Lessons Learned in the Past Ten Months

I wanted to say a few things after having just closed out this last school year. If any of you are still reading, I'm going to talk about the mistakes I made and how I plan to fix them. This was the first class I've had that was not a gifted students class. This is not a bad thing, but it is definitely a different thing.

1. The first thing I learned about the "regular" (how I hate that word! I was one of them when I was a kid!) kids is that they don't love to read right off the bat. By the end of my school year, I had readers. Sure, I still had a few who would just look at the pictures in my giant DK books, or magazines, or whatever. However, the majority of my kids had found a series or an author or a genre that they enjoyed reading. However, it truly took some cultivating. One way I plan to turn this page with them* earlier is to be more proactive in showing them the books that thrilled me as a kid, the kids books that I find exciting now, and the books I enjoy reading as an adult. I did this last year, but I need to be more consistent in sharing to try to keep the kids pumped up.
2. One thing I've learned from teaching karate is that I need to "give candy" to the kids who need it. Some kids are going to get bored while you're teaching to a lower common denominator. Those are the kids you need to show something cool. In karate, this means showing a little something extra--why you do a certain move in a kata, a little something cooler than the standard fare on a certain move, a special fighting technique. Now that I'm allowed to teach Social Studies again, I'm so looking forward to doing this with certain kids. One of my favorite moments in this past school year was watching my students' eyes light up when I gave the ideas for their research projects (all of which had to be over a historical event). This time I'm the teacher for everything. I can't wait.
   
3. I need to make plans for the entire year ahead of time. I have the time in the summer, I don't have them in the fall. Of course I'll be flexible, but I have to have plans laid out, instead of just taking everything as it comes. Because my experience thus far has been that I don't get it all fit in if I don't work it out. This is not particular to the regular class, but to all classes thus far.
   
4. For Math, I have to train them to utilize their book earlier in the year. I talked before about how, in the movie Finding Nemo, the theme was that kids need to learn how to do things and learn things for themselves, otherwise they never will. If the grown-ups bail them out every time, they'll continue to be dependent for the rest of their lives. I suppose we can do this for just about everything, and not just Math, right?
5. That I never know how I've affected them, and so when I wonder if I'm making a difference, I need to just hush up and not worry about it. I am affecting them, even if it isn't always apparent right at first. I need to keep in mind how much I realized when the kids were singing their song for me, or when all the boys were huddled in a massive group hug full of tears on the last day of school. I need to keep this in mind. I need to keep this focus throughout the entire year. My mid-year declaration to amp up my teaching served as something of a tent pole for the year in terms of kid-respect and parent-respect, but I really need to be a lot better about having more tent poles throughout the year. It will make for a more even "roof" for the school year.
   

Those are the biggies. If I think of more, I'll post them here.