Blog #4

A-1) Based on Principal Allan's presentation on Wednesday, what are your current thoughts about morning meetings and their potential to build a caring, trusting community in a classroom? What are you thinking in terms of trying morning meeting, yourself, when you are a teacher?

I loved the class time we had with Principal Allen.  I felt that she really loved what she was doing with morning meetings.  I was able to see that the benefits do out weigh the time issues.  I want to take on the morning meeting as something I do everyday.  I feel I will have a difficult time doing it in the time allotted.  I want to see how it will work in my classroom.  I know that the sharing will cause my classroom to be united and feel comfortable with anything that may come up in their lives.  If a child is comfortable in the classroom, I feel that it is the best environment to learn in.  I will definitely do morning meetings in some form or another in my future classroom.

B-2) Based on the scenarios and ideas for maximizing growth and capacity of learners in a classroom discussed in chapter 4, discuss two "new" ideas you have for doing that, yourself. You may want to "borrow" ideas from the chapter, or they may inspire you to think up something on your own. Share two ideas you hope to "try."

I don't think that morning meetings are discussed  much in the book.  I want to use the morning meeting as a tool for growth.  I feel this is exactly what the morning meeting is designed to do.  It creates a capacity for learning that would not be there otherwise.  If a child feels like he or she is not able to learn, how will he or she learn?  Morning meetings will give the students what they need to grow.  It seems a little repetitive, but I also believe that having a child tear down the walls they have built up will allow for them to build up new walls of learning. 

I also believe in working on something and not giving up.  I can see that many students become frustrated from different things in the classroom.  It could be a math problem, or a book report that is causing some difficulty.  I know that there are ways of getting the work done without having the answers given to them.  I will be ready to show my students different ways of accomplishing the difficult.  I will help them to understand that they are able to do the work and get the correct answers by themselves.  It will take more work on my part to be ready for the frustrated child looking to give up, but I will be ready with a different method of doing the task at hand.  I will require best efforts and hard work to get the correct answer, and I know that my students will feel the accomplishment when they complete the task and know they were able to do it.  I guarantee that student won't feel they are unable to accomplish another difficult task in the future, or a least they may have a different battle plan to attack the issue.

PS, sorry I must not have gotten the memo on the early delivery time.  I have it scheduled  every week with a reminder for me to do it.  I didn't pay attention to anything else.