3591. Attending Every Student in the Classroom Just the Way They Are

 Let us see something else about assessing and evaluating our students’ progress, work and learning. 

When I taught kids in another city, the school deputy principal or assistant headmaster at least once told me in a nice and collaborative way that I ought to deliver some extra work for those students who were capable of further aims and objectives. 

I taught and still teach English. And the classes I taught were multi-levels: English may be the school subject where you can face more diverse levels: some students may have some upper-intermediate level or close to B2, while others may have some basic levels, namely A1 or A2. 

And unless I did something else with those more advanced students, they might feel bored and disappointed. So I had to have extra material – exercises, texts, challenging resources – for those who could do more. 

So I would recommend you to think of the following possibility, in case it may help you as a teacher. 

You could have aims and objectives that would be common for everybody, plus extra aims and objectives for those students that are faster and more challenging. What do you think? 

These ideas have also been taken from Spanish expert José Bernardo Carrasco, whose book Una didáctica para hoy. Cómo enseñar mejor, I am reading now. It makes me think of things I could implement in the classroom, for I would recommend you to always have something to read about, about teaching and learning: every teacher and every professional should be after improving their career as those professionals. 

So as to finish: we as teachers should ask from our dear students what they can give: some students may try to reach basic aims and objectives, whereas others should try to reach farther. 

We should demand from our students what they can contribute and not less than that. 

Even some of our students will do very little, and we have also to take them into account: they may be in want to see the school psychologist. And they may have to reach individual aims and objectives in accordance to their circumstances. 

Now I can remember one student who could do very little in the classroom, and then when he managed to leave school I think he started to work with his dad as an aluminum carpenter. I think he could succeed at that job. And he would be happy. Have a nice day.

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