Routine or Comfort?

I'm definitely feeling as though I've slipped into a routine here--not a bad one or a good one, necessarily. I think what it really is is that I'm feeling more comfortable now. I know all of my students and I'm starting to recognize their habits, I know their work ethic and what to expect from them, which is something I never fully experienced during practicum. When I have students do a free write, they are completely honest and open with what they say. I hope it's because they are comfortable with me, but I think some of it has to do with them still thinking H is the one reading them. I say this because there have been some comments about me that I don't think were necessarily intended for me. It wasn't anything bad, one student called me arrogant, and one student said he wished H would take her class back, so it's not like I feel threatened or fear for my safety or anything like that. Since then though, at least one of those students, possibly both have had different attitudes toward me, so I hope that their comments were mostly based on situations pertaining to those class periods.

I've also realized how much I dislike doing whole class instruction all the time. SpringBoard is actually pretty good about varying instructional techniques, but sometimes it calls for whole class instruction, and I feel, with my larger classes especially, as though they stare at me like I've got three green heads or something. I much prefer when they're working in small groups or individually so that I can circulate and check in and have conversations with them. I also like having students come in to see me before school, during break/Connections, during my preps, and after school because I get the one on one and small group time with them still, but outside of class. Having the more personal interactions with students helps me to get to know them better and build more of a relationship/rapport with them, which is important because I'm only here for part of the semester compared to the entire year. It's going to make the transition to MB in a few weeks hard...

Seniors Take Two

Friday I subbed for H for the second half of the day. That meant I was alone teaching the seniors. They've started to warm up to me, but they are still standoffish at times, so I was a little concerned at how the period would go. H left me a list of what each senior should be working on and where they were in their process. I knew I would have an ed tech for support, but she doesn't really do any discipline, which is the area I had the most concern about.

The seniors seriously impressed me. They (mostly) worked on their assignments the entire time, and I only had to have one conversation about discipline. I almost think that not having H there at all helped. I also tried not to hover as much, and only checked in with each of them occasionally. Having different students working on different assignments at different times is tricky, especially with this group, but it also allowed me to float around and talk to more of them than I would have been able to if I had done whole class instruction with them.

I ended up actually really enjoying subbing for the seniors. After class ended, I'm pretty certain that I had a huge smile on my face. I was so proud of how well-behaved they were, especially compared to their normal behavior. They all also got a lot of work done in class, when normally they waste a lot of time because they are "waiting" for H to conference with them, even though they usually have something else they could be working on. I felt as though I actually was able to accomplish something with them, which I hadn't been expecting.

Parents

This week has been the week for dealing with parents. I think there needs to be a class on how to communicate with parents. I'm not having any particular issues, in fact, most of the parents I've dealt with have been nothing but supportive of their children. However, from what I've seen, it seems as though these parents are teaching their children learned helplessness. None of the students have come to see me about their work. For the most part, I've only dealt with the parents. I'm thankful that the parents are showing interest and supporting their children in their academics, but I wonder whether the students are really benefiting from it. Yes, they're freshmen and need a little push here and there, but if mom and dad keep track of their grades for them, how do the students learn responsibility? What incentive does the student have other than getting his parents off his back about grades? At that point, the student is no longer doing the work for himself, but rather for the parent. As a teacher, how do you handle situations like this? I want to teach my students to be autonomous, but if their parents are constantly intervening or doing things for them, what can I do to counteract them? Is it my place to? 

Frustration

How do you work, or co-teach, with an ed tech who is constantly undermining you and your mentor teacher?

Ugghhhh

I'm pretty certain that today is secretly Friday. At least the kids seem to think it is. Green days are usually a little more chaotic than black days, but today seems especially worse. If it were the Friday before break, I would chalk it up to them being ready for vacation, but where it is the middle of the week I don't know what is causing it. I think part of it is still anticipation for vacation, but Monday wasn't as bad. I also think that some of it has to do with this week being winter carnival and kids are starting to get more excited about it.

Period one went well, considering. I went over the work that I was missing from students so that they can turn it in to me. Instead of giving them zeros for everything, I am giving them another chance to turn their work in. They now have until the Monday after vacation to receive credit for it. After that, any work still not turned in will receive a definite zero. There didn't seem to be any complaints from this class about this. They were all agreeable and I think some of them were thankful for the opportunity to turn their work in still. I know there are some students who will not take advantage of it, but that is their choice. After that they had time to finish working on the posters that they started last class. I had three students who were absent last class, so I had to modify the assignment for them on the fly, but considering the amount of time they had to catch up to the rest of the class, I was impressed with the progress they made. After giving students more time than I had originally planned, I had students present their posters to the class. Once all groups had presented, we moved on to the next activity. This was a little challenging, but I think we got through it well enough. Trying to teach students about point of view isn't as easy as I originally thought. The  Springboard text has some excerpts that students need to transform to different points of view. I should have looked at the activity again before teaching it, but I thought it was more straightforward than it actually was. So period one found it a little frustrating, but I was able to make changes for period two.

