Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Bingo: Regulation Vs Laissez-faire

Now we are playing Bingo frequently. The kids write out words, or letter digraphs, to fill in their Bingo cards. The students enjoy Bingo something fierce. I call the word and the kids navigate the groups of unfamiliar letters till they find what they are looking for. Now and again i'm faced with a dilemma. Do I fix the games so that a student of my choice will win?

Example. "Jinny" is a 3,4 B student. She is tiny, maybe meek, and I don't think i've heard a sound come out of her since she joined our class a few weeks ago. Not a single sound. I scanned her bingo card and decided i'd interfere. I called the word that would give her BINGO, and there was no sound. I waited... waited... waited some more... and then the girls next to her got excited, "Say Bingo! Say Bingo!" It was too much for meek "Jinny" to bear, so she stared crying. Then a couple of the less meek girls got angry because this other girl won... this only magnified the negatively charged emotions for "Jinny" who was now sinking down into the corner in which she sat.. and cried more.

It is anecdotal to the other times i've thrown (fixed) a game of musical chairs, or hot potato... More often than not i think I do more harm than good.

1 comment:

  1. Love your blog....did you attend Notre Dame??
    I heard about your blog from Mary Dunbar.We have 2 friends who are also teaching in South Korea.....God Bless, Pam, South Bend

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