It's that time of the school year when we are settling into routines. The kids know what to do, we are finishing up beginning of the year benchmark testing, and small groups start this week. I love this time of year! Everything starts to click.
As my students are starting to get into working independently, I have noticed that they are starting to show some annoyance towards others who work differently than they do. Humming is distracting. Moving around is hard to take. Or even, how someone does their work is annoying.
Each and every student is different, just like every human begin is different. They have their interests, their preferences and their own unique learning style. As a teacher, my goal is to discover each unique style and try to support my students. One area I am seeing a need is to tolerate different learning styles and even interests in the classroom. We are different and we want to honor that difference. This really is a form of respect.
I developed a lesson to specifically address this issue in my classroom and support my students as we look at ways to respond to differences in a respectful way. If you are interested, check it out on TPT here.
I have an amazing class. They are great, really. I believe that children, and frankly many adults, need to be taught how to show respect. It is hard when others are different. It can be annoying. My lesson focuses specifically on different interests and independent learning styles because that is what my students need developmentally and what is relevant in my classroom right now. This is a smaller lesson that we will build on and refer back to throughout the year.
Some life skills need to be drawn out and taught directly. Often with the age group I work with, they do not realize that they are being disrespectful. They also need to be shown coping strategies and given opportunities to practice using them. That will be our focus this week. Tolerating differences is so important in the classroom. We all deserve respect.
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment