8.18.2010

Class Meetings

In my research about how to start off the school year successfully, I read a book ''Positive Discipline.'' What a teacher I sound like right now! Oh wait, I am, haha. In the book, it describes giving students more ownership of the classroom by including them as equals on the conversation for establishing routines and procedures instead of just mandating all rules and regulations from adult to child. So my experiment begins this week...

Today's discussion was a hot topic for 5th graders: Can we go to the bathroom during class time? I shared my concern as a teacher that we waste valuable classroom minutes in the bathroom, and of course their concerns were along the lines of wetting their pants. Here were some of the suggested solutions:

''We could have a pack of diapers for students who have to go really bad.'' (bursts of giggles from everyone in the class... myself included!)

''We could get detention for having to go to the bathroom!''

''What if we have diahrrea?'' (pronounced ''Whhhhhhot eeeeeef weeeee hofffff diarrrrrea?'' good old Spanish accent in English :))

and then I come home and my roommate suggests I make them carry a toilet seat as the bathroom pass. LOL. I thought it would be great to write ''Miss Siscoe loves her 5th graders'' on the toilet seat... I'm sure they would love to ponder that while sitting on the pot. haha.

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