One of my favorite things to do in my "freetime" is sub at our school. I really don't mind which class I am asked to spend the day in, but there are a few that are my favorites... today's class was one of them!! Mrs. Cottingham, high school teacher, has classes that the topics/ content are fun, can be made realavent to kids and a group of students that are willing to talk and join in a good conversation. My sister-in-law was planning on subbing for her all week and then was asked to switch to a long-term sub in the building, so I got to spend time in a great school with a wonderful and interesting group of teenagers for the day! Yippee!!!!!
I got to "teach" Citizenship/Civics, Sociology, Economics, hang with the students during study hall and work with a student on an optical illusion project while avoiding computer viruses. I say "teach" because the students actually taught me a lot more more about them, why they interact with each other the way they do and how needy they are for attention, than the information and conversational learning that I went over with them. One of the most fun parts of the day was watching the 9th graders put on skits about relationships and listening to some of the comments that showed strength and self worth!
The young adults asked good questions about debt, why college is so expensive and listened to me explain over and over the pros and cons of credit. I was very impressed that the econ class knew the rule of 72 (I didn't before my husband explained it to me last night). I was even more impressed that they thought it was crazy that texting lingo and slang conversational vocabulary was adopted into the English dictionary.
Kids are kids and teenagers will continue to challenge us, but today I stopped to wonder whether we take enough time to try and understand them, connect with them, and meet them where they are or if we spend too much time asking them to understand us, connect with us and take our goals and our "important" info to heart when it may not have any meaning to them. I truly feel that they are a puzzle that is worth putting the pieces together to figure out. I can't wait until I can spend another day subbing, finding the pieces that will help with picture come together!
What great insight! I don't remember much about being a teenager, but I do remember that I wasn't fond of it because I felt misunderstood. Taking the time to understand our teens is SO important! Thanks for sharing this post.
ReplyDelete