We started RTI today. It’s also affectionately known as Response To Intervention, which seems weird when you look at it semantically. Response TO Intervention? What was your response to the intervention, student of mine? Well, it helped me out and I liked it. Responding to students who need help through the use of intervention is more of what’s in play, though, or so it seems.
Here’s the deal–two days a week, we get 37 extra minutes with our second period class after second period is over for RTI, which, for now, we are calling Saxon Time (please, Hammer, don’t hurt em). It’s seven minutes of passing period plus 30 minutes of Saxon Time, but since we’re not really passing from class to class for intervention yet (it’s the fourth day), it’s really 37 minutes.
I don’t know what it’s going to look like months from now, and for years to come, but right now we have 37 extra minutes with our second period, and can do a myriad of things with them. I want to bring fun back to the classroom, to add excitement, to have students wonder what’s going to happen the next meeting. We’ve been told that extended lessons can’t count for students’ grades, but that’s not a big deal–as fun and exciting as my lessons are, I’m not sure the extension of them adds anything more than an example of the law of diminishing returns.
So, all of you who curse Betsy DeVos. So, all of you who want a do-over in life. So, all of you who say that kids today need such-and-such, WHAT’CHOO GOT FOR ME? WHAT’S YOUR SUGGESTION? I’m all ears and I got 37 minutes twice a week.
I’ll be here all week. Fun, excitement, mystery, wonder, practicality, curiousity sparkers, rigor, life lessons. Most readers of this are older and wiser. I’ll even use your name if I use your idea. When’s the last time you got a shout-out?
Alright, let’s do this.