In theory...

...there's no difference between practice and theory but in practice there is.

The tension between my high level goals and aspirations as a teacher and the down and dirty fundamentals of life in the classroom 75 minutes at a time remain. I don’t want to be a cop, to be coercive and to use reward and punishment as a mechanistic tool to get students to learn (I want to be more Alife Kohn-like) but feel that I am forced back into that mode by the day to day reality of what I’m encountering in the classroom. Students are talking about their personal stuff at the same time as I’m talking or at the same time as another student is talking and being generally so disruptive as to make them impossible to ignore. So I threaten them and occasionally follow through on my threats and occasionally lose my cool in a visible way.

The key, suggests Bob Sullo in Activating the Desire to Learn, is to make the content interesting and relevant. Then students will want to learn. Sounds right to me. But that challenge seems way, way, beyond me. I struggle just to come up with and organize the stuff to fill the time at this point. That kind of meta-effort, devoted to establishing its relevance and to making it connect to them at a personal level seems like too much when it’s 9.00 PM and the kids are finally put to bed and the supper dishes are put away and I’m sitting down to figure out what tomorrow’s class is going to look like.

How can I get out of here (Mr. MacDonald - GRRRR) and over to there (Mr. MacDonald - great class!!!!)?