Movement, please!

These last couple of weeks with 12 observation lessons have made me a bit worried, because I have seen many lessons where the pupils sit on their seats for 45 minutes straight without moving and talking. These lessons have been in grade 1-6 (fairly young students) and I found it odd and some how unnatural for pupils at this age to be quiet for that long - despite the fact that they all go outside to play in the breaks. In many of the lessons I observed pupils who did not participate in the lessons but instead seemed to "drift away in to their own imagination". This made me wonder if these pupils only acted this way during lessons or if their behaviour was something I could see in other settings as well - and of course I was (and still am) interested in finding out what learning is actually taking place in the classrooms. There is always much more to it than the things I can observe frm my seat.

Today I dicided to observe in grade 1 and 3 to see how the pupils behaved and what the teachers were doing to keep the pupils active during the lessons. And FINALLY! After 12 lessons of observations I finally found two teachers who actually move around in the classroom, play with their body language and voices, and use the smart board for other things than "overheading" the course book. I am looking forward to observe more lessons in grades 1-3 and to start observing lessons in grades 7-9 where I expect to see changes in teaching methods and the general behaviour in class.