Alles wird gut.

[sister_luck]

Oral exams (10):

Three down. All three exams today went well. Instead of seven, there only five more to go.

(One was cancelled because the student in question already got the desired mark in her Maths exam and the other was cancelled because the student failed her Maths exam and now it's over for her.)

Out of the five I'll be asking questions in three exams and writing down answers in two.

Conferences (4):

One down. Three to go.
Year 10 conferences were chaotic and my co was under-prepared.
Full teachers' conference tomorrow.
On Monday it's Year 12 and Year 9 conferences.

Miscellanous:

All marks and absences have been written down in the appropriate folders.
Rehearsals for the Year 10 leaving ceremony are scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
The police and the Ordnungsamt need to be informed that my Year 12 students will be roaming the streets shooting the big 'massacre scene' for their film project on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Year 10 yearbook is on hold, because I just can't find the time to get it done.
etc.
etc.



I just had a nice afternoon nap.
Even though tempers are frayed, we'll somehow muddle through.
Not everything that we've planned to do will get done, but then so be it and am not losing sleep over it.

Comments

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Good on you that you're not losing sleep over it.

I had a stupid thing with one of my fourth-graders today (around 10yo). He's been misbehaving in class the last couple of lessons we had together, and he usually reacts very stubborn whenever I mention his behaviour. Today a pupil from Islam accused him from tackling him during football and not paying attention. The pupil had some scrapes etc, but after some asking we found out this happened during recess, and not like we thought when they were waiting for the teachers. Actually we should have said that this wasn't for us to solve, but of course my pupil didn't want to make up (he is like that), and my colleague pestered me in to making him write his rules as punishment for it. Of course he didn't want to, and now he's angry wth me, because I'm always angry with him (says he). I feel awful. And I'm using your LJ to vent. Sorry...

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Well, it was more of a pep talk, but I did get a decent night's sleep today.

Vent away!

Having to play negotiator and punisher often keeps us from doing what is considered our real job: the distribution of knowledge. Next school year with the new year 5 there are bound to be lots of playground disputes to solve...

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, be ready for that!

Year five has considerably more disputes than other years. Especialy the girls are prone to have fights that end up in not being friends anymore.
But on the other hand they do not always want you to intervene, as they did before. So I usually only end up intervening when a dispute disrupts class.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I'm planning on staying out of disputes - that's what THAT colleague did, he used those little fights to get too close to the kids manipulating them into thinking each one was his favourite. I'm only going to take action when they ask for mediation (and even then I'll send them to the student mediators first) or when it's disrupting class.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

We don't have student mediators, but I usually send them to their form teacher. Most of the times the arguments are between kids from different world view courses anyway. I can't mediate in those!

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Kids in primary school are a bit young I think for mediating for each other, but at our school we have some volunteers from Year 9 who get a course in mediating and some of them also serve as mentors for the Year 5 forms. That's usually very helpful.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

During my training two weeks ago I had a talk about peer mediation in primary school. I believe their mediators came from year 5 and 6. They started up the program this year (giving the kids courses in mediation etc.) and according to the headmistress who gave the talk it worked quite well. The kids also talked class intern problems through during a weekly "parliament" in their class: a class circle moment that wasn't headed by the teacher, but by one of the pupils in class. They themselves decided which problems would be talked about and tried to solve it. If they considered the problem too difficult they'd go to the teacher. It all sounded quite interesting, but I think it's hard work to start up something like that from scratch. This is a school that follows the principles of Freinet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freinet), so they already have a culture of talking with the kids.

I think peer mediation stems from England. I've seen a documentary on it years ago on Belgian television. There it was done in primary schools.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

As our primary school ends with Year 4, the mediating usually starts at secondary school, though there might be attempts to establish something like that at primary schools, too, but I'm not terribly well-informed about what goes on there.

We do the parliament thing too, especially in Years 5 to 7, with a session every week and for the older students it usually only happens when there is some sort of conflict that needs to be solved. Most forms have a little book in which the pupils write down during the week what they would like to talk about in the "class council".

And I'm really tired now and should go to bed, because I'm struggling with explaining myself.