Stuff that's been going on in Hebrew School

[xiphias]

Some of you may remember that I spent much of the summer working out a timeline of Jewish history, starting at 1000 BCE and going to modern day, which I hung up on the wall of my classroom and was to use as a major part of how I was going to teach the class this year.

It was thirty feet long, a hundred years to the foot. It was in two fifteen-foot sections, taped along an entire wall of the classroom.

It's gone.

Over the high holidays, my classroom was used for daycare, and someone took down the timeline, and it hasn't been found. Far as we can figure, someone threw it out.

Now that I think about it, I'm actually pretty angry about this. I spend many, many hours on that timeline, and it was going to be the fundamental tool which I was going to use this year. And it's GONE.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I guess I'm going to have to redo the whole thing. It sucks.

On the other hand, I'm a damn fine teacher.

So, my co-teacher this year is Larry Rich, who has two sons, Adam and Teo (as a baby, he couldn't say "Theo", and the name stuck) who help out as madrachim ("guides", a term for student teachers in Hebrew schools). He's covering the Hebrew portion, mainly, while I'm covering Jewish History. I presume that, once he gets a better idea of relative skill levels, he'll divide the class into two halves and he'll, probably, take the more advanced half.

That's what I'd suggest, anyway. Because I'm a better disciplinarian.

I don't think of myself as one -- but I am. The students, on the whole, appreciate it -- as long as they have to be in class, they'd prefer to get something out of it, and they're willing to let me ride herd on them so long as I ride herd on everyone else. If they actually were not even going to try to learn anything, then, sure, goofing off would be cool -- but if they're going to try to learn something, they want to have an outside chance of success, even if I have to force it on them.

That previous paragraph seems to be absolute gibberish, but I suspect that those of you who are parents, teachers, and/or child psychologists (and, come to think of it, I think that's pretty damn close to a majority) will recognize some of it as possibly true.

So it was frustrating watching Larry trying to cajole the class into behaving, because That Trick Never Works. At a couple points, some of the students turned to me and said, "Ian, use your Teacher Voice!"

So I did a couple times. Worked somewhat okay.

For my half of class, though, I handed out notebooks and pencils and told them, "Okay, you've got these notebooks for two reasons. If you are left-handed, I want you to take notes on the left-hand page. If you are right-handed, I want you to take notes on the right-hand page. On the OTHER page, you are to doodle. Because I know I listen better when I'm doodling, so I want to see if that's true of you, too."

Seems to have worked. We'll see how much they retained, but they were at least apparently attentive, and, even if they weren't, they weren't disruptive.

Comments

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your timeline going missing. At least it wasn't embroidered.

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry your work was ruined. I can't believe someone tossed it without asking first. Was it hand-made or done on the computer? Will it be difficult to recreate?

(I always doodled in school. It definitely keeps your brain pumping.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Hand-done on a thirty-foot roll of butcher paper.

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

Aww man, what a drag. If it were me I probably would have cried. (And then probably used some words that would demonstrate why I should I never be around children.)

Again, so sorry that happened. Maybe you can get the kids to help you reconstruct it as a special project?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

They offered, actually. (I LOVE my class). But it's really something I need to do myself.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

That totally sucks about your timeline! I'm astonished that someone would just casually throw something like that out.

[sproutntad.livejournal.com]

Did & tell you what she did with our nephew? He was having some "keeping your hands to yourself" problems at school, touching things, swinging his arms around and they would connect with someone elses head type of problems. So, she sewed buttons on the inside of his pockets for him to play with so his hands had something to do. She also made him a "friendship bracelet" with a bead on it so he can feel the texture and spin the bead around. The teacher says he's doing great, paying attention and most importantly keeping his hands to himself. :) Good thing she wouldn't consider meds. It's amazing what happens when you actually spend enough time to care about a kid enough to keep them active!

[cellio]

I'm angry on your behalf. No one should ever go into a teacher's classroom and mess with things, and if you have to move something on short notice you put it back. Grr.