You know I make contracts with students and take for granted that they know what I mean. I assume they understand what I want and are ready for such a commitment.
By making a learning contract for myself just now I realized it was apersonal commitment. And a commitment to myself which really strikes me as important. I wonder if my students (fourth graders) would take this as seriously as I just did or even more so? Am I putting undo stress on certain students? How do I know which ones will seriously participate ? How can I help they learn about commitments and responsibility to themselves. If they have never done such a contract what information do I need to give them to get started? I do have lots of questions I am asking myself right now. I am going to take conscious notes and respond in this journal/blog as much as possible so I can reflect again. That is a big word this year. In my science journals I will have to teach the kids to reflect.
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I think as a whole "we" take for granted that our kids understand/know what it is we are asking of them. They don't! They are just as frustrated as we are, but many of them just quit and we don't. We just keep on asking for more results. I believe we have to look at the end results we want and then go backwards to see the steps that must be taken to get to the end results. Sometimes the steps have to be broken down into steps. Also, there is usually more than one way to get to the end results - each path has to be explored and broken down into steps. At first there will be many steps to learn, but once learned they can be transfered to other learning results and refined along the way.
ReplyDeleteyup. you are certainly right on with that comment. We are on such a merry-go-round schedule to meet times and objuectives that all that GOOD stuff seems to be overshadowed. It would be nice to be able to work backwards with each child and explain in a quiet enviroment and show individually. GOLLY. can we ask for more than 24 hours in a day. Do you think that could be found somewhere? Let me know if you get more than 24 hours in your day and I'll sign up for it too!
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