Confessions of a 5th grade String Teacher

OK,

I don't really remember what week I'm in at the public schools all I know is that my house is a mess and there are papers EVERYWHERE!!!

In general it is a bit of a challenge to juggle three different teaching jobs. I don't present myself the same way to each group, I guess I'm less guarded with my college students, a little more guarded with my high/middle school kids and I'm just a fortress with the fifth graders. To me this is a bit of a problem.

Occasionally I let touches of myself seep through but I worry abt allowing too much of myself to be accessable to the kids too soon. Perhaps I just need to allow time to work its magic, or I just need to relax...we'll see.




I need to tap into my ODE bag of tricks,



At this moment I have two 5th grade classes at two different schools within the same district. I guess I allowed myself to believe that I could lead these classes in the same way...and boy did the kids show me otherwise.
It is not that I have lost control, I just haven't been able to tailor a program for one of my classes. The dynamics of that class is that some of the kids are driven by my traditional class expectations and others could care less. Within the "care less kids" there are those that chose strings primarily because they didn't want to be with another class (or rather teacher of another special area). So my hands are full dealing with discipline issues that really have no effect on those kids.

What is my goal for this class now: To get them excited about strings.

How am I going to do it: Develop games, tap into the well of competitiveness that 5th graders possess, and as my friend Paula suggested find what those kids value in my class. Maybe they want more of the spot light, my attention, OR more of a challenge.

So its back to the drawing board. I expected this to a certain degree just not so soon I guess.

Check back in later to see if it works...