life skills

This school year, I am teaching Life Skills for junior high students along with my Digital Journalism course for high school students. I didn't realize the wide range of classroom management I would need to tap into with this teaching load, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Junior high students are my favorite. That age is so awkward and fun and surprising and difficult. You never know who will love or hate you and to what degree those feelings will affect you as a teacher, and I seem to thrive on the challenge to reach the students who hate me the most.

The 80/20 rule is pretty accurate in my classes: 80 percent tolerate/listen to me, 10 percent love me, and 10 percent detest me. And it's been interesting to see how that 10 percent slowly get won over (or at least pretend to be won over). For instance, most of the haters gave me Christmas gifts, which was a real shocker! Maybe they are just putting up a front, or maybe their parents know what I'm up against and wanted to show some appreciation. Either way, the gesture warmed my teacher heart.

Another aspect of Life Skills that I enjoy is having the ability to reward the students for working hard and getting their work done early. These kids love doing arts and crafts, so on days when the majority are all finished with their required work, they make classroom decorations. During December and January, they created a blizzard of amazing snowflakes. Then in February, hearts (and heart sharks) covered one side of the classroom. This reward system is highly motivating and easy to implement because I have such a great group of students.

We are closing in on the last quarter of the year, and I already know, no matter what happens fourth quarter (because we all know things can go straight up awry fourth quarter), I will miss this school year so much.