2nd Lesson

Today i taught my Language Arts lesson on cause and effect, where the students acted out their own skits demonstrating their knowledge of cause and effect. I think they learned a lot, and had a lot of fun, which I think are my two big ticket items I want to have an every lesson I teach. The only negative was the behavior. From the outset of the lesson I did not go over the rules again, but I did express my expectation for them, which was that they would behave in the same way as if Ms. Bradford were teaching them. They seemed to understand, but while they were preparing their skits, things got a little out of hand, with loudness. I feel that there were probably several reasons for this; these kids are a talkative bunch; they do not usually get up and act, or do anything kinisthetic really; I am still a new person in their lives, and therefore kind of exciting and different. Initially I was feeling a bit down after it was over, when Ms. Bradford came up to me, and told me that she loved the lesson, and how creative it was. When I expressed my misgivings about the misbehaviors, she reminded me that I did make several attempts to quiet them down, and anyway a bit of noise should have been expected. I see her point, and like the last lesson I taught, had I had these kids from the start of the year, set up the learning community as I will one day do, perhaps the outcomes by way of loud rowdy behavior might have been different.