So, I was coaching a teacher a few days ago and she was having difficulty trying to figure out how to manage a classroom of all gifted children.\u00a0 This teacher is a fantastic secondary teacher who consistently follows Harry Wong\u2019s philosophy of classroom management.\u00a0 She uses Wong\u2019s style in a low income\/high poverty school with great success.\u00a0 However, Wong\u2019s regimented style runs counter to successful methods for teaching gifted children and it fails to address their social\/emotional as well as physical needs.<\/p>\n
The teacher and I had a long conversation about how to support the overexciteabilities of these students.\u00a0 We talked about changing the teaching from a didactic classroom to a coached or consultative classroom.\u00a0 After many years of being incredibly successful at what she does, I heard her say that she is really uncomfortable changing her whole way of teaching for just one class of students.\u00a0 Basically, she came to the conclusion that the students were just going to have to mold to her way of running the classroom.\u00a0 After all, isn\u2019t that an important skill to have in the \u201creal world?\u201d\u00a0 Don\u2019t we have to adjust and adapt to our surroundings when we get a job?<\/p>\n
After hearing these very reasonable arguments, I asked her the following question:\u00a0 Why does our high school and middle school start their school day at 7:30 and 7:20 respectively, when all research shows that adolescents physiologically struggle with early school days and would be better served starting at 10 am?\u00a0 When there is NO evidence showing that this is optimum for the students we serve, why do we do it?\u00a0 Of course, the teacher answered, \u201cBecause of busing.\u201d\u00a0 Transportation has always determined this issue even though it isn\u2019t in the best interests of the people we are supposed to be serving \u2013 the children.\u00a0 I then made the following assertion to the teacher about her management style, \u201cDon\u2019t be the bus!\u201d\u00a0 I told her that if she needs to change her style to meet the needs of all of her students then she needs to do just that.\u00a0 If she is uncomfortable \u2013 too bad!\u00a0 If she stays within her comfort zone and doesn\u2019t change, and all of her students are uncomfortable, then she is \u201cbeing the bus.\u201d\u00a0 She isn\u2019t doing what is right and serving the needs of her children, but rather keeping herself comfortable.\u00a0 As Iyanla says, \u201cIf you are comfortable, then you aren\u2019t growing!\u201d<\/p>\n
I think it is really crucial for all educators to continually reflect and remind ourselves, \u201cDon\u2019t be the bus!\u201d\u00a0 We must make sure that we are meeting the needs of the children that we have in our classrooms.\u00a0 We can\u2019t keep doing the same things in the same ways over and over again and expecting different results.\u00a0 I\u2019m excited to be involved in education at a time where information is so easily attained and collaboration with others is readily available.\u00a0 This is a chance for us to be creative and change our \u201cone size fits all\u201d educational model, because, quite frankly, that model didn\u2019t really fit many people any way and it certainly won\u2019t prepare us for the future.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, I was coaching a teacher a few days ago and she was having difficulty trying to figure out how to manage a classroom of all gifted children.\u00a0 This teacher is a fantastic secondary teacher who consistently follows Harry Wong\u2019s philosophy of classroom management.\u00a0 She uses Wong\u2019s style in a low income\/high poverty school with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,32],"tags":[46,48,47],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classroom-management","category-gifted-education","tag-classroom-management","tag-gifted-children","tag-overexciteabilities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makingmathematicians.com\/hollysblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}