My MEL experiences

• Student /Teacher Relationships: One of my fondest school memories is of Miss Case in second grade. She established a positive relationship blah blah more writing yours will be longer.
• Helping Students Succeed: I doubt that Sister Mary Elutheria knew how to help students succeed. She told my sister on the second day of school, "Your sister has such nice handwriting. Yours is lousy. You'll never be as good a student as your sister." And then, some other day, as Paul Harvey says, I'll tell "the rest of the story."
• For your blog entry, you'll need three more of these (a total of 5) but you're getting the idea of how to format the posting and that was the purpose of this example.

Scenario #11

Every class has one: a "know it all." Well, in class I had a student who thought she was the gift to the classroom and knew absolutely everything about everything. We were doing a pair share activity and she was completely insulting one of the students in her group who didn't really feel like participating. On one hand, the girl was being overly mean, but on the other hand the student wasn't doing what he was supposed to do. I was wondering if I should tell the student to calm down and not worry about the other student, or should I tell the unmotivated student to buck up and do the work? Either choice seems to have its draw backs and I can't really tell both of them to leave each other alone and do the work because then they will both be upset with me and not do the work.

Scenario #10

There is a group of three students that make other students feel like they can't speak up or they will be made fun of, and other students do not speak up because those three are a constant distraction in class. How can a teacher change that environment so that these three students do not intimidate the rest of the class anymore?

Scenario #9

There's a student who comes into class and just doesn't care. We try to get him to learn and do work but he says it's pointless. I discovered that this student doesn't have a father and his mother is on every drug imaginable. How can I expect this student to do any work at all or even give a shit about anything we do in school when he has to think about where he's sleeping at night. Everything I can teach him in a classroom means nothing, why should he even care?

Scenario #8

You're teaching a freshman health class and you're a quarter way through your first semester. You have just recently mastered all your students names, but you are still getting to know who they are and their personalities. Your unit has shifted from healthy relationships to abusive relationships. You've got one student who in particular usually is pretty well- behaved but during this unit starts to act out and play the class clown. One day, while you were covering sexual abuse he makes a comment that makes you believe he could have been abused. What do you do? How would you respond to the students comment? Would you take them aside after class and talk to him even if your relationship with the student is still not matured? What are your responsibilities / actions as a teacher in this situation?

Scenario 7

Bob and Jack are both in 8th grade. They were assigned the same homeroom and are in the same class block. Bob and Jack both have kinisthetic needs that don't always seem to be met during the school day due to time constraints. Bob and Jack both come from families with low socio-economic backgrounds and they share many of the same interests. Perhaps, due to age and vicinity to one another, the boys are always antagonizing the other. Oftentimes, though the boys poke and shove the other (including in the classroom), this antagonizing is friendly. Both boys also seem to share the common link of anger problems. Due to family issues, both of the boys carry a lot of anger with them and can be volatile at times.

One day, each boy is having a "bad day". The teacher is standing out in the hall, in front of her classroom, greeting students and monitoring the hall. The boys walk in and shove each other a little, per usual. All of a sudden, one boy goes too far and a fight breaks out. A student (we'll call him John) jumps in to separate the boys, and successfully pulls the two apart. The teacher, having been absent for most of the brawl, tells John to let go Jack, who he's holding. John obeys, and the fight between Bob and Jack starts again. After much confusion, the teacher tries to break up the boys. She can't. They are angry and physically, they are too much for her to manipulate. So she discreetly asks John to separate the boys again, which John does. When the boys are separated, the teacher has a few of the "stronger" students escort the boys to the office where the principal can be responsible for disciplining them.

How could this situation have been prevented? There seemed to be warning signs all over the place. Also, what could a teacher have done in this situation if s/he did not have a student with John's strength and willingness to help?

Scenario 6

A classroom situation I had was a freshman student who absolutely refused to do anything he did not want to do. The frustrating part was not that he would not participate but that his teachers allowed it to happen because it was better that he was at school than at his home. It was frustrating because (1) the student was not learning and (2) the student obviously had a horrible homelife.