Day 7: 26 large coffees and a stun gun please
Classroom dynamics is a huge part of teaching. You can be the best in your field, you can be really good at conveying information, you can even be teaching a cool subject, if the students are sunken low in their seat with no interest in participating to what's happening in the HERE AND NOW, it makes it difficult to feel good about teaching them anything.
Teaching supposes the party that is on the receiving end (ie the students) are actually switching their brains ON, or at least make the effort to go from OFF to NEUTRAL. In this case, I don't even think they ever came across their ignition switch.
So I have this one group of girls who seems to be lacking interest in everything. Or at least in everything I try to teach them. They just sit there and wait for the class to be over. I'm not sure what to do to get them to snap out of this crazy mental state. All 3 other groups of girls are full of life, questions, and interest. We are talking about cool stuff for teenagers (diet, body image, etc) - what kind of zombies will they become when I start explaining how their central nervous system (CNS)works... What are my legal obligations? Will the parents be furious that I did not red-flag the group while it was in the beginning of its dormant state - now that we're talking about the CNS, they are barely breathing, their body temperature is abnormally low, their pulse is below 30...
Perhaps our school is in need of a coffee shop (anyone notice how much coffee the high school kids drink in THE O.C.?) - I bet there's plenty of discussion going on in those classrooms when the kids enter the classroom after 2-3 large mochaccinos...
And so the story goes - there are good days and less good days. Sort of like in all the other jobs I've had.
