Teaching Log: I Hate Recess

Woah. Hard day!

I've got a great class this year. Sweet, sincere, hard-working kids. Few major behavior issues and we generally are doing good work in class.

Then recess comes and with it:

-Kids calling each other names
-Kids crying because other kids won't do what they want to do
-Kids quitting the games
-Kids sulking because they aren't getting their way
-Kids cheating
-Kids changing the rules of the game to their advantage
-and more



Today I yelled at a child. He had come to be about a problem with another child. I was speaking to that second child, trying to solve the problem when the first one came to me a second time complaining about someone else who was doing something else. At that point, after a number of other things, I ended recess.

We had a classroom talk, but it's not the first. I didn't allow a lot of sharing this time. Didn't take a lot of suggestions. I said, "It's time you think about what recess should be like for everyone. Then stop worrying about getting your way and start thinking about how you can make this a nice place for everyone."

Then I left the room to my assistant so she could teach writing and I could cool off. That's when the wheels started turning. I hope I remember to let you know how this goes.

I:

-Asked the gym teacher if she can come to our room next week to talk about sportsmanship.
-Left a note for the psychologist to ask if she can come talk about kindness.
-Asked my Hebrew teacher counterpart if we could chat after school.
-And after consulting with her, my wonderful friend and colleague, I came home and wrote up a "scenario" for the kids to read and discuss.
-Planned how we'd discuss it. The scenario has 5 discussion questions. Each table in our room has 5 kids. So I'm going to have the table groups discuss it before we go to whole group, and teach some more leadership and respect skills by having a system by which one child at the table can start the discussion for each question, which each other child having the choice of saying "I agree" "I disagree" and "pass". If you agree or disagree, you can add your own idea.

We've done a lot about respect in our room so far on our own, but it's time to bring in the big guns and I think having guest speakers come will help them reflect further on the situation and help them mature a bit.