Choosing between Groups of Students

As department head I was invited by the principal to attend junior commencement. The event took place on Wednesday afternoon in the gym. I arranged to have my classes covered through our "on call" system where teachers who cannot be in class get a colleague to cover their class in the cafeteria area designated as the study hall. This is arranged through the office and is common practice.
Five of my students were being honoured with awards that afternoon. The rest of my group was in study hall doing seat work under the supervision of the designated on call teacher. As I sat on stage, after having presented the award for my subject area, I began to feel strangely uncomfortable. Though I was pleased to be present to honour the five top acheivers of my class, what about the rest of my students who are not as successful and who are not receiving the benefit of meaningful teaching as they sit in the study hall?
I felt compelled to discreetly exit the stage (as other colleagues had done) so I could spend the time with the students who most needed assistance with their learning, but finally decided it would not be fair not to be fully present and engaged in the ceremony (the principal was on the stage a few chairs away from my seat).
Did I make the right decision?

Breaking Out

I didn't know what to expect on the last day before spring break. How many students would show up? Four students showed up for class. I had invited a musician to come in as part of an Artist in the School program. We had drafted a song for this week for the class to rehearse before recording it in April. How would four Applied grade nine French students react to rehearsing without their classmates? Monica exclaimed: "I really don't want to be here!" and Mark shouted "Can we just leave?". Jim, the artist, matter of factly handed out rhythm instruments to each of them and began strumming the chorus on his guitar. Before long, they were banging their instruments and chanting the chorus and keeping time! Monica later let us know that she could play a number of band instruments...I've learned that young adolescents often complain until you bring them along and persist in something worthwhile. They can be won over.....

Stick with it

Three weeks ago when I first used Bitstrips comic builder in the classroom, I hit a few snags. Things weren't working right, the program wouldn't save some of the students' work, we couldn't print, the images froze....Today, after two or three weeks of persisting, the process was much smoother. I had the projector hooked up to the classroom computer. The students clicked on their own work and presented their comic strips audio-visually. It was gratifying to see them using their language skills using this comical,  interactive medium. I witnessed some artistic skills I would otherwise have not seen. Some students intuitively organized space, objects and colour in ways that added significantly to the communicative impact of the language. Also, some students were very successful in bringing out humour -a challenge for second language learners!  

Enlarging ethical space

As a classroom teacher, am I mostly concerned about covering the curriculum? If so, my interest in the student can easily take second place to the pressure of getting through it all. I can't just teach whatever I want in the prescribed curriculum. I am accountable to the parents and other teachers. If the student moves classes or schools, it is important that both that teacher and the student be able to pick up where I left off without big gaps. However, what I've learned to do is look over the curriculum and be sure to highlight the essential elements the students will need to both be successful on culminating activities and tests, but also to have sufficient understanding of transferable knowledge to another class or school. So rather than be anxious about covering everything in the textbook, I still have a lot of latitude once the essentials are dealt with. That's when teaching can get relational, especially when I can relax and enjoy the students as people.