Farm boy fetch me some water

What if a classroom had no rules?

Students are always looking for situations where they can get away with things. Will they take advantage of a teacher with no rules?

By the time a student is in high school they are already molded into a certain type of student. What I've been seeing in my classroom is that these students don't want to break the rules and get caught. They have no concept of why rules are in place, they just don't want to break them while the teacher is looking. Students are so used to this system that when a classroom has no rules, they melt down. Since they don't know where the boundary is, they push until they can find it.

Anyway, I don't want to be a classroom teacher forever... At lunch yesterday the teachers were all complaining about how the students are these days. One woman who has been teachign for 20 years said "20 years ago the teachers were having this same discussion, the students are never gonna be the same as the previous generation, which is why we constantly have to adapt to their needs." School should run smoothly, there should be a atmosphere of respect. Something needs to change on a larger scale and I want to be at least a part of that change on some level.

As a student I was bored in class. I was considered a hall roamer at my school. I never left important classes or at important times, but every chance I got to leave and walk around I took. I hated being confined to a classroom. I was good at school, but I never liked it. All my friends liked school, they liked learning. Nothing interested me enough. If I weren't good at school, I probably would have resisted the system even more. I can see how some of these students resist. They're children and yet they are confined by school. We wonder why there is so much obesity in children... they sit at a desk all day in school. Teachers punish students by taking away their recess time. THere is no recess in high school. At my school we weren't allowed to take gym after sophomore year. When do kids get a chance to be kids?

ouch

I broke a nail at my football game last night... We lost. It sucked. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Back to graduate school

Can I teach the same way I want to parent? As a parent you raise your children however you want, they respond to your stimuli and you respond to theirs. If you raise them to be respectful and have no rules for them, they should still do what's right. My friends father performed an experiment with his children. He had one rule, no standing on teh kitchen table. His kids were good kids, but inevitably when he would leave the house, they all stood on the kitchen table. Rules are made to be broken. I don't believe in rules. But if you're teaching students who had authoritarian parents, can you really use your authoritative style, will it really work?

Do I really want to go back to grad school after I finish the MAT? I like the readings, but apparently my writing style sucks... can that improve? Or am I doomed by my math mind? PS. I failed my logic class freshman year in college... I have no logical skills (and I never went to class... perhaps the only flaw in my logic)

Duke sucks