Tag Archives: relationships

Kaechele vs. Holly

Only picture I can find of both of us :)

Only picture I can find of both of us 🙂

Our students (Andrew Holly is my team teacher) were preparing to debate the motive of the United States during our period of expansion in the Spanish American War. A couple of days before the actual debate we had a practice debate with silly topics for practice. We wanted students to get used to the format, see how much research they needed to do in preparation, and practice public speaking with no pressure. We condensed the time limits by a third to fit all of them in one day.

We used such topics as vampires vs. zombies, hotdogs vs. hamburgs, red vs. blue, Michigan vs. Michigan State, and our favorite Kaechele vs. Holly. Groups randomly drew their topics and had twenty minutes to research and prepare. For the groups that had us we gave each side five minutes to interview us and ask us anything they wanted.

We can’t take credit for this idea as we did a debate last year and the students didn’t like the lame topic we gave them and requested Kaechele vs. Holly. It was a blast. Students this year didn’t know us as well since it is the beginning of the year whereas last year we did our debate at the end of the year.

We feel like allowing students to debate us is a great experience for the whole class. It lets the class get to know us better, but most importantly it shows them that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. It helps us build relationships with our students as being approachable and a culture of fun and weirdness in our room. Being vulnerable in front of your students is always a win.

“Weird” ending

Ending the year is a challenge at our school because our students come from 20 local districts who have their own schedules of exams and end on different days. So this past week we have sporadic attendance due to lack of busing and some of the students starting summer vacation early. We try to plan fun events to get students to attend. On Tuesday we visited a local college and Wednesday we had Hobby Day. Each teacher brought in stuff for something that they like to do in their spare time.

2013-06-05 10.21.41If you know me then of course I brought in concrete supplies and had students mix and make their own concrete candle holders with tea light candles embedded into the concrete. Other things students did included jewelry, scrap booking, Frisbee golf, making ginger ale, and wood turning.

My students think my obsession with concrete is hilarious and this is important. I am weird and it matters. My weirdness about concrete communicates to students that it is ok to be their weird selves about their passions. We are a community of weirdness that respects the different weirdnesses of each other.

Yesterday was the last day of school for students. In a twist I wasn’t there because I took a personal day to attend my son’s 5th grade graduation. But we had a potluck last night where all students and their families are invited. It is fun to hang out and say goodbye to them all. Especially powerful was talking to a couple of students who I dragged to the passing side of my class so they can avoid summer school.

Before the night ended a group of students forced my co-teacher and I to give them “speeches” where we individually said something about each of them. It was fun and felt like giving each of them encouragement and a blessing going forward. I have had most of these students for two years and it will definitely be “weird” not to have them in class next year. I definitely end the year with feelings of appreciating my students and the relationships that I have with them. I look forward to watching them continue to grow in the future.