Take a moment to consider the negative comments you might hear during the course of a week from students, other teachers, administrators, and parents. Recall from the text that by constantly filtering out such negatives that do not matter and instead maintaining a positive attitude, teachers can create a much more successful school environment. Write about typical negatives you might hear from any of these groups of school stakeholders and how you could, in the future, filter out such comments and even alter these perceptions by offering a different perspective.
The biggest negatives I hear from students are that they are tired, it's "too much work", and that they want to go home. I already work to filter these out and try to start class on a positive note by greeting everyone and explaining how the work is something they have all the information and time for, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference (although I can't compare to what it would be like if I didn't do this). As for teachers, our biggest negative is that the students don't want to work and complain a lot about the workload that they have. I personally find these comments more helpful then not, as it helps me to know how student behavior is school wide and to determine if my classes are outliers or the norm. As teachers we always discuss how we are trying to work the students back up to the appropriate level of rigor and ways we address behaviors, so I don't really think that a different perspective would be more helpful.
ReplyDeleteWhenever we start in a new school, new classmates look around us and familiarize ourselves with the environment and if it scares us when we listen to teachers who have been working there for years and make comments about students who are problems and parents too, we mistakenly make bad ideas in that sector. Before making judgments about what has not happened, we must be positive with all those around us and treat everyone with respect regardless of background.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's important to hold off judgment before knowing "all sides of a coin".
DeleteThe most common negative thing I hear from scholars is "again, can't we just not have anything due?" This does make think about are scholars getting enough time in class to do their assignment. Also, on an individual basis, I will adjust (especially for the 504's) due dates, which does relieve some of that. I also remind scholars that there's work most of their lives. That is what I do to stay positive with scholars.
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