Many teachers feel intimidated when a fight occurs in the playground. Fights are things that are skirted around by teaching institutions and rarely spoken of in PD other than in strict legalistic terms.
I'm of reasonably slight build and am considerably smaller than many of the year 11 and 12 students. I'm bigger than many of the female staff also on duty.
So what happens when a fight occurs? How do you, as a teacher, alter an out of control situation when you are physically incapable of stopping students from injuring others and yourself.
The school and how students view the school is a big part of this. I am lucky in that students at our school respect teachers and despite diffusing multiple fights in my career (with male students many times larger than myself and females that had little control over their actions) in all cases my status as a teacher has meant that I have not been at risk. Students seem to know a line that they cannot cross.
Yet I fear this may not always be the case. Students with disabilities are common in school grounds and anecdotal evidence suggest that mainstream students are becoming less able to control their actions.
Practical (not legal) training of staff is necessary before real injury becomes more common. My suggestions are based on practical observation.
1) When on duty stay in line of sight of another teacher on duty. Be prepared to render assistance at short notice. Know the parts of the duty area where you pass from line of sight from one teacher to another.
2) Survey who will take the primary role in diffusing a situation.
3) Issue a command(using full teacher voice) to stop to both parties and (if wise) get between the two students. Hopefully you can skip stage 4 if both students react appropriately. If you are taking the secondary role call for assistance (preferably from a deputy or someone that students are more likely to take seriously.) Seek out the amateur camera people and ensure that they are dealt with.
4) Have the secondary escort at least one of the parties to a safe area (such as the main office, tell the student where to go if you are the only one present and restraining the other student). Do not try to ascertain blame at this point. You may need to restrain the most out of control student for a short time to prevent a running fight towards the office if you, other students or the out of control student themselves are at risk of harm. Speak in a soothing tone to the student being restrained. As soon as the other student is in a safe zone release the student. Be prepared to restrain the student again if he has not regained control and is at risk of causing further bodily harm. Restraint is a last resort and usually indicates that intervention was too late. Holding a wrist is often sufficient. Usually they will seek somewhere quiet although be mindful of students seeking self harm at this point. Damage to property is repairable, staff and student injuries may not be.
5) Diffuse the audience and escort the remaining student to a team leader or deputy.
Students need you as teacher to be in control. Being calm is a key part of this. Don't do anything extra during a crisis time that is unnecessary to the safety of the students. If you are not able to fulfil your responsibilities in stage 4 then consider the legal ramifications of your actions and the risk of injury to other teachers and students.
I am not a lawyer and suggest this article only as a way to promote discussion within your school. I am not a principal - it is your school executive that will dictate what you may or may not do as a teacher on duty. This is an article purely of opinion and you as a teacher need to decide what you are willing to do in the course of being a teacher.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Harry the goat
If anyone missed the Harry the Goat article on the 7.30 report go grab it off the web here.
It's what a 13 year old is capable of.
What a fantastic feel good story that shows the power of imagination.
It's what a 13 year old is capable of.
What a fantastic feel good story that shows the power of imagination.
Labels:
inspiration
Catering for gifted students
Catering for gifted students is one of the hardest parts of the job. These kids have been haphazardly accelerated in various topics resulting in them blitzing through some topics and requiring high levels of assistance at other times ahead of students in the normal programme.
It is near on impossible to cater for these students in a true heterogenous classroom as a beginning teacher. There is no possible way that a starting teacher has the skills to run multiple programmes in a room and diagnose issues for these students in a just-in-time manner. An experienced teacher can do it (with difficulty) but a beginning teacher cannot.
An analogy is the best possible way of explaining what I have come across.
Each child in the room has the combined computing power of every computer in the world today combined (there was a great article on this found via /. the other day). I would not expect a just graduated four year programmer to produce a programme that would optimise throughput via every computer in the world.
Yet we regularly ask 1st year out teachers to create optimised programmes (and IEPS)that cater for thirty such brains with 30 times our current worldwide computing capacity. Let's face facts.. the only reason teaching works is that over the last 2000 years we have stumbled across some methods that make the world more understandable for these underdeveloped intelligences.
And here we are again not giving baseline programmes to these graduate teachers. The national curriculum has failed to deliver something easily usable and assessible in the classroom (are we in education forever destined to repeat mistakes - maybe it was the lack of History in classrooms over an extended period??). I was very critical of the lack of production by the maths TDC's but at least at the end they tried to produce something for the classroom that could be modified to suit a learning environment.
As teachers in the system for some time, we need to be constantly aware of new teachers that will need our help and guidance - hopefully willingly, and sometimes reluctantly. Those 2000 years of education have some parts baby that shouldn't be thrown out with the bathwater.
We place our gifted students at risk every time they enter a classroom of where we do not cater to their needs. Without the need to strive, they coast, get lazy or find a private school that will cater to their needs (check to see if your school has a year nine exodus and then ask what is being done about it). We need to be careful that good teachers that need support are given it, students are optimally taught and environments are created that promote the benefits of learning.
