You can never observe enough. In two weeks, I've observed each of the two sixth grade classes for about six hours. During some of that time, I pulled each student out one by one to help with reading assessments to help their teacher place them into reading groups. It was invaluable to have the opportunity to interact with each student individually, and to see and hear for myself the challenges these students face. For many, English is their second language, and they've been in bilingual classrooms for the last five years. Some have a second-grade reading level. Others understand and apply key concepts in spite of the language barrier. They may not be able to pronounce the word in front of them correctly, but they know what a root word is and how to identify prefixes and suffixes.
The biggest challenge I've seen that is holding these students back, however, is not language. They are smarter than they pretend to be. Better at reading, better at writing. Their biggest challenge is that they won't work together. Last week a student turned over a desk after an accidental bump turned into a shoving match. Other students want to move to another desk because they just "can't sit next to so and so." They're on the cusp of becoming teenagers, so the behavior is not a huge surprise. But they are so distracted by their own drama that they will have a difficult time learning anything. Their teacher and I came to each other with the same idea. As I begin working with them, the primary objective is to teach these students to work together by giving them the opportunity to practice working together in a variety of circumstances. It's one of the great things about using drama. Before delving into the rehearsal process in creating theatre, we build an ensemble. On Tuesday, these sixth graders will begin the journey of becoming one.
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