Period two was...a challenge. This class is consistently difficult, and it hasn't actually gotten any easier since I've started teaching. To start the class today, we had a new student, so I had all of the students introduce themselves to him, just as they did on my first day. I thought this would be an easy task for them, but most of the students struggled with it. We muddled through the introductions, then I gave the students the list of missing work. Two or three of the students have not turned in any of the assignments, and I highly doubt that they will. One of the students never has his book or his laptop with him and now that I have figured that out, I can make sure to photocopy the activities he needs, but even if  I give him copies, I don't think he will do the assignments. The other student brings his book and/or laptop, and does his work in class, with occasional prodding, but asking him to do anything outside of class is wishful thinking. It's too bad really, because he is a bright student, all he is missing is a strong work ethic. Next, I got the students working on their posters. We had one student who had been absent last class and the new student, who had no background knowledge about what we were working on. By some strange miracle, these two buddied up and I was able to partner them up without any difficulties. I had the student who was absent explain the story to the new student, and then together they drew a modified poster because of time limits. They didn't exactly do the assignment right, but we talked about it and I explained where they had changed the story and how it was supposed to be. I also had to deal with two members of a group who could not work on their poster because it was at home with a third member. I asked them to explain to the class what their poster looked like, but they had not helped the other member at all, so they were not able to do that. Instead, I asked them to act out the ending of the story, which they did, horribly. I know one of them had been absent when we read the story together as a class, but the other was in school, and last class they read through the end of the story as a group, so I know that they both have read the ending. They also had plenty of time while the other groups were finishing up to review the ending and plan out what they were going to do, but they chose to play games on the computer instead. I caught one of them once, and told him to put it away, but when I came back later he had his iPod out instead. So again, I told him to put it away, which he did. During the presentations, I sat near these two, and once more, caught the student on his iPod, which I then took away from him. Throughout the entire period, H and I both spoke to him multiple times about his behavior. It is becoming a concern, and I might have to take my actions to the next step. H says this was not his typical behavior during the first half of the year, so I'm wondering if there is something going on at home that is causing the changes. I'm going to talk to H about possibly involving guidance and the other Freshmen teachers to see if we can get to the bottom of this.

Winter carnival sign ups are a maddening disaster.

During third period, we have prep the first half and then study hall during the second half. H's rules for study hall are simple: work on something for school or read, and if you have your laptop open, the screen needs to be facing her. Two of our students were not following the rules, and when H went to check on them to see what they were doing, she found that they were attempting to bypass the proxy to do something not school appropriate, like playing a game or something. She asked them to own their behavior and tell her what they were doing, but they wouldn't, so she eventually just chose to confiscate their laptops. I then delivered the laptops to the office, where the principal handled the situation. Like I said, it seems more like today was a Friday than a Wednesday.

Based on how the other classes today went, I was expecting our seniors to be even worse. I was pleasantly surprised when they weren't. Were they the dream class? No, but they worked mostly independently, and most of them made some sort of progress. I was able to work and talk with a few students who typically aren't receptive to me, which made me happy. One student in particular made me really happy. I've been in the classroom for about 3 weeks now, and during the entire time I've worked with the students, this particular student has said maybe 3 words to me. In 3 weeks. H gave me a heads up about him, so I knew that he wouldn't open up to me right away, and I handled things accordingly. I had hoped that he would eventually open up to me, and today seems like it's the first step towards him doing so. H and I have both witnessed this student working one on one with different classmates, much as you would see an ed tech do. However, this student doe snot realize that he has any kind of gift. Last class, we witnessed another interaction, and H and I were able to communicate about it using just facial expressions as we watched it happen. After the student was done helping his classmate, H took him into the hallway to talk to him, and told him that he has a gift for working with special education students. She was brought to tears when he told her that he has always wanted to be a special education teacher. When he came back into the classroom after talking to H, he had an actual smile on his face, which I had not seen from him before. I'm hoping, as is H, that down the road, he decides to act on this because he really does have a natural gift and the patience to go along with it. I'm looking forward to seeing how his awareness of this influences him throughout the rest of the semester.

Now for the fun stuff! Part of the winter carnival activities is a scavenger hunt that takes place after school. I had been planning on helping supervise after school today anyway, but I was thinking more along the lines of helping the students with the hall decorations. I was not expecting to get roped into the scavenger hunt, but when I did I totally got hooked. As a teacher, I was given a list of the items that our team needed to find before the students were able to look it over. At 2:30, I had students hounding me for it, so we made copies, and since the Freshmen teacher who was in charge of the scavenger hunt for our team was at South Campus, I took the role of coordinator for the students at North Campus. This gave me the chance to get to know some of my students better as well as some of the students in the other Freshmen classes whom I don't have. I thought I would just stay at North Campus for a little while and coordinate, but I ended up actually running around town helping to get a few items, which I then brought back to the South Campus where our headquarters was at. We had a small group of Freshmen show up, but I think we had more than any of the other classes, which I was really proud of. I also think that a few of the students were surprised to see me there considering it wasn't part of school. I really enjoyed being at the final round of the scavenger hunt because not only did I get to interact with more of my students, I also got  a chance to talk with a