I'm currently pointing the finger at middle schools over catering to pastoral needs and the national curriculum intent to remove the ability to provide developmentally appropriate classes in WA senior schools.
It is near on impossible to cater for these students in a true heterogenous classroom as a beginning teacher. There is no possible way that a starting teacher has the skills to run multiple programmes in a room and diagnose issues for these students in a just-in-time manner. An experienced teacher can do it (with difficulty) but a beginning teacher cannot.
An analogy is the best possible way of explaining what I have come across.
Each child in the room has the combined computing power of every computer in the world today combined (there was a great article on this found via /. the other day). I would not expect a just graduated four year programmer to produce a programme that would optimise throughput via every computer in the world.
Yet we regularly ask 1st year out teachers to create optimised programmes (and IEPS)that cater for thirty such brains with 30 times our current worldwide computing capacity. Let's face facts.. the only reason teaching works is that over the last 2000 years we have stumbled across some methods that make the world more understandable for these underdeveloped intelligences.
And here we are again not giving baseline programmes to these graduate teachers. The national curriculum has failed to deliver something easily usable and assessible in the classroom (are we in education forever destined to repeat mistakes - maybe it was the lack of History in classrooms over an extended period??). I was very critical of the lack of production by the maths TDC's but at least at the end they tried to produce something for the classroom that could be modified to suit a learning environment.
As teachers in the system for some time, we need to be constantly aware of new teachers that will need our help and guidance - hopefully willingly, and sometimes reluctantly. Those 2000 years of education have some parts baby that shouldn't be thrown out with the bathwater.
We place our gifted students at risk every time they enter a classroom of where we do not cater to their needs. Without the need to strive, they coast, get lazy or find a private school that will cater to their needs (check to see if your school has a year nine exodus and then ask what is being done about it). We need to be careful that good teachers that need support are given it, students are optimally taught and environments are created that promote the benefits of learning.
I'm currently pointing the finger at middle schools over catering to pastoral needs and the national curriculum intent to remove the ability to provide developmentally appropriate classes in WA senior schools.
Labels:
gifted students
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Fractions
My emphasis for the last week has been on establishing an idea of "one" with my year 9 academic class. We examined how our idea of one influences how we deal with fractions and algebra.
Firstly we looked at common denominator problems and examined in more detail the method for adding fractions with different denominators.
A common idea is to find common multiples or factors of the denominator and then multiply both the numerator and denominator of the fractions until common denominators are found.
eg. 1/2 + 1/3 -> common denominator of 6 (LCM of 2 and 3)
We then need to find equivalent fractions with denominators of six.
eg 1/2 x 3/3 = 3/6
1/3 x 2/2 = 2/6
Now we have common denominators we can add the fractions..
eg 2/6 + 3/6 = 5/6
But.. why does multiplying by 2/2 and 3/3 work??? Understanding "One" is the answer!!!
1/2 x 1 = 1/2
3/3 = 1
Therefore by substitution 1/2 x 3/3 is just multiplying 1/2 by one. Any number multiplied by one is equal to the original value thus any resulting fraction must be equal to 1/2!
This illustrates two different ideas related to one.. "Multiplying by One" and "Dividing a number by itself".
We also looked at cancelling and why it works..
2m / 3m, we commonly use the skill cancel the m's and 2/3 is what is left.
By re-examining how multiplication works with fractions we find that we can rewrite
2m/3m
as
2/3 x m/m
..but we know that anything divided by itself is 1 (other than zero of course!)
Therefore we can simplify to
2/3 x 1
and we know that anything multiplied by one is equal to the original value.... thus we can see why cancelling works..
Quite a fun little lesson.
Russ.
Firstly we looked at common denominator problems and examined in more detail the method for adding fractions with different denominators.
A common idea is to find common multiples or factors of the denominator and then multiply both the numerator and denominator of the fractions until common denominators are found.
eg. 1/2 + 1/3 -> common denominator of 6 (LCM of 2 and 3)
We then need to find equivalent fractions with denominators of six.
eg 1/2 x 3/3 = 3/6
1/3 x 2/2 = 2/6
Now we have common denominators we can add the fractions..
eg 2/6 + 3/6 = 5/6
But.. why does multiplying by 2/2 and 3/3 work??? Understanding "One" is the answer!!!
1/2 x 1 = 1/2
3/3 = 1
Therefore by substitution 1/2 x 3/3 is just multiplying 1/2 by one. Any number multiplied by one is equal to the original value thus any resulting fraction must be equal to 1/2!
This illustrates two different ideas related to one.. "Multiplying by One" and "Dividing a number by itself".
We also looked at cancelling and why it works..
2m / 3m, we commonly use the skill cancel the m's and 2/3 is what is left.
By re-examining how multiplication works with fractions we find that we can rewrite
2m/3m
as
2/3 x m/m
..but we know that anything divided by itself is 1 (other than zero of course!)
Therefore we can simplify to
2/3 x 1
and we know that anything multiplied by one is equal to the original value.... thus we can see why cancelling works..
Quite a fun little lesson.
Russ.
Labels:
fractions
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