew you'd have my back if anyone got crazy and called me whack. Thanks, Ms. M."

Life Successful.