Assembly for our Code of Conduct

We had an assembly on Friday. Our first of the year. I am the chair of our school culture committee. We did 4 lessons during the beginning of this year on

Respect your self
Respect for others
Respect for your space
Realizing your Potential

From these lessons we are creating a code of conduct for the students. So we had an assembly to present the information to the entire school of what they had done separately. There was a group of girls that did Step Dancing. They were great. There were videos and pictures and skits. It was a great assembly.

I started the assembly with expectations for the behavior of the students. I helped the students understand how to applaud the correct and polite way. We practiced the applause and one student decided to continue to clap after the speaker started to speak, and he received a detention. That was different.

So, bottom line, the assembly was great. The student participation was outstanding, and the work that my committee has been doing since July has something tangible to show for all of our work.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about how students struggle with transitivity in math. The idea that if a+b=c then c = a + b and that c - a = b and c - b = a. They have a hard time knowing that they can change things around.

I had to convince them that if m = a + b = c + d then m = c + d. They don't substitute well into equations. I am beginning to think that the basics of math thinking are being learned too quickly and that we are rushing into algebra and abstract thinking before they can handle the ideas. I am thinking a great deal about this idea and looking for some research to read that affirms that 11 and 12 year olds are ready to handle abstract math concepts.