Every day my 5th-8th graders teach me how NOT to teach art. This year
has been a really difficult transition but things are going a little
better now.
At the HS, we stressed students taking responsibility and coming to
class prepared--like with a !@#$% pencil. I've been doing the same
thing at the MS but wonder if I'm making much ado about nothing. I want
them to have a regular wooden pencil, not a mechanical pencil which
seems to require a lot of fiddling around with. If they're not prepared
for class, I give them a five-minute lunch detention; on their third
strike, they have after-school detention.
Am I expecting too much? I pick up pencils from the floor after each
class, and know they must lose them in their other classes as well. The
teacher of a long-ago EEI class told us, "Just give them a pencil and
get on with your class!"
