Reflections on Teaching Practices

At the end of today's classes, I felt so dejected and sad. I do not know how to motivate my pupils so that they do their work well and pay attention in class. I shall analyse the problem 1 by 1.

a) Problem: We were doing fairy tales today and reading passages on fairy tales. They were unable to summarise the story although it was quite easy to do.

Reflection: I notice that there were only a few pupils who were not paying attention and because of that few pupils who misbehave, I was unable to continue with the lesson. Those who were paying attention were demotivated by my constant reminders to those who were misbehaving. Girl M was distracting Boy R; Boy J was constantly making noises; Boy A and Girl Q, who were in the same group, were talking. Boy JY was not paying attention.
SOme of the kids' written work was also badly done. It showed shallow reflection.

At the end of the lesson, I realised that Boy JY was demotivated as he was unable to catch up. He chose to occupy his time making a lot of noises.

I will involve the parents next year. There will be a wall outside of class detailing my reflections of their work. I will see if I could make pockets that are transparent and easy to stick on the wall so that parents will be able to do a gallery walk and see what their kids have done. They will also be able to compare what their kids have done as compared to the rest. At the beginning of the term, I will write out a summary of what we are going to do.

There will also be a photowall. I will get parents' cooperation to do so.

I think many of the pupils are demotivated not because of the work but because I allow them to take control of my emotions and I put so much notice on them. I feel bad for those who choose to behave. My professionalism as a teacher is degraded because I become a begging old nag; begging them to behave. Why do I put so much emphasis on the 8 who do not behave and neglect the 30 who do? My pace of lessons are slowed down, things do not get done.

Kounin states many strategies for dealing with disruptive behaviour; withiness etc. I have done all that and they still do not behave. I speak to their parents and I now know their parents on a personal level. (Boy A's mum is so dejected because he does not behave.

I am great at classroom discipline but I want to be a great teacher who is able to nurture a class where pupils are able to recognise that the reason why they come to school is to learn and they have to put in efforts to learn. I put in so much effort to prepare the lessons etc and I only want the best for them.

Do I give up? No! After today's lesson, I was really down. I went down to Shirley Tan's LSM class and sat inside for awhile. There were about 7 pupils and I could see them trying hard to do their work. I see the power of influence of their peers on their work. Power of 1?

I am going to work harder on consequences (Driekers) and Assertive Discipline (Canter & Canter). I will give offenders only a certain time limit and make their parents more accountable. ( first term) If their behaviour do not improve, I will take greater action.

I will not give up. I believe I can succeed in taming a difficult class. I can make a difference.