Yesterday was not a fun day.

On Wednesday the 26th, I instituted a no talking/no-sharing answers policy in the classroom. For two of my classes, Darian Jones and I worked together to model word association as the next step towards mastering root words. Here is how it worked -- first, Darian would read the word and meaning and the students were supposed to repeat what he said. Then I (with help from the students and while Darian kept time) displayed word associations on the boards with words, symbols and pictures for thirty seconds on each word. I have to say that some of my drawings were kinda good. After that, the student spent 30 seconds made a record of their experiences in the book. We accomplished 30 words in about 44 minutes.

That last class of the day went differently because of the mix and quantity of students. Several students don't get along well. I told them that in the classroom they don't have to like each other; that they must live in society with each other. A society is a place where everyone (no matter how diverse) has agreed to live together in peace. The students were then afforded time to work on root words independently.