(Assistant) Teaching 4th Grade

I realize that I never posted it. It's now actually 4/14/11. Anyway, from last year.

Fourth graders are complex beings. When I was in fourth grade, I fancied myself to be a sophisticated adult, a connoisseur of fine foods and automobiles; a little off the mark, perhaps, but evidence of the notions 4th graders can entertain. More to follow on this.

I loved my elementary school experience; nonetheless, some aspects of that experience were weird. Among those normal rules and routines for fourth graders that might strike an adult as heinous restrictions of liberty include: one cannot eat at any time of the day and must wait until official snack times and lunch times; speaking of lunch, one must eat it within 30 minutes; one must ask permission to relieve oneself; one must demonstrate competence in science, language, history, and mathematic. One must reconcile hearing about the "logical consequences of behaviors" and perceptions of the machinations of malevolent and conniving adults.

I work in a public charter school now, helping out in a 4th grade classroom with particularly unruly children. Differently from the private schools where I was educated, kids have to be at school, and public schools have to take them. So, the punishment that loomed largest in my experience, being kicked out of school, does not really exist at my school. That means that we teachers need to be a little more inventive with our "behavior management."