MMMiii!

Justin, the other grade 9 English ST, was so angry at 9-Iron today. The kids were just plain uncontrollable yesterday. They have this Filipino presentation on Friday, all of Grade 9 and they were demanding him to let them practice. Justine stormed out. He said that he might hurt someone if he stayed there longer.

Even in my class, their attention was hard to get. They weren’t focused. Even Calcium’s wondergirl just kept agreeing with everything I said even when I made a mistake. I was able to keep my temper more in check though, and gave them an assignment instead.
He talked it over with his Supervising Teacher, Ma’am Tina, and he said that she taught him something important.

“He is a teacher. He doesn’t need to make his students like him. What’s important is that he teaches.”

Somehow I don’t want to agree on that. But I DO agree that making them like you isn’t your sole purpose in being a teacher. I think it should be like this:

“It is important that you teach, and in teaching, get them to like you.”

Right? If you teach them well enough, they might just come to like you. It has been a discussion in my Educational Philosophy class whether you “teach” when they don’t “learn.”  If you try teaching and they don’t learn, are you really teaching? Or are you not teaching good enough? Teaching involves a learner, unless you’re teaching the wall to talk…

Most of my classmates back then were arguing that if the teacher teaches but the student doesn’t learn, the teacher isn’t really teaching. I don’t agree with that. Aside from various factors, learning difficulties and disabilities aside, like the students really just not paying attention, if a teacher is engaging, or worth listening to, then the student will learn. If the student isn’t learning, then the teacher is still teaching, just not well enough.

Why would a student dislike a teacher? What are the reasons? Here are some possible reasons I could think of at 2:50am:

1. Subject Matter
   A teacher must show that s/he knows what s/he is teaching. If you are an English teacher, and your English language skills are faulty, would a student want to learn from you? Wrong grammar, wrong pronunciation, not knowing the meanings of words–granted that you are not a walking dictionary, or that you are just a second language learner yourself, you must still show that you know what you are teaching, or show that you know it.
2. Authority
   Let them know who’s the teacher in class. Yes, the classroom shouldn’t be teacher-centered, meaning the teacher shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all in the classroom, and that all knowledge shall come from the teacher, but you are still the “adult” in class, otherwise known as “The Teacher”.  I have a problem with this, because my students think of me as their buddy, so when I was making a couple of guys transfer seats because they were disturbing those who DO want to learn and couldn’t concentrate in class because of them, they were being so difficult and I had to be firm and remind them that I am still the teacher in the classroom even if I am just a student teacher.
3. Attitude
   If a teacher is always scowling at me, I wouldn’t want to be in his or her class.
   I had a teacher once that reminded me of a dragon breathing flames. She even walked out from our class once. She was scary, but she taught very well. I actually appreciated history because of her… Nonetheless, I still didn’t want to be in her class. *shivers*
4. Reasonable
   The teacher shouldn’t give requirements that aren’t reasonable, like writing a paper within a week, or something. Although that IS possible, but to write a GOOD paper, it might not be enough. For one thing, your class is not the only class of the student. You’re just one of many. A teacher should always keep in mind of other classes. HOWEVER, like what happened in our classes because of the class suspensions due to weather, the requirements ended up being due all at the same day or week. That is excusable. A student can’t complain that they have requirements in other classes too. All classes have requirements. They just had to have done it over the unexpected breaks, since there were no classes. Some students tend to rejoice over class suspensions and take it easy.

Well… this is it for now. If I get any more ideas, I’ll just add to this. :D

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Lol! Check out the new Coke zero website! It’s hilarious! there are these black and white clips and you get to choose what the guy would say. It’s like the text to speech recognition thing of windows. What’s great about it is you can really type anything! Even malicious ones. Don’t expect it to be said exactly how you want it. In fact, don’t even expect anything! Usually it turns out funny with how the text you typed gets said, like the intonation and pauses. It’s really really cool! Go play with it right now! :D

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• Prepositions- Time - Printable Teacher Handout - UsingEnglish.com
  (tags: english grammar)
• Adverb Clauses
  (tags: english grammar)

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I’m writing a blog entry even if I should be doing something else. Why? Because this page caught my eye:

http://startsites.blogspot.com/2007/08/whats-making-me-money-and-happy.html

It’s not as comprehensive as John Chow’s, but they’re on money-making as well, but on a lower scale. Two of my income generators are there too (actually three, but it hasn’t really earned me anything significant), and I just signed up for another one listed there, Associated Content. I just browsed quickly through it and there were some titles that caught my eye, but don’t have the time to read them… I will, tonight maybe.

I’m already excited to start with that new one I just signed up for, but I have to write a lesson plan and write quiz questions for later.

