It was a very interesting experience being back in the classroom today after the 7 school days of the strike. The day seemed to fly by. Ray School was a contingency school, so it was open during the strike as a safe place for students to spend part of their day. The principal began the day with an all school assembly to address the fact that we were back in school and stating the expectation that we were going to jump right back into learning. I think that starting the day with this kind of whole school address was a great way to get students back into an academic mindset and to help them realize that today they were going to be pushed and that they were expected to have a successful day.
Once we got to the classroom and got our day started, most of the students were actively engaged in the lessons being taught throughout the day. The few students who struggled during the first week to maintain focus and stay engaged in the lessons struggled to maintain focus and engagement in the lessons today. This suggests that the students in my class were not overly impacted by the strike and their absence from the classroom.
My mentor teacher used the strike as a teaching opportunity by building a whole class discussion around the reasons behind the strike then lead the class into a lesson on narrative writing and a writing prompt about how they spent their time during the strike. It was very cool to see how much the strike was talked about throughout the school and how teachers did not gloss over the fact that students missed 7 days of classroom time, while at the same time did allow the missed days to be an excuse for misbehaving or not being focused on a lesson.
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