Major Victories

When I started at this school, I had a really rough class. The lowest level boys refused to participate. One student, in particular, stared sullenly at his desk for the entire lesson. He didn't even open his book. He had floppy hair at that stage so for a long time I knew him only as this:

That day I swore that by the end of the year I would make him speak. And every week I'd give the class some sort of game, and he would say nothing. Every week I told myself, this is it! This is the one! And... Nothing. The other kids in the class are warming to me and starting to try harder, but this kid...

Zilch.

And then today he's all....

And on the inside, I'm going

But on the outside I'm just

How did I do it? The pass the pencil case game. Except in my class, it was a bomb (baseball), and we had a powerpoint thing that counted down with beeps and huge explosions. First the kid holding the bomb when it blows has to say a sentence about the picture on the screen. Then in round two, they have to say any sentence that we learned today in order to pass the bomb along. If they're holding it when it blows, they're dead and are out of the game. Anyone still alive at the end of the lesson gets signatures on their Katie, GIMME CANDY! charts.

The best thing about this lesson? I didn't just get this kid to speak.

I got ALL of them to speak.

I might just be a good teacher after all.

The ppt for the game is available here: http://www.waygook.org/index.php/topic,3718.msg19097.html#msg19097