Lessons of Interest: Freetime & Stuck

While it is very important to me not to treat middle school kids as 'children', belittling their intelligence and competence, it is easy to forget how chidlish they can be, and how different the expectations are from elementary school to middle school. Mrs. Keener has a fascinating lesson she teaches on free time. When I first heard that she was teaching a free time lesson I thought it was a little silly, but after seeing what she did, it's definitely something I will integrate into my curriculum if I ever teach sixth graders (and perhaps seventh graders too depending on the circumstances).

She led them in a discussion of options for free time, guiding their brainstorm to create a pre-existing list. First she made a list of questions a students needs to ask themselves.
-Do I have other work to do?
-How much time do I have?
-What are my choices? (based on time, teacher instruction etc.)
-What do I NEED to do?
-What do I WANT to do?

She then guided them in making a list of choices, divided into needs and wants. Choices include: do other work, read, draw, look at planner, organize your binder, play games (Rush hour, brain quest), go to the library (check out a book, take a reading counts quiz), re-do work with low scores, read the walls, look at a text book, work on freetime sheets (cross words and mazes provided by Mrs. Keener), daydream, do extra credit, use basic facts flash cards.

After covering all of this, Mrs. Keener handed out a work sheet that students would finsh at different times (typical 'read all the directions' sheet, which tells you not to fill she sheet out), and then they actually practiced what they should be doing for free time. This lesson has been reinforced more or less constantly the following few days by reminders and more opportunities for practice. I have no doubt that within a few weeks, with the possible exception of some of the more problematic student, all of them should know exactly what they should do and when they should do, and take it upon themselves to make that happen.


Another surprising, but really useful lesson was her 'Stuck' lesson. It was a similar format as the freetime lesson, guided brainstorm to fill out a pre-existing list. This list was designed to help students to find other options when they do not immediatly know the answer or method to solve a problem besides waving their hand in the air trying to get the teacher's attention. Her list:
1) Think about it!
2) Read the directions (again)
3) Look at an example
4) Ask a neighbor (if appropriate)
5) Ask the teacher [last resort]

She then discussed which options you can do by yourself, and whic needed other people to do things. The icing on the cake was a little roleplaying she did where she pretended to be 'Greta the Guest Teacher'. She handed a worksheet out to the kids, and pretended that she didn't know any math and didn't want to answer questions. The only way that she (or I) would concede to help anyone is if all four people at a group raised their hands, indicating that the resources of everyone had been exhausted and everyone was stumped. Only one group ended up raising their hands, and they faked it in order to 'practice'.

One interesting thing I noticed, totally unrelated to these lessons. A girl came up to me complaining that the boys always palyd rush hour during break, and complained asking why the girls could never play. That seemed odd to me. The boys playing didn't prevent any girls from playing. Many of the boys chose to go straight back to rush hour when break started, whereas most of the girls chose to do other things first. What did she expect me to do about it? Say no boys aloud? Or was she simply looking for empathy from a fellow female. I have overheard several sexist remarks so far, and not just from students. I overheard a teacher commenting on some people chatting in their class, and accused them of sounding like a bunch of girls in the hallway.