dktyagi

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL READERS!!!!

Today in this blog I shall be discussing an unnoticed but very important issue related to Teachers, Time and Students.

As soon as you enter a class you can start class in first five minutes with respect, care, and procedures. The class has already started bell has rung, and the students are still talking to each other, and exchanging a little playful punch—which then may escalate into an argument, and sometimes may be even a fight.

So what do you do?

You simply say, “The class has started, would you all sit?” No action. “Sit down, please.” No action. “What’s the matter with you all? The class has started! Sit down, right now!” Some action is seen. The students start sitting. Why?

Not because they respect you, but because the students have been trained not to sit until you yell at them. That’s the signal to sit down. This is repeated every day and day after day, class after class, always resulting with the same outcome: yelling, frustration and anger.

You then take attendance and everyone is waiting for the task to finish and it takes up another two to three minutes, after this task which generally takes five minutes the class starts finally.

5 minutes wasted per class period, 40 minutes for an 8 period school day. Multiplying that by a 200-day school year equates to 25 working days of school learning wasted each year. Multiply that by twelve years of schooling, and more than one full year of actual study is completely lost during a student’s lifetime at school.

And that’s a conservative estimate.

No one would tolerate wasting even a fraction of this time waiting in line at a supermarket or theater.

At school, wasted time should be totally unacceptable.

It’s all in you and about you how you start class effectively.

I will be dealing with some techniques/ strategies in coming blogs how to start class effectively and to engage students actively. Thanks for patient reading.