A glimpse into the future [journal]
I had trouble trying to teach a student long division today. i just couldn't get through to him that it was as easy as mulitplication, something he's mastered. i'm sure he knew the answers, but he just didn't know he had it. this kid, mickey, is the star of my group for multiplication, but he couldn't do the easiest of division--even when i put it in terms of multiplication. kids get easily frustrated and when they get a few questions wrong, they feel they can't ever do it or it's impossible for them to learn.
I guess one of the things they'll teach me at teacher's college is effective methods to help boosts a child's self-esteem; so they can believe in themselves. i'm sure my yelling and threatening to tell his parents didn't help him want to learn...
Besides that, my ever-caring housemate has been scaring the shit out of me with this
SARS thing. he keeps on telling me to ask my dad about it, sending me emails on how i fit ALL the criteria, and advising me not to go home to toronto too much (because there's been many cases there). his gratuitious worrying about me has stirred up some distress in myself, but in the bit-sized form of about five minutes and it'll start up again the next time he
brings it up.
The last bit of news is i finally polished up my newspaper i've been working on with the kids. every friday is clubs day and i'm head of the newspaper club. the kids write the articles, and i edit and layout the articles. it's so tough forcing the kids to write when these were the types of kids who dislike writing. my first term as newspaper head was great because the students in my group chose to be there. however, this term, everyone had to be in a group they hadn't been in before so i got children who had no where to go because the "fun" groups were taken and they couldn't rejoin their first group. the paper turned out quite well in the end and i was surprised with a great short story by one girl who wrote so well i almost thought she might have lifted it from somewhere (i even did a google search on some of her sentences!).
