Capture- Today Ben Crabtree and I had the opportunity to observe the class of Bret Christensen at Mt. Nebo Junior High. It was a great experience. They have this time called flex time which is about 20 - 30 minutes long and it is for remediation which I took as help with work the students are behind on. For the students that aren't behind they get to go to which ever flex classroom they want. Mr. Christensen teaches electronics so he asked if we wanted to teach something. I taught about transformers. I was understandably rusty but we had fun. We didn't get crazy into it but it was productive. After flex time the regular classes start and go for about an hour it seemed. They went pretty fast. There was a starting assignment on the board that the students worked on and then went to work on the computers to further design their ideas. Ben and I went around and asked what some of the ideas were and tried to push for further thought development but with some kids it was more difficult. Most of the students did fine but a few gave us the whole I don't know what to do bit.
Analysis- As we interacted with the students, I remembered that at different ages they would have different methods of surviving. I think these were 7th graders and for the most part they were emulating things they see. I talked with Ben on the way back and he noticed that as well. The ideas they came up with were slight variations on successful things or sales. They were asked to brainstorm a business idea and make a business card and brochure and stuff like that. At this stage kids don't seem to be really thinking for themselves when it comes to tasks that they are compelled to complete.
Action- I don't intend to teach junior high but if I find myself there I hope to guide kids to think for themselves. That may not work so well and I may need to just teach older kids. other than that observation I really liked today's activity.
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