Experimenting with Children

I knew this day would come. I had my first official failure. Megan and I decided to try a little experiment. I was going to teach an entire period and Megan was going to step out of the room for a few minutes, just to see how things would go. The students were doing an activity where they move about the room and record data at different stations. I was comfortable with Megan stepping out and the students were on a roll. However, I started to notice some students not staying with their lab groups - they started to work independently. I told a few of them to work with their teams. Then I started to notice the class becoming a little louder than it normally is, which is when I started to notice myself getting a bit uncomfortable with how things were progressing. I continued to walk around, keeping the students on task and answering questions.

About the time I decided to call all the student back to their seats to start the discussion portion of the period, I saw a couple of boys poking each other. As students were heading back to their seats, Megan came back into the room and it started getting much quieter. She gave the pokers a look and they went back to their seats. I led a time of discussing the activity, the students did a check-in question (exit slip), and the period was over.

As we talked about the period, I told her that I had started to get uncomfortable with how loud the students were getting and that they were wandering off on their own through the stations. I had hesitated on what to do. I was glad that she had come in when she did, as it definitely helped to bring everyone together for the end of the period. Megan advised me that you need to nip it in the bud immediately when you start to get that sense of discomfort (I saw her do that the very next day).

Looking back, I'm glad we ran our little experiment. Looking forward, it tells me that my presence doesn't have as much weight or authority as I thought it had. It has given me a chance to have time to think about what to do in a situation like that, and through our debrief, I now have several options I can use to help calm things down. I sense that I am in a better position the next time things start to get a little rowdy. And there will be a next time.