Bonding and / or Setting limits?

With Teachers' Day just around the corner, a lot of ideas cross my mind, revolve, unsettle, and bring about reflections. I would like to share some of them with you...

Here's a little story about myself and my growth as a teacher. 

When I was in my first year at the Teacher Training College, my Didactics 1 teacher gave me a lesson I would never forget. She took us to the Lab to watch a video. She didn't explain what it was about, and she didn't allow us to listen to it at first. We had to watch the pictures and predict what the song might be about. Here's the link to the video:
 So many colours in the rainbow...

We were quite struck by the pictures, I can assure you. We were all very certain about the story's plot: clearly, it was about different styles of teachers, and one was everything we didn't want to become, and the other one, everything we aimed at. However, as soon as we watched the video again, this time with the sound on, the power of it arose suddenly: we could, and actually -most probably- would  act like both teachers in different situations in our every-day contexts... And the key questions were: how can I strike a balance between bonding, caring, loving, having fun, and establishing boundaries, setting limits, incorporating order and habits? How can I do all of this without hurting my students' inner self? How can I make a difference?

Let me tell you that these questions are still there... I can't give a full answer to any of them, and I don't think that's the point, in any case. I think the thrill, the CHALLENGE (with capital letters) that I face every day, is precisely to try a new way, a new technique, a new approach, to address these questions in my classroom. And specifically, in my first form classroom, with this specific group, with their unique charateristics.

Even though I understand the chief importance of setting limits (and trust me, when I do, they understand exactly what I mean, and the reasons why I'm acting the way I do!), there must still be a way of allowing art, music, playing in the wholesome meaning of the word, and enjoying learning into the classroom... Here I am, trying to find my way.

"There are so many colours in the rainbow,

so many colours in the morning sun,

so many colours in a flower, 

and I see every one"

Getting started

My first reflection on my blog! Getting started with this made me think of the way I got started with my group this year. So, here's what I've noticed about this year's starting points:

Starting Junior School
The first week was quite complicated in terms of organization and relationships. Futhermore, keeping the students awake and on task in the classroom was a real challenge. By the end of the second week, however, students had understood and incorporated many of the new routines of Junior School, such as the chant to line up, the songs we use for greetings every day (Hello and Goodbye), how to proceed when the teacher is calling the roll, and to discriminate between classwork before and after breaktime (assembly and written work, though of course these are not the names they associate with them).
In the third week we started to systematize the statement of Learning Intention and Success Criteria, and the results are already visible: students expect to "plan the day", and they enjoy providing feedback on the tasks and their performance. When they help me write the "plan" on the blackboard, they use English effortlessly, as the words are familiar to them.

Diagnosis Project: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?
This year we have decided to change the focus of all the projects, to make them more related to the students' experience. The first project was supposed to be Winnie the Witch, and we had agreed on a lot of fun, hands-on activities for it... until we got to know that the project had already been exploited in Kindergarten. It was quite frustrating, and we had to think of a quick and efficient solution. We decided to use the book "Brown bear...", by Bill Martin Jr., as we had done last year, but with a twist -new activities, new dynamics, new focuses.
So far, I've noticed that students like the story, and they have learnt it practically by heart. They say it with the same tune I use when I read, which, I've also noticed, is different to the one the majority of the readers in youtube use. My version is quite quick, but makes a kind of chant, so it's easier for the students to follow. A tangible result of this project is that students have incorporated the use of adjective + noun (e.g., brown bear), and they tend to "correct" me if I say only one part of the chunk.
In relation to dynamics, students seem much more engaged in the type of activities we've been doing this year, such as group work, artistic tasks, experiments, etc. But it is very difficult to organize these activities, to lower the students' levels of anxiety before and after the tasks, and to "control" their behaviour. I am working on these aspects, trying out different strategies.

Let's see how it works out...