Start of a New Cycle

Sunday was such a quiet and restful day, relaxing doing nothing and just taking time to try to recharge the batteries. Unfortunately it didn't work.

Went to work today feeling kind of low to start with, but then I only had 2 classes so should have been a piece of cake. Unfortunately the 2 Grade 6 classes of 27 and 28 students is just too many to handle from a working noise level, point of view. This is becoming a major gripe I feel it is almost impossible to keep 28 students quiet enough to talk to without becoming a tyrant, something I am fighting so hard against being, it wouldn't be fun for the kids or for me. But if I cannot find a way to control the exhuberance of the kids I cannot in all honesty feel happy about letting that many kids loose with tools and equipment and the inherrant greater noise levels that will ensue.

I don't know the answer to this one. Well I do its smaller class sizes, but that isn't going to happen. So I have a feeling that I might have to replan my projects with the grade 6 classes to try to compensate for the size and lack of attention to instruction that is becoming more obvious, not through badness just through their upbringing. The problem here is that the kids seem to believe that if they don't finish the work in class its ok to do it at home and the result of that is that they feel they can chat and relax rather than work, comfortable in the knowledge they can do it as homework.

Now on reflection I might just have hit the nail on the head so to speak. If I ban homework and mark hard on the work they have completed or not in class then over a few lessons they may realize that to get the work completed they can't chat as much, or of course I might just end up with a lot of kids failing and the management team getting concerned, and all because the class size is to big to give individual attention.

For all my dislike of the Scottish system there are obvious benefits though of course here in Colombia its a financial ball and chain as they need the kids to be at the school, so therefore the school, are in some respects making the rod for their own backs by having too many pupils in some year groups. What is needed is another teacher and smaller class sizes but thats money and timetabling. When I think back to being at St Andrews in Scotland and the 4 man (OK sorry Kat, 3 man and 1 woman) department we had, the work load was far less and the class sizes more maneagable.

Its a trade off, small classes with 25% behavioural difficulties or large classes with no behavioural difficulties, but the way it balances out there is little difference, teaching and therefore education suffers. I still haven't found the optimum teaching balance - maybe I never will, maybe being able to teach with small classes of students that want to learn through experiencing the lesson is similar in concept to Ivan Illich's utopian ideal of deschooling. Something that can never happen in the current financial climate.

OK time I had a drink.. before all this depression sends me on a downward spiral and turns me to drink.. oh hang on - Its too late hic... sheee yoooo all towmowwow.