sigh. small failures
Well, I had a wake-up call on Friday. I had failed to review both history cards and grammar terms the way I should have been, i.e. daily. Boy did I realize it on Friday. Friday is History test day--and this Friday also managed to hold a Grammar quiz. I realized my failure when they started with the questions. Too many questions. Over things they should have had in their head. Things that weren't enough in their head because of me. Because I failed to review the material every day the way I know I should have. I guess it was bound to happen. I guess I'm still not used to the routine of reviewing and reviewing and chanting facts and reviewing even more that is the essence of the setup here--and really should be the essence of all grade school teaching. Well, I learned my lesson this time. As much as I desire to fill in with stories and extra facts, I cannot do so to the detriment of reviewing the facts every single day. Sigh. I mainly just felt really dumb. And I was definitely easier on their grades than I would have been otherwise. After all, it was my fault they struggled with this day of tests, so why should they be penalized for my failure as a teacher? This week, we already started off on a better foot. I took today to re-cover the grammar issues we hadn't gotten a handle on last week; and in History class, I made sure to review our previous dates and facts. Whew.
On a different and in a way lighter note, I have to share my "circumcision" story. Boy oh Boy (no pun intended.). We are reading through I Corinthians in Bible, which can be controversial enough if you let it (the school policy is to avoid controversy and simply make sure the students know the basic facts found in each book--very difficult with 10/11 year-olds who have a special way of asking weird questions). Well, this particular day I hadn't had a chance to read ahead and see what we would be covering, so I discovered in class that we had a small verse about circumcision. Gee whiz. Frankly, the context meant it should have been easy: that whether you were circumcised or uncircumcised didn't matter in Christ. So I mentioned that Paul was using the word "circumcised" to refer to Jews--that Jews were circumcised as a sign. So up comes the hanDATE: "What is circumcised?" "Well, it's something God commanded the Jews to do to show that they were His people." "But what is it?" So I ask: "Who knows what circumcised means?" All buy two students raise their hands. Now I'm in a fix b/c if I don't explain it, my problem becomes that all but two students know this mysterious secret. Great. So, after a long, awkward pause (after all, how to you tactfully explain to 10 year olds. . . ) I respond "It's something that's done by cutting off extra skin on boy's private parts." Whew. Thought I was clear until my resident drama queen (one of the two who didn't know) decided that was just too traumatic. She became horribly melodramatic and when I corrected her for that, decided that staring-off-into-space silence was the best way to continue her attention getting. Which worked for about 1 minute as everyone asked "Is Hannah okay?" etc. I instructed the class to pay attention to me and we moved on. Hannah, my drama, queen, I later discovered kept her stunned silence all through Latin the following hour. Finally in history, after I talked to her for about 5 minutes, everything was evened out; leaving me relieved, yet replaying the scene over and over wondering if I could have handled thing any differently. So I e-mailed my curriculum advisor (also one of my moms) and she said I did just fine. And that I could use it to pave the way for future wierdnessess by having a little talk "You all are in the 5th/6th grade now and old enough to start learning about more adult things. . . ." I did, and so far, we're okay. Yeesh. Kind of a baptism by fire into the world of grade schoolers. Anyway. My little drama does keep me on my toes, but we've avoided the melodramatic silence recurrence. Thankfully. So the moral of the story is--have the talk about being older and expecting somewhat mature behavior before you read about circumcision. It's much more peaceful that way!