Ruffing! week 2

I taught my first seminar discussion class this week and i was surprised at how interesting the experience was. I am currently teaching two classes the book "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn, a philosophical discourse on environmentalism and I teach the same class twice in the same day. Once at 10:30 in the morning i teach the first half of 7th and 8th graders and i teach the other half at 1:30. This was the first week we had content to talk about since i had only introduced the book last week and done creative writing in class. I was surprised mostly about two things:




1. The time of day affects the alertness of a class much more than it appears. As a student I was always a little slower after lunch but I never imagined it to the degree i encountered. The morning class was fully alert and active and participated and the afternoon class nearly slept through the entire class (not really, but you get my point)

2. When people start talking/discussing the class almost teaches itself. I have an utmost respect for english teachers now. Teaching a seminar class full of students who don't talk is a nightmare. In my 10:30 class i had 6-7 students who were content to discuss and debate for most of the class, answering my questions and even bringing less talkative members of the class into the conversation. On the other hand in my 2:30 class, i only had 2-3 people talk throughout the entire class. I was continually struggling to get other people into the discussion. It was very discouraging, especially after having such a good first class.

Anyway, I also helped out at the Judson project, a project where Middle School kids talk to elderly people in their community in an attempt to find out their lifes story. Alongside that i've been helping the Middle School students write their graduation speeches which is always a lot of fun.

~Linus