This week we are beginning a unit on A Victorian Christmas, and we began this by decorating for Christmas. I was really impressed by the way my mentor teacher approached this. She set up a roaring fire with Christmas carols on the DVD player, and encouraged the students to come in and help decorate. I was amazed when the students got excited and jumped into the festivities. A few students needed to be encouraged, but most of them were engaged right away. Before long we had students decorating, setting up the tree, stringing lights, singing along with the Christmas carols, and pouring apple cider. This really impressed me, because this same group of kids was all full of snarls and sarcasm two days before when I tried to encourage them.
This situation caused me to reflect about the parts of teaching that have nothing to do with content. Yes, our content areas are important, and if we don't teach them, we are not doing our jobs. However, students' overall well-being has to be taken care of before they can learn. This is something I learned in Practicum. But I never would have thought of decorating for Christmas as a means to ensuring my students' well-being. I would have thought of it as extra, something nice, but not necessary. With CORE Curriculum banging at the door, and state visits, it is easy to overlook the smaller, more subtle needs that our students have.
The difficulty for me lies in knowing when something is extra or frivolous, or when, like the Christmas celebration, it is something crucial that is needed to get students in the mood for learning. I suppose that this is the kind of thing that teachers learn with practice, and get a feel for as they get more experience in the classroom, but it is so frustrating when you watch seasoned teachers make these decisions so easily and effortlessly. It makes me wonder if I will ever have that ease of giving the students what they need without wracking my brain.
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