Things That Have Surprised Me Recently

A) I forgot to use positive motivation with a young girl in one of my classes.

In our teachers' meeting last week I asked for help with this girl, who has a problem with speaking Korean in our English class.  I have taught her before; when she first started she was something of an ADHD basket case, and drove me and my Korean co-teacher a bit crazy.

Since then she has calmed down a bit, but her mind still seems to run at a rather high speed, so when we aren't actively engaged in something she usually turns to another student and rattles away in Korean.  She's a nice girl and a smart girl, but that kind of behavior has to be controlled since it can result in an entire class of students not focusing on English language usage.

I tried using the "3 X" system, which we use quite a bit at our academy.  Students learn that when the class gets 3 X's for speaking Korean the entire class has to write something (such as the classroom rules) in their notebooks, and, of course, they don't like it.  Thus they tend to encourage each other to speak English.

Last night, for example, a middle school class (who know all about the 3 X's), started having problems with chatting in Korean.  I turned to the whiteboard, drew three boxes in black, and then drew one X in red.

Immediately there was peer pressure in English: "Shh . .  don't speak Korean, don't speak Korean . . ."

Such a system can be very effective.

But it wasn't working with this young girl (2nd grade), so I asked for help and got the suggestion to try using stars (thanks April!).

I took the girl aside before class and told her I would start giving stars for good English usage and that when she got so many stars she would get a prize (a sticker or candy, etc.).

The result was not electrifying, but it was much better than the X's I had been trying.

Two thoughts: 1) shame on me for forgetting about the potential in a reward system, and 2) that's one of the reasons I enjoy teaching: there is always something new to learn.


B) Outside the classroom I am surprised about the focus that the political battle in the U.S. is taking, namely the conservative vs. liberal aspect.

Perhaps it comes from living abroad, but I had expected--or perhaps hoped--that more attention would be paid to the huge amount of money the U.S. is spending on fighting foreign wars, on the negative perception of America that such wars are engendering, on the need to fix the huge problems with American infrastructure, etc.

Instead, I read about Rick Santorum winning some states, though he has said the U.S. government should not have a true separation of church and state--that thought is scary to me, given that there are enough problems in the world with religious wars, doctrines, divisions, genocides, etc.  Who would pick which religion governs the U.S.?

I also read about Democratic Congresswomen protesting the commonly held views of female contraception and abortion:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/15/148695307/in-protest-democrats-zero-in-on-mens-reproductive-health

Interesting and, I think, about time someone challenged America's views that discriminate against women's rights to contraception and to thoughts about abortion.


C) I was surprised to hear that there are over 100 American universities charging $50,000 or more per year (when factoring in room and board, etc.).  However, my American co-workers told me that I was just out-of-touch with things (a nice way to say I am getting old).