Pie, Anyone?

Delicious, Right?

I find it hard to believe that my pre-internship has come to an end.  So much preparation and planning for probably the fastest three weeks of my life.  It was here and gone in a blur.  I absolutely loved it.  It has made me so excited for next semester, and what will come after that.  I have had a wonderful experience with a great partner, great co-op, great school and administration, and mostly great kids.

When I was in middle school, and if we are being honest I still am this

A Student’s Work from a Lesson on Nutrition – March is Nutrition Month! *Notice he is giving up broccoli?*

way, I never questioned or “disobeyed” my teachers.  I was a rule follower through and through.  I wanted good grades and I wanted my teachers to like me. I was one of those students who, when assigned a task, started working immediately and put my best effort into it.  I have some students like that in my current class, but I also have some who are not like that at all.  Sometimes kids just don’t get it (as I talked about in my last post) but sometimes kids just don’t want to do it.  Even when it is a fun thing! They just don’t want to, so they just don’t.

 

As frustrating as it can be to see a student who you know is really smart (or any level of intelligence) refusing to do something you have planned, it is important to know how to deal with them.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I didn’t try to get them involved by asking what they would rather do or why they didn’t want to do it. The answer most often received was, “I don’t want to do this” or maybe just a staring-straight-past-me-with-no-response-whatsoever response. Encountering this kind of student is a really good experience.  Whether a student is going through something temporarily or they are constantly disengaged, you can’t stop trying your best for them.  Not every super awesome lesson you have planned is going to go over well with every student, but hey! Don’t fret! Do your best for each and every student and there is no way you can fail!

Are you still wondering about when you get pie?  Sorry, after scraping it from my face there was none left!  Let me start a little earlier.  Our pre-internship started the same week as the Z99 Radiothon, which raises money for the NICU every year, was being fundraised in our school.  We had a few days of loose change collection, a Boston Pizza lunch, and a delicious student led bake sale.  In all of the students’ projects they ended up raising and donating $3064.80! That was $1064.80 over their goal! But back to the pie.  If the students manage to reach their goal, all staff (including pre-interns) get a pie in the face by a student of their choice.  Yaaaay!

Being the resourceful teachers that we are we turned it into a lesson.  We had our students write a persuasive sentence/paragraph telling us why they deserve to pie us in the face.  From the best we drew three names.  My pie-er said she would be so nice and gentle and la la la.

Journey attempted the old persuasive technique known as “the guilt trip”

She really is such a nice girl

Check it out.  Personally, I think she was a little too eager to throw a pie in my face.  Don’t worry, nothing was hurt except maybe my pride!