Every year when I get a new crop of students, we go through an adjustment phase. With some students and classes, it's immediate. With others it takes a while, and with the few rare others, summer comes, and we still haven't adjusted to each other. But like clockwork, every year about this time in mid to late February, we seem to hit our stride, and even though I may have liked or not liked so much various classes, then BY NOW, I really like them all the majority of the time. Yet every year I say, "no this year it's different. I'm not going to click with this class." And most every year I've been proven wrong (slow learner). I've started clicking this year.
A funny moment today: my last period class was trying to sway me to have some free time or something or another today, and they all start chiming in. I interrupted with, "this is not a democracy. It's a monarchy." And then someone piped up with, "yea, but aren't monarchs basically powerless?". We got back to our lesson.
I know what you are going through with the adjustment phase. I teach two different labs and in one, we hit it off right off the bat, but in the other one, it has taken long to get into the swing of things. Despite taking longer, it seems that we finally clicked. I believe it is inevitable that a teacher will click with his/her class each year. You spend so much time with your students that it can't be escaped. If you have that connection with your students, I think you are able to work with them better. Since you know what your students are like and how they act and respond to different things you do, you can pick and choose what to do on a particular day to maximize the potential for learning. So I don't think it's a bad thing to "click" with your students.
ReplyDeleteIt's comforting to hear that other people have that concern as well. I guess that can happen in all sorts of situations, but as teachers we work so closely with our students. Then again, if worse comes to worst, we only have them for a semester or so, or maybe for a couple of years . . . When things don't work, we may say "This too shall pass." I try to work harder to help those students that I start thinking that about. I don't want to be the person limiting them just because they rub me the wrong way.
ReplyDeletePS: I suggest "dictatorship" instead of "monarchy." Dictators are pretty powerful.