Troubleshooting

Greetings Apples,

Last school year I put up a small board in my room called the "Problem of the Week." I posted a math problem there every Friday morning, and students had until the following Thursday to attempt the problem if they wanted a math challenge.  I even offered raffle tickets as an incentive to those students who solved the problem correctly.

No one was really interested.

A student or two tried it at first, but even their interest slowly waned, until I was left with a single challenge problem, posted for several months with no takers, and a board overrun by a lonely cobweb in the corner of my room.

I was thinking about my "Problem of the Week" board today because for my current class, I can't post these challenge problems fast enough.  These kids love the idea of a math problem that they can solve when they have a free moment.

I have begun to notice that there are one or two specific academic-related memories that I have had with each of my classes so far. My first class, when I was a long-term substitute in the third grade, wrote the most hilarious Mad Libs together - to the point where, years later, they would see me on campus and repeat a hilarious line from one of our ad-libbed gems, and we'd crack up together all over again.

My first fourth grade class loved figurative language.  From the day I taught my first simile lesson, their little hands would shoot into the air any time they heard a metaphor, idiom or hyperbole. They couldn't wait to share with me what they had heard. Last year's class was enthralled with our creative writing journals. They would literally cheer when I pulled out the creative writing jar and asked them to take out their journals and pencils.

Each of these special memories is unique to the group of kids that I had in my class that year, and I treasure each one.  (We've been in school for two weeks, and I am already wondering what is going to be my special memory of this class!)

Which brings me to the point of my blog...

Children are different. There are books and classes to teach you how to be a teacher, but there is no user manual to figure out what any one child needs. What has worked for one child or group of children in my classroom before won't necessarily work the following year.  As I learn and grow in my experiences as a teacher, I am beginning to develop quite the "bag of tricks," but my job still requires me to know each little mind that enters my room and learn what makes them tick.

And not only is each child individual and unique, but each combination of children that makes up my classroom each year is special. Their personalities feed off of each other, and I can already see that no two classes will ever be quite the same.

How cool is my job? I get to do something everyday that will never quite be the same day to day, and I get to work with children - unpredictable, hilarious little beings - that always seem to keep me on my toes.

Would it be easier to work at a job where everything was predicable, and I always knew how to solve the problem? Probably.

But how boring would that be?

Miss H.