[ola] Trust Falls - Help!
- From: Warren Billings <wbillings@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:11:18 -0500
Good morning!
I just did trust falls with my first period class and honestly it failed
and I am discouraged by this.
QUESTION: Does anyone have tips on how to make trust falls successful? I
think I just brought the class backwards in their trust for each other.
Again, I am discouraged and frankly upset by this. Give me some basic
advice on how to make it work!
There is a split of half the class that works super hard and does well and
the other half of the class talks in English, doesn't have notebooks, plays
on phones, wants to eat their breakfast, is late, absent often, etc. I've
been talking to them and to their parents but the issues are continuing to
come up. I maintain those high expectations in class but they are still
exhibiting this behavior even though I have created a safe environment
where it is easier to simply participate than to be off task.
They just had a writing performance assessment and those that aren't
working just had a reality check - lots of 1.0's (equivalent to D or F).
They are performing at NM with incomplete sentences. It was a true
assessment though because all the ones that I expected to pass did pass.
I am planning on doing a critique session of exemplar work later but wanted
to first establish that community of people that trust each other when they
need help.
Today I did trust falls to fortify the feeling of community before we start
critiquing tomorrow. Here is the process that I went through:
1. Hook: sing the song we just learned
2. Modeling: I modeled a trust fall (with one of the struggling students)
saying in L2 Ready? Yes! Trust!
3. Pairing Activity: Sneakers inside the circle, boots outside
4. I wrote the key words on the board: ready? yes! trust!
5. Modeling: I asked one pair to perform the trust fall and had everyone
watch.
6. I then counted down from three and asked everyone to fall onto their
partners.
7. They said thank you and gave their partner a high five and switched to
do it again.
8. I asked if trust was important in class and said that trust was like
saying help
9. I wrote trust = help on the whiteboard and we drew pictures of people
needing trust and people needing help.
10. We then drew pictures of people helping the drawings on the whiteboard.
11. We then shared some sentences as a group
12. We then wrote five sentences about help and trust.
The trust falls were a fail because one boy let another boy fall and I
didn't do anything because I thought it was an accident. I will talk to
them tomorrow. Lots of people doing the shuffle step when they fell back.
They were too clumped up with room to hide and misbehave. I should have
stopped, made space, then had those two boys do it again in front of
everyone.
Tomorrow I am doing it again. We need to have success here. Today was not
successful. I know that this is only one step in our journey of
establishing a positive community. Everything we do in class either builds
or takes away from that community.
QUESTION: Does anyone have tips on how to make trust falls successful? I
think I just brought the class backwards in their trust for each other.
Again, I am discouraged and frankly upset by this. Give me some basic
advice on how to make it work!
Un abrazo,
Warren
--
Warren Billings
Spanish Teacher
Pittsfield Middle High School
Pittsfield, NH
Telephone: (603) 435-6701 x4226
Visit our Website! http://pittsfieldspanish.weebly.com/
Other related posts:
