One of my students came to school about an hour and a half late the other day. She walked into class without a care in the world. I turned to her and said “you’re late”. As soon as it came out of my mouth I realized how ridiculous that was. She absolutely knows that she is late. What good could possibly come from me interrupting class to announce this to her? Was I thinking that my stern tone of voice was sending her the message that punctuality is important? Ha! Not likely. Here are five other questionable (in my opinion) things we sometimes say to our students. Don’t feel bad! I’m guilty of it too. I’m hoping that with a little self-reflection, we might be able to eliminate some of these from our classrooms.
“If it’s not done on time I won’t accept it.”
Why oh why do we say this to our students? Basically we’re telling them that the assigned work actually has no value because there is no real reason to do it once the due date has passed. What was the lesson that was to be learned from this activity? Was it purely a lesson in punctuality? To really teach our kids about time management, the best solution would be to have the students complete the late work, while also managing their current work. That experience will hopefully allow students to understand that keeping up with their work is actually the better option. If you want more helpful information on this topic, see Rick Wormeli’s work on late work. Continue reading
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