10/17/23:Connecting with students part V & bird inspiration!

Let’s have another great week!

Helpful Stuff  

Here’s another great tip to foster better relationships and make students more comfortable and therefore more likely to learn (while enjoying your class!). 

                                                                   Use & Develop Your Sense of Humor

Of course, use your best judgment with this advice (always keep it appropriate and G-rated no matter the age of your students) but a little effort and self-knowledge can really make your classroom come alive!

Tip: focus on your strengths and your personality.

You ever notice the funniest people have zeroed in on their own funniest qualities? Mr. Bean mastered physical comedy with hardly any dialogue. The Impractical Jokers’ comedy style is witty & self-deprecating.

What are your strengths and personality traits/quirks? 

For example, I love, love, *love* wordplay, specifically puns!

Recently my students have been talking about a subreddit dedicated to thalassophobia, the fear characterized by a persistent and intense fear of deep water.

Here is one of the best videos!

Anyway, the students asked me how scared I would be to be in that ship in the video and why?

I responded: “My fear is that would be thalasso me you'll see.”

The laughter started with a trickle then it became fuller as more students caught on, lol.

From then on some students would really pay attention to the sounds of words, especially long ones, to see if they could make a joke, too!

Even if it’s not something you come up with on your own, it could be a funny movie clip or YouTube video that ties into your lesson, just always keep an eye out for shareable laughter!

Here is how one English teacher shares his humor with his students and here is a wonderful article teaching you the different types of humor (hopefully you find what suits you best!) along with examples. 

Recommendations

Now that the weather is changing, I added this little suction cup bird feeder to our classroom window and it’s pretty cool to see the birds *AND* how the students react to them!

To make it even cooler, I got this awesome one-way window privacy film so the kids can get really up close and personal with the feeding birds! Safety tip: to prevent these precious birds from flying into the window due to the privacy film, we only placed the film on the bottom 10 inches and have the blinds cover the rest of the window.

This cool little piece of nature in your classroom might even inspire some great literary works from your students!

Try it out and let us know how it goes! Don’t forget to tag us in your posts on Instagram as @shining_scholar_education and Facebook as Shining Scholar Education!
Because through helping others, we all win!

A Little Inspiration

“One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.”
- Malala Yousafzai

As always, please forward this to any teacher that could benefit from this message and help spread the love!

The goal of these messages is to help ourselves improve—for our students, for our loved ones, and for ourselves.

Leave a comment with Facebook below or can always message us on Facebook here.

Keep changing the world,

Charlie with Shining Scholar Education
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