Posts
re: organization and the middle school child
works if life is about submitting
to silly rules handed down from on high.
& g-d knows: that's what school is *for*.
but i want no part of it myself;
do what thou wilt shall be
the whole of the law.
if they give you ruled paper,
write the other way. etc.
yours in the struggle.
v.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
The fact that I subscribe to the sentiments expressed here make me uniquely unsuited to the 3 years of intensive character education offered by the middle school model.
Great poem -- and point well taken.
Organization shouldn't be forced on all (or even most) students. In my experience, 85-90 percent of the kids (high schoolers) totally get organization with absolutely no support. An artificial organization structure would probably suck the life out of school for those kids.
But it's the other 10-15 percent that I worry about.
For all the talk in education school of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, brain-based learning, and differentiated instruction, why is it so hard for many teachers to think of organization problems as something that might require direct instruction or scaffolding? I can count on one hand the number of middle school and high school teachers I know who actively support students with executive function deficits. It shouldn't be that way.
I think that's what all these books and strategies are aimed at -- helping the students who "aren't there yet" organizationally. For some it can be the difference between academic success and disaster.
Cheryl vT
C. had this wonderful teacher last year who kept one of the kid's notebooks herself, in the classroom. She helped him organize it, then kept it there so he would never lose it & would always have it.
Organization is not my strong suit.
thanks for the attention ...
but i'm obliged to mention
that this stuff is no way "poetry"
(poetry should be at least
as well-written as prose) ...
i just try to make it "sound"
like my own natural speaking "voice" ...
furthermore, whatever eloquence
these lines might have--
whatever made catherine want
to "put it up front"--belongs
to a couple phrases i picked up
a long time ago and can only *wish*
i had the wit to have coined myself.
also (ps): i've got thousands
of books & can find nearly any
one *of* 'em in about a minute flat;
organizing your goodies *is* important ...
Post a Comment