One of my earliest Do Now activities at the beginning of an English A class last autumn was: "What is a pet peeve of yours?" One of mine, I remember writing, was "when other people finish my sentences."
Now I'm trying to reconcile the fact that I don't like it when others finish my sentences, with the fact that I find it ver satisfying when students finish my sentences when I'm lecturing. Yes, they are speaking out of turn, and technically I should give them a warning. But 9 times out of ten the word they come up with works, and 4 times out of 5 it is at least along the lines of what I wanted to say, and 1 time out of three it's a better word than I was about to come up with. It shows me so clearly that they are listening, and thinking along with me, and actively engaged. If no one ever interrupted, I'd never be sure that they aren't sleeping. The students who are most likely to interrupt and cause minor disruption are also the ones who are the most intently focused on what we're saying.
Then, my challenge is to encompass their energy, focus, and to an extent their ejaculations to keep the class dynamic but not chaotic. Whether I'm able to do this seems to depend entirely on how many students there are who are likely to try to finish my sentence. In one of my eleventh grade classes, there are about 8 or 9 people (out of 22) who would love to try to finish every sentence. It's a very vocal, but also very attentive class. The other class has more quiet attentive listeners, and only two really want to finish sentences. That works really well, since other people in the class don't seem to take these two outspoken students' lead. Everyone else raises his hand. That class is my favourite class. They have enough feistiness in them to keep discussion dynamic, and enough critical thinkers so that I never really have to make the "big reveal" about a text - they get to it on their own.
So the moral of the story is, there is no rule about how to run a good classroom. Now that I've gotten to know this class a bit, I'm getting more comfortable breaking rules with them that I wouldn't break with the other class. I love that this job keeps me on my toes.
Now I'm trying to reconcile the fact that I don't like it when others finish my sentences, with the fact that I find it ver satisfying when students finish my sentences when I'm lecturing. Yes, they are speaking out of turn, and technically I should give them a warning. But 9 times out of ten the word they come up with works, and 4 times out of 5 it is at least along the lines of what I wanted to say, and 1 time out of three it's a better word than I was about to come up with. It shows me so clearly that they are listening, and thinking along with me, and actively engaged. If no one ever interrupted, I'd never be sure that they aren't sleeping. The students who are most likely to interrupt and cause minor disruption are also the ones who are the most intently focused on what we're saying.
Then, my challenge is to encompass their energy, focus, and to an extent their ejaculations to keep the class dynamic but not chaotic. Whether I'm able to do this seems to depend entirely on how many students there are who are likely to try to finish my sentence. In one of my eleventh grade classes, there are about 8 or 9 people (out of 22) who would love to try to finish every sentence. It's a very vocal, but also very attentive class. The other class has more quiet attentive listeners, and only two really want to finish sentences. That works really well, since other people in the class don't seem to take these two outspoken students' lead. Everyone else raises his hand. That class is my favourite class. They have enough feistiness in them to keep discussion dynamic, and enough critical thinkers so that I never really have to make the "big reveal" about a text - they get to it on their own.
So the moral of the story is, there is no rule about how to run a good classroom. Now that I've gotten to know this class a bit, I'm getting more comfortable breaking rules with them that I wouldn't break with the other class. I love that this job keeps me on my toes.
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