end of week 2

I'm waiting to go on a trip to Lake Atitlan right now and wanted to right down some quick thoughts.

1) The girls in my afternoon class are starting to warm to me, I think. I'm seeing smiles and respect, where I was seeing attitudes and misbehavior, previously. One of the interns suggested that I sort of joke with them, because they like to joke and kid. I had thought about the same thing, but at that time they were on my bad side (which is not helpful if you want to be an effective teacher). I decided that I needed to be flexible and loose and roll with what they give me, but also keep them on task. It's worked. I actually have received a few smiles and I'll take that as one of the week's major victories.

2) The conceptual activities in math continue. We were working on factors and multiple common factors, yesterday. The students often like to copy one another and this poses and an obvious problem for learning. For this math activity, I observed students working together, but in a way to check their understanding and discuss procedures, not just copy one another's answers. I also, for the first time, had a student who really got it help me explain it to other students. I do this all the time back home, but I wasn't sure how it would work in this classroom. He helped out other boys mostly, but it was a start!

OK, off to Atitlan.