The coach’s experience in A Veteran Teacher Turned Coach Shadows 2 students for 2 days: A Sobering Lesson by Grant Wiggins is a similar experience most students have. As a student I have experienced the same thing that Grant experienced. Teachers requiring one to sit for long periods of time, to be focused that entire period and told to be quiet repeatedly. Thankfully, this experience is one that I will not forget. However, as a teacher I find myself perpetuating the same experience due to need for classroom management. In my classroom, there is only enough seats for 34 students and the largest class has 32 students. This leaves only two empty chairs with desk space. In the classroom, there is only enough space for the desks and two filing cabinets. I would love to have my students take breaks in the classroom but I find it to be challenging. In an attempt to have students stand and stretch, I had students hitting each other because they were too close to their classmate. If there was more room in the class then I would be able to have students move about more. Another challenge that I face is the administration. I have been warned many times that if administration walks into the classroom and students are not on task working on a learning activity that I would have to face the consequences. This puts extreme pressure on me as a teacher to force students to sit for extensive periods of time. Lastly, I find myself asking students to be quiet. Although I want students to have social experiences with their classmates, I find that class time is wasted during those conversations. For instance, after an art project where students used genetic information to draw a family portrait had been posted on the walls, over 10 minutes of class was used to regain attention towards to task at hand. Instead of focusing on the lesson, students focused on the posters and created interpretations for the poster. If I had flexibility in my classroom, I could've used that socialization to promote a discussion of family genetics and physical manifestations of those characteristics. But unfortunately I am limited to the specific curriculum designed by the department head. I believe that if we want to change this experience for students we will need to redesign schools. Schools should have space to allow students to move. Students should not be treated like sardines and packed into a class. I believe flexibility within curriculum would allow for more social experiences that can be harnessed to promote learning.
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