[Rinoa]

Quote by: CoffeeSaint True. But of all the things I plan to do with my summer, "Spend all of it planning next year's curriculum" is right at the bottom of the list. I like my job and all, but it isn't my life.:)

lol, understandable...if I had a break like that I wouldn't spend my time figuring out better ways to pick up the phone...

This is an interesting system; I honestly don't know if it would work here. My student population is very unmotivated, particularly when it comes to higher level thinking skills; I tend to believe that many of them, when given the freedom to choose what to do, wouldn't do anything. But I think I will try something like this next year, at least for one term.

I don't remember anybody failing that class...Adams was a favorite teacher because of his system. What area of the country are you teaching in?

No, the problem is that the group making the slowest progress would be the four or five kids in each class who aren't passing, don't want to pass, and have very little interest in learning anything at all. These kids are almost always the problem with this sort of cooperative learning groups; in a student population that has more basic interest in education than this one, it can be handled. Perhaps it can be handled here, too, but I am, shall we say, underconfident.

What I like about this way of doing it is that it allows those that will take care of their own grade to take care of it I always hate being put in the group with the kids that don't give a shit...It makes it hard on the ones that do. Also this forces the disinterested to stand out, an aspect that they usually don't like. But you age group does make it more difficult, were I to be a teacher I'd probably choose to work with fourth graders, I feel that at that age it's easier to do good.

I appreciate the ideas, though. I'll definitely be thinking about ways to implement this.

Of course, let me know if there's anything I can do to help!