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• ugly jugs
  (tags: art jugs clay pottery)

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My lecture yesterday

1066 Oct 14 - Battle of Hastings / Norman Conquest

• King Edward had no heir; William the Conqueror thought he was the next in line.
• Harold Godwin, Earl of Wessex was crowned. William got mad and waged war and won. Harold died
• Ties were cut with Scandinavia, End of the Anglo-Saxon period, Start of Middle Ages
• Normans had Feudalism and French Language and Culture, which William brought to England
• William took the lands of those who went against him, and distributed it among those who were loyal to him and some he kept for himself – fiefs and fealty
• Replacement of the Saxons and Britons in offices by Normans (French)

1067 – Pope Gregory VII was new pope

• established Church reforms

  Read more »

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August 28th 2007
For the first time, I lectured. Usually, it’s a discussion, according to my supervising teacher’s instructions. She said, as much as possible, I shouldn’t lecture, but since the lesson was something they don’t have reading materials of, nor were they told to read anything about it, I lectured. My fellow Grade 9 student teacher, Justin, lectures all the time. Mine is always focused on a discussion, drawing from them the contents of the lesson.

Calcium was at it again today, as usual. They were almost 30 minutes late, and they weren’t paying attention during the lecture. Halfway through, I told them that I’m going to give a quiz on the lecture on Thursday. Did that shut them up? Of course!!!…. not. That’s not my problem anymore though. Even without me telling them that I’m going to give a quiz, they should be listening–quiz or no quiz.
For Gold, I planned to push through what I originally planned. Give the lecture then have an activity of connecting events with each other. But my ST told me to have them evaluate their group members about the group project. I didn’t want to do it, since a group work is a group work. The group grade should just be one, but she said the members should have their point allotment as well, since not everyone worked on it anyway. That took about 15 minutes. Then they asked me if they could practice in front of me for their Filipino, I asked them to choose, whether to have a quiz on Thursday but they could practice in my class, or no practice and no quiz on Thursday and have the activity. They said they wanted to practice and they’ll just take a quiz on Thursday. I told them to listen carefully and not to be quiet…

Ah the joys of high school. Of course they weren’t that quiet. I knew that some weren’t paying attention either. I wasn’t able to finish fast enough, because some wanted me to repeat things over and over again. I sometimes had to explain it in Tagalog. I couldn’t take out the question and answer parts since some students like Dancel, the class’ wondergirl, itches to share something. So with about 20 minutes left, they didn’t want to practice anymore. The quiz will still continue tomorrow though.

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August 24th 2007

Week 11 ends, and it was utterly tiresome.

I wanted to cry during Calcium.  Gold was great today. They were behaved and nice, and the discussion was just fine. I didn’t have to shut them up so much. But Calcium…

my GOD… Calcium was like testing my patience. They were so noisy. I tried employing all the recommended actions to get the class to be quiet.

• Silently looking at them, hoping they get the message — Failed.
• Shouting, or rather, telling them to keep quiet loud enough to overpower ALL their voices — Failed.
• Silently tapping rhythmically on something, like a pen on a table — Failed
• … whiteboard marker on the whiteboard ledge — Failed
• Standing in front quietly arms crossed — Failed
• Arms crossed screaming at them to shut up — Failed
• Separating some noisy kids from each other — Failed. They ended up throwing stuff at each other.
• Sending someone outside the classroom — Failed.
• Banging on the blackboard — Failed

I wanted to walk out. I really wanted to, but after trying all those, I’d end up the loser. Maybe next time, I won’t try all of that. At most 2 or 3, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll walk out.

Another technique I could have used was to tell them there would be a quiz, but there was nothing to quiz. I’ll use that some other time as well.

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I found this cool website that offers expert Cosmetic Surgery Advice.

Make Yourself Amazing free advice lets you ask questions about possible options to, say, remove those ugly spots, or get rid of your flabs, or for removing scars and such. What I saw nice about it is that it also suggests visits to a General Practitioner or a GP before actually visiting them, as some would not be under cosmetic surgery and some GPs could do it themselves.

It also doesn’t just say “Hey, you’re fat, get a liposuction” instead they talk a little about dieting and stuff, and that liposuction isn’t really a solution.

There goes my dreams of having a liposuction when I’m filthy rich! :3

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• Vikiworks™ Studio » Social Bookmark Iconset
  Cool~ I’m going to use this when i’m not supposed to be doing something else.
  (tags: social icons icon cool set webdesign bookmarks free blogging)
• Vikiworks™ Studio » Social Bookmark Iconset: Part II
  (tags: icons social)
• Battle of Hastings 1066
  1066~ Such an important year in English (Language) History
  (tags: history reference medieval MiddleAges 1066)

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