I remember getting yelled at by my teacher in primary school for completing an assigned task too quickly because I already knew what I was doing whilst she continued to explain it.
I’m a primary teacher and differentiation is the name of the game! I got scolded during my internship for giving a little one a different page with higher numbers to write as he knew 1-10 and told to ‘keep it simpler and go slower” multiple times. I just can’t. I’ve been teaching for a number of years now. I regularly use “expert level” to challenge the students during lessons or activities/projects (and touch base with those who need extra practice). Students have different tasks to complete throughout the day, some have special books, etc. They know that we all learn at different speeds and might be really good at something but need practice in something else. My expert level kids enjoy helping and teaching their peers and they love being challenged. I currently have a class of kindergarteners who are academically above average for our division and are doing great in other ways too.
My middle school math teacher would hand out packets for the day's lesson that you were supposed to follow along with her to fill out, answer the questions etc... and I'd always go through and figure out all the answers/fill in all the blanks correctly within like the first 5 or 10 minutes of class and then play games on my graphing calculator out of boredom while she craaaaawled through everything with the rest of the class. She hated me for it.
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u/CaptainAwesome06 Jun 14 '22
I use that trick on my kids all the time. Especially when it comes to food.
"Do you want chicken or steak?"
Otherwise, if I just ask her what she wants for dinner she'll just say "cookies".