This week I got a little taste of "my momma said what you taught us was wrong." I was under the impression that this type of thing only happened in movies (naive I know) but apparently it happens in real life much more than I thought, especially in middle school. This was said not just once but three times by the same student to my CE. She was very polite and said things like "we'll look it up" or "maybe she was talking about something different." I thought it was handled well but I began to think about what I would do. Because in this instance Momma was wrong and I mean DEAD wrong. I think this is a tricky thing to handle because you do not want to embarrass the student but you also want to make sure they know and the class knows that what they said their mother said was incorrect. I am sure this will happen to be when I am a teacher and I need to be prepared to handle the situation in a diplomatic way, no matter if Momma is right or wrong.
They also went over their study guide this week. I saw MAJOR differentiation with this. They were supposed to play a game with the questions on their study guide but they didn't finish them the day before when they were in partners so instead, they had to go over them. 3rd block, which is the lowest, went over theirs slowly and there was lots of discussion and writing on the board. 4th block, which is the highest, moved through theirs quickly and even go to play a small game. She had them finish their questions with girls completing the odd numbers and boys completing the even. When they went over them she kept a tally of how many questions each group got correct. The group that won got some Halloween candy (the girls won). It was a simple way to spice up the review when there wasn't time for an actual game. The students still enjoyed it because there was some friendly boy-girl competition. This was also a way to simply differentiate since 4th block didn't need as much instruction as 3rd block required. This is probably the way I will have to differentiate. 3rd block will probably always require more instruction and assistance while 4th block will be a little more independent and can move quicker through the material. This also will allow me to do some more "difficult" or in-depth things with them.
I am glad you were able to see how the dynamics between teachers, parents, and students. This is always a changing dynamic that teachers have to adapt their instruction. You must be careful with your reactions because you do not want to isolate anyone. What changes are you planning to make to your future classroom based upon what you have learned this week?
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