This week I’ve decided to take up Mama Kat’s  writing challenge.

I am going to use the 1st prompt

1.) Describe the best/most creative punishment you have ever given your children or received yourself.

As an educator I have met out many different types of punishments to the students in my class. Coming up with ingenious ways to deal with the 42 kids daily is quite a challenge for me.

Let me share with you the 10-10 classroom rule which I have that has been very effect since I started impementing it this year.

I have a very hyperactive and sometimes often boisterous bunch of students. It takes them some time to settle down when they endter the classroom.

I was getting very annoyed with them one day for taking quite a long while to settle down.

” By the time I count to ten I want all of you settled down at your seat with your textbooks open” I  said.

After giving them the instruction I started counting down. When I got to 10 the last two boys scrambled to get their textbooks out.

Before starting on the lesson that day I told them I was very upset with them wasting out precious lesson time. And from now onwards , everytime they wasted time they would have to repay the time that they owed me.

“So what are you going to do with us? ” asked one of students with a smirk on his face.

I smiled back at him and deliberately talked slower.

” For every 10 seconds that you waste you repay me with  10 minutes “

It felt great seeing his jaw drop when he heard my reply.

From that day onwards I just had to write 10 seconds = 10 minutes on the board and the students would immediately speed up and stop dilly dallying.

© 2008-2011 | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Dominique's Desk subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please contact admin@dominiquegoh.com to let us know. Thanks.

Educating Esme-Diary of A Teacher’s First Year by Esme Raji Codell

I was very privileged to be  invited to be on Esme’s Blog Tour which starts in September.I received a copy of her book last month and it was a really refreshing read. It is very seldom that I pick up a book relating to being a teacher and can get through reading it at one siting.

Educating Esme is an open diary about Esme’s encounter in the classroom as a Beginning teacher. It brought back memories of myself being a Beginning teacher nearly 10 years ago. The experiences and challenges I experienced were not that similar but I could strongly relate to the strong oppression by the management a.k.a Head Chief .

I loved reading about her quirky responses and how she challenges authority.  In one of the entries that she wrote in her Diary it mentioned that her class was busy doing group work on the floor. The principal came in and announced to her that she was doing a bad job of classroom management as it look like chaos. She answered that “No” and that her class was perfectly under control and put up her hand to call the kids to attend. Almost immediately all the pupils stood up and put up their hands too and the classroom fell to an eerie silence.

Esme  bares it all and tells how teaching is  it through her eye. Her diary if filled with her genuine feelings how how she handles all the different challenges hurled  at her during classroom teaching.  She strives very hard to make educating and learning a fun and meaningful experience for all the students in her class. Her rich knowledge of literature  can be seen the class library, classroom decoration and school activities which is vividly  described in her book.

She has lots of practical and interesting tips which I can adapt into my own classroom to enrich the learning experience of my kids.

I strongly recommend that you pick up a copy of Educating Esme I really enjoyed reading it and I am sure that you will too

© 2008-2011 | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Dominique's Desk subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please contact admin@dominiquegoh.com to let us know. Thanks.