Experimenting

The need for experimenting comes when you are unhappy with something. I am totally unhappy with the way in which some of my kids behave. I don't blame them for the same, they know no better. But their behavior reduces the learning which happens in my class, for themselves and also for others, not to mention the evil it brings out in me sometimes.

Let me take the case of Kiran. Kiran is quite intelligent and reads at a speed of 105-115 words per minute, though he doesn't understand much of what he reads. His attention span is about 10 minutes. Sometimes there are things which take more than 10 minutes to teach. What it means to me is that I need to teach him separately for him to understand. It doesn't take much time for him to grasp the concepts when I teach him one to one, so it is ok. But when he is running around in class and pinching and slapping others, they get totally distracted and their learning goes for a toss.

What if Kiran is the one who is making sure that every one sits properly and they listen in class and that they don't come out of their place unnecessarily. The sense of justice and equality in my class is very high, so I cannot just one day make Kiran the class monitor. There needs to be a valid reason why he should be the class monitor and not any of the 12 others. So I take the opportunity of the declared semester results and give all the kids who have got I-III ranks a responsibility. I rank holder is absent, II rank holder becomes the board monitor. His responsibility is to make sure that the contents of the black board is up to date, the objectives in the agenda are ticked off after each period, the board and the duster are clean. Then III rank holder is the class monitor.

Kiran is very excited about being the class monitor. Immediately he starts correcting people in the way in which they are leaning on to the desk and sitting with their legs up and pressing on to the desk. He is listening to my teaching as well as checking on others. Instead of me telling every one to sit straight and listen he takes over the responsibility. Till almost the last period he survives. The major gain is for Kiran himself as he has forgotten to run around and pinch and slap. But by last period he has lost his concentration and starts talking to Umesh. I let him stay at the back of the class and still listen without checking on others.

Next day, he starts again in the morning properly, being a nice monitor. But this day, his concentration is going to go off earlier than yesterday. By end of the day he starts telling me that he doesn't want to be the monitor. The loss is mine, if I let him out of it. So the next day, I let the small little mouse in my class to become the monitor and this makes Kiran very jealous and he wants to be the monitor back.

But in 2 days he is tired and again and doesn't want to be monitor.

The experiment in its actual form has failed. But I can make him monitor every other day and take advantage of the improved calm and lack of pinching and slapping still.

Umesh gets restless and starts talking if he sits next to Kiran. But now I have made him sit next to the small little mouse everyday and he is calm and quiet and listens nicely. The first day he behaved so nice, I called his mother up and told her, how nice he has been in class. The single mother whose dreams are all based on Umesh was so happy that day, Umesh came and gave me a special hug next day morning.

Rahul went for his cousin's wedding for a week and came back with a special problem. Now his hands keep drumming on the desk all the time. For a minute after I tell him to stop drumming, he will stop drumming, but after 1 minute the drumming restarts. Making him stand away from desks, folding his hands etc have not yielded any results. After 2 minutes he goes back to drumming and I can totally see that he is not fully aware of the fact that he is drumming.

Any ideas for an experiment here? My experiments with drumming....