How to Do Your Research Project: A Guide for Students by Gary Thomas

Author:Gary Thomas [Thomas, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2017-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

I make my way to Xanthe’s class again, a little late, having been talking to the head of support. I haven’t spoken in detail to Xanthe yet about the team teaching idea. Last week’s meeting with her was too tense to broach the topic. When I come in this week the situation seems rather similar. Xanthe is taking the class from the front and the children are messing around as they were last week. Xanthe holds up a small glass tank with a funnel upside down over something (a small plant, I think) and compares it with another similar set of objects. The children have to compare the two sets and say how they are different:

CHILD: There’s more water in that one.

CHILD: One’s all dirty – yeugh.

The session is to show that carbon dioxide is taken up by plants:

CHILD: That dirt’s carbon dioxide!

Explanations are again punctuated with inconsequential intrusions:

CHILD: Anyone got a rubber!

These become so intrusive that Xanthe eventually loses her temper and raises her voice. This has some effect on the students, who temporarily quieten down. She capitalises on this by saying:

TEACHER: Right, we’ll have two minutes of complete silence – not a word.

The children respond to this: they are now clear about the rules and what is expected of them. Again I feel redundant – not only redundant, but worse that I am compounding the situation by my presence, and perhaps that Pauline the teaching assistant is in a similar position. She must feel some degree of inhibition about doing what comes naturally to her to quell the sorts of problems that she is experiencing. Again, there is no way that I feel I can intervene in the immediate situation without making things worse …

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