A Side Note Continued...

This past Friday, one of the 4th grade teachers decided to have mercy on me and only sent 5 students to my class. He kept the other 20 students in his classroom.

It was great to sit down with these 5 students and to really be able to discuss their ideas. The topic of conversation was supposed to be "Changes in Technology". We ended up talking about everything from candlestick telephones, to Back to the Future, to flying cars, college majors, time travel, and online learning. The students brought up the idea that they would like to have "online elementary school". So I pulled up StudyIsland.com and began to read a lesson to them. I explained the words that they did not know and explained the sentences...word by word by word by word. (I have done this in my classes of 25 and it takes an entire 40 minute session to explain 5 sentences. It is real slow going.) Then I read the rest of the passage aloud without explaining the information. After that, I pulled up the questions and tried to have the students answer on their own. In general, they were unsuccessful. They then decided that it was in their best interest to continue going to school where they can have teachers explain everything to them.

They then decided that online high school might be good for some, but they wanted to attend traditional high school so that they wouldn't miss out on football games and prom.

They voted and 4 out of 5 decided that they wanted to go to college online because they would need to work and take care of families while they got their education. The student that did not vote for online college has aspirations of going to Harvard. :)

More to come...