Because of the unruliness of my daughters 5th grade class the teacher had had enough and gave the class a stern speech, along with an assignment to write 250 words on what each of them would do to make their behavior and class time better.
My daughter is the kind of student that takes herself very seriously and is very responsible. (She was definitely born this way. In certain situations with her I ask myself, 'Who's the adult here?'). When we got home she went to work on her paper.
She shared her finished work by reading it to me. I was very proud of her however, I brought to her attention the fact that she was calling out some classmates by name and how that isn't such a good idea, kids don't really like being "tattled on". She wrote "Mr. Camp, I hear so-and-so and so-and-so talking and I feel you should separate these two so I can concentrate. Also, "kid 1" and "kid 2" are bad listeners and..." You get the idea. I asked if she really wanted to use names and she said it was OK because she was going to hand it in to Mr. Camp and that's all there was to the assignment.
Well...
The next day she came out of class looking a little nervous. It seems her teacher not only wanted to hear everyone's essays, he had the kids read their letters in front of the class. Oops, I thought. I asked her what she did about naming names, et al. She said that she kind of froze, then skipped over that part. Good girl.
This made me think about blogging. Even though we are alone when we write, once we click the "publish" button our words go into the blogesphere for all eyes to read. Are the thoughts you share something that would make you embarrassed if particular people read them? Would it make the next gathering, or chance meeting at the grocery store, uncomfortable?
Even though I'm far from being a 5th grade student, there are still lessons to be learned.
My daughter is the kind of student that takes herself very seriously and is very responsible. (She was definitely born this way. In certain situations with her I ask myself, 'Who's the adult here?'). When we got home she went to work on her paper.
She shared her finished work by reading it to me. I was very proud of her however, I brought to her attention the fact that she was calling out some classmates by name and how that isn't such a good idea, kids don't really like being "tattled on". She wrote "Mr. Camp, I hear so-and-so and so-and-so talking and I feel you should separate these two so I can concentrate. Also, "kid 1" and "kid 2" are bad listeners and..." You get the idea. I asked if she really wanted to use names and she said it was OK because she was going to hand it in to Mr. Camp and that's all there was to the assignment.
Well...
The next day she came out of class looking a little nervous. It seems her teacher not only wanted to hear everyone's essays, he had the kids read their letters in front of the class. Oops, I thought. I asked her what she did about naming names, et al. She said that she kind of froze, then skipped over that part. Good girl.
This made me think about blogging. Even though we are alone when we write, once we click the "publish" button our words go into the blogesphere for all eyes to read. Are the thoughts you share something that would make you embarrassed if particular people read them? Would it make the next gathering, or chance meeting at the grocery store, uncomfortable?
Even though I'm far from being a 5th grade student, there are still lessons to be learned.