Day 10 :: I think I survived!

My last day was all about paper aeroplanes. The first lesson was a read and do lesson, which started a little bit late because assembly ran a little late. Every Friday the school comes to gether and awards for the week are given out.

As I anticipated planes flying everywhere and had been told that on no account could planes be flown inside the classroom or without proper direction, I was sure an over enthusiastic kid was going to get their plane confiscated early on. Thus I set out extremely clear instructions, detailing that this morning was for making and decorating planes and this afternoon everyone would get a chance to fly them. Heeding Thomas' advice, I set up tight procedures on how the students would form a line and wait for their instruction sheet one at a time before selecting piece of coloured paper and moving quietly to their desks. I also set up an expectation that they would behave, not the reverse, and this paid off.

Last night I went to bed early, for the first time in this practicum, and thus I arrived at school feeling refreshed and full of the milk of human kindness. My edginess gone, I spent time with students who were have difficulty with the instruction sheet and encouraged those who finished early to decorate their of help friends on their table only, thinking that wandering students were more likely to be seduced by the temptation to let one fly.

When everyone was finished we gathered at the front of the room and I explained the military procedure in which we were to fly and measure the distance of our planes' flight this afternoon in maths. However I suffered from the first of my timetabling, clock reading mistakes and had extra time left over when I finished, which took some f the shine off my achievements.

A similar mistake occurred after lunch when I though I wasn't teaching until later in the afternoon and then lost ten minutes. I think Rebecca thought I was standing around for my health, and I was wondering what she was doing, so that was all a bit awkward.

I began the maths lesson by giving them 20 minutes to finish up a sheet they had started a couple of days earlier, but hadn't finished, on volume. The we all went through the procedures again; I divided the class into four groups, and explained how one group at a time would move up to the front line, and wait for instructions before test flying their plane. Then, upon further instructions they would collect their planes and return in line at the back of the class. After each group had two test flights we would measure the distances their planes had flown.

Amazingly, up until the moment we officially flew the planes, only one student succumbed to the urge to take his for an unscheduled test run, and it promptly ended up on the school roof. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. On the whole the students were amazingly sensible and well behaved during the whole exercise and I felt enormously proud of them. As we were clearing things away and preparing to go back inside, a couple escaped their owners' hands tempting more to follow suit, so I had to confiscate a handful, but I couldn't believe how much of a difference careful planning could make.

I wished I had another week of teaching in which to hone my newly developed classroom management skills.