A positive learning environment

[Alejandro Tejada]

At 12:39 PM 7/30/05
Mark Greenberg wrote:

>Ah, the things they didn't teach in college education courses:
>
>Maintain a positive learning environment when...
>• your new classroom is a converted storage area,
>• the bookstore won't issue you textbooks because your room is not on the 
>list of classrooms (see above),
>• you're asked to disregard the fire alarms in the middle of student 
>presentations,
>• there's black mold growing in the ceiling tiles,
>• Johnny's wasted and Jackie's pregnant (due the week before finals),
>• the state test is more important than getting kids to think for themselves,
>• the teachable moment is exploring why the word graffitied on your door 
>is represents a shift in the historical gender reference of the word "bitch,"
>• they bring the network server down for scheduled maintenance during 
>fifth period,
>• the principal is eating a tuna sandwich during your evaluation (in the 
>classroom with kids just before lunch),
>• subject-verb agreement is nowhere near as interesting as the fight 
>before class,
>• mom says your attendance records are wrong,
>• you have to pee, but lunch is two more hours away,
>• three years after the textbook purchase, the student books still creak 
>when opened,
>• the New York Times runs an article about your innovative teaching, but 
>the local administration ignores the article,
>• and admin has banned all video tapes from the classroom because some 
>lazy teacher was showing "Little Mermaid."
>
>Somehow I learned to keep smiling, teaching, and enjoying the kids 
>anyway.  But a course in how to do that would be more valuable than all 
>those classes on the theories of Skinner and Maslow.

The Classroom is the teacher's opportunity to recreate a whole new world 
for their students.
This New World should be (ideally) a reflect of the teacher's own world.

It's difficult for a teacher to recreate a learning environment that
will allow our students to learn our lessons and reflect themselves.

There are so many limitations and caveats, but in the end, we keep going 
because
that's our way to make the difference in many lives... for years to come!   :-)

al




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