Journal 7- Nick

     After watching The Hobart Shakespearians, I could not help but to feel hope for our troubled youth in this country. A true example of that is with Alan who played Hamlet in their play. Alan was a very troubled boy who previous teachers found to be bad, dangerous, and helpless. Rafe on the other hand gave Alan the lead role in the play and made him one of his best students. After a conference he said, "That you can not reach to every single child and those who say they can are lying". That really shows something about his character admitting the fact that all students can not be reached by you or liked by you. His methods of keeping this control is what struck me the most due to its effectiveness. He divides the class into three groups and first group is the group that follows him, the second is the ones that will never follow him, and the last is those in between. With the first group he uses them as an example for the second group to avoid chaos and the last group he hopes comes over to the first group. His teaching demands and gives respect to the students which I found key.
     In my own experience of elementary school, I was not as fortunate with my teachers. However I did have a teacher who used similar methods to keep order and instill good worth ethic. My fourth grade teacher used a money system and a reward system. When you were good you earned stuff and when you went you earned nothing or in some cases you lost money. A few times during the year we could cash in our money and get prizes. They were nothing big however they did give us an incentive to try our best and be on our best behavior. We also had the sticker system where if you were good you got a gold star next to your name and if you weren't then you had one taken away. My experience was not bad however looking back after this video there are things I would improve to make it a more productive environment.
     One of my goals is to stay on a regular routine such as working out and reading books and other things. To achieve some of these the sacrifices I would have to make would be to regularly do it and make more time in the day to do them. I would have to give up a lot of video game time which consumes most of my day. In giving up my video games it would clear up a lot time for other things like working out on a regular basis and reading books. I want to work out on a regular basic to keep my health up and increase my strength. Reading would keep my brain active all the time and expand my vocabulary.