{"id":5801,"date":"2020-12-31T18:56:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T00:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/?p=5801"},"modified":"2020-12-31T19:50:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T01:50:01","slug":"pair-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/2020\/12\/31\/pair-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Pair Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. No more pair work<\/h3>\n

In normal years, my classroom is organized as pairs of students sitting at two-person tables. Sixteen tables, each with an A-P letter boldly written on a piece of paper taped to the tabletop aforemost (the taping having been performed by some eager student\/assistance at the beginning of the year, a trick shared with me by my cousin\/teacher\/mentor during my first year).<\/p>\n

“Work with your partner to answer this question…”, I say. And after waiting for a while, I loudly rattle my can of popsicle sticks, each one lettered A-P and draw one out.  (Loud rattling is crucial as it elicits an instant Pavlovian response from everyone, and presto<\/em> all eyes are on me.) I read the stick and call on that table.<\/p>\n

“Table J, what do you think?”<\/p>\n

Either student may answer. They may consult and then answer. One may whisper to the other who answers. They may ask neighboring tables for help.<\/p>\n

You get the idea. <\/em><\/p>\n

2. It’s on me<\/h3>\n

For obvious reasons, that’s not what we’re doing this year.<\/p>\n

As a consequence, they don’t do pair work, and I haven’t been sufficiently diligent in finding a substitute. Frankly, getting the basics of a functional COVID era “classroom” consumes so much time that … our diligence is spread mighty thin.<\/p>\n

Isn’t that a lame thing to say?<\/em><\/p>\n

I am reminded of an evening in the 80s when Reagan’s Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett<\/a>, was talking on the News Hour about teacher salaries. I cannot for the life of me find this quote documented anywhere, and I have looked over the years. But I can see his face hear him speaking.<\/p>\n

“Look,” he said. (He usually started out that way.) “If teachers are worried about salaries, they’re in the wrong line of work.”<\/p>\n

Breathe in. Breathe out.<\/em><\/p>\n

My point here is that you might level similar criticism at me. If you’re worried about free time, you’re in the wrong line of work.<\/em> Except you see that this isn’t about “free time”. I get home. Sit down for the first time since 7:00am. Eat a delicious meal prepared by my fair and industrious, work-from-home, geologist, kitchen wonder-maker spouse. Wash the dishes. And work on lessons until it’s around midnight.<\/p>\n

So it’s not that I don’t want to spend my free time being diligent. New teachers, seasoned teachers, substitute teachers, any teacher this year will tell you: there’s not a lot of “free time” in these times of Covid.<\/p>\n

Still, I accept that this is on me. <\/em><\/p>\n

3. I’ll take it<\/h3>\n

I wish it weren’t like this, but there you have it. No pair work this year.<\/p>\n

But then one day… The kids are practicing for 15 minutes at the end of class — time to get late assignments finished, time to get ahead on tonight’s work. I hear two of them talking.<\/p>\n

“So would it be like this?” the first one asks. “Like there’s this one<\/strong><\/em> and then there’s this zero<\/strong><\/em> and another zero<\/strong><\/em>?” <\/p>\n

“Kinda,” the other student says. “But notice there’s a minus<\/strong><\/em> here, so actually it would be…”<\/p>\n

There’s a moment of silence.<\/p>\n

“Ohhh…” the first one says.<\/p>\n

I’ll take it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. No more pair work In normal years, my classroom is organized as pairs of students sitting at two-person tables. Sixteen tables, each with an A-P letter boldly written on a piece of paper taped to the tabletop aforemost (the taping having been performed by some eager student\/assistance at the beginning of the year, a trick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5801"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5804,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801\/revisions\/5804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}