I'm sure that one day in my history, I knew the five kingdoms of living things. I never committed it to memory, though, so I was very interested in listening to and helping fourth graders learn about them. For those of you that have slept since fourth grade, the five kingdoms are:
- Animal
- Plant
- Fungus (including yeast, mushrooms, and slime mold)
- Protist (including amoebas and algae)
- Moneran (bacteria)
I knew yeast was a living thing, but I didn't realize it was a fungus. And slime mold? I'm familiar with that from the mushrooms that I forgot to cook that hide at the back of the refrigerator. I just didn't know it had a name.
I was impressed with how this teacher refocused the class again and again. She kept reminding them that they could do the work and her expectations were very high. As more students finished their work and showed it to her, she would raise the standard. She told me it was to provide the kids with enough confidence to know that the work could be done. So at the beginning of the assignment she said, "My expectations are up to the ceiling." When three people finished the assignment, she announced that it could be done and that "My expectations are through the roof." When more turned theirs in, she said, "My expectations are up to the sky! You can do this."
It worked. Every child finished every assignment, even the ones that had trouble with focus or motivation. Those students earned genuine applause from her when they turned in their work. It was amazing to watch.
What I love about tutoring is that every day is unique and I get to watch different teachers with different personalities and tactics achieve results. When I taught school full-time, I taught first graders and I had to be a little bit mama and a little bit teacher to help the students learn. In the older grades, students are a bit more independent and it's fascinating to watch them work from their own motivation.
One boy in the class finished his work and was dying to talk to me about his new game "Grand Theft Auto." I agreed to listen to an uncensored monologue about this. We were on the side of the classroom, so we wouldn't disturb the others. I don't know much about this game, especially from the perspective of a sweet (really) fourth grader. As he talked to me, he told me that I used to tutor his sibling. Immediately I placed his family. He has supportive parents who take him to church multiple times a week and make sure he does his homework. I've never met them, but I know from teaching his sibling that they are a caring, close family.
Here's some snippets I was able to write down, quotes from what he told me.
"I got this game Grand Theft Auto. I killed a person. Nah, I didn't kill a person. I killed a cop.........I killed everyone but five people.....They had the army and S.W.A.T. team and police all after me. I ain't gonna lie. I took off running. Only thing I could do was jack a car to keep going......."
Some people would have cut him off and not allowed him to finish his discussion. Some would have shut him down, citing inappropriateness of that conversation at school, in particular from a 10 year old. This boy was so excited about this game, though, he was busting at the seams to tell someone about it, so I let him....He actually seemed calmer once he talked to me about it.
I was disturbed to hear his description of the game. He obviously knows it's not real and lives in the TV screen, but this is something that was consuming his brain power while at school. It's not a real event, but of real concern to him. I'm sure he's not the only elementary school kid playing this game and talking about it at school. I don't think he's going to translate his actions on the game into real life. But I fail to see a positive when students are meditating on imaginary violence.
It's hard to grow up, and it seems to be getting harder every day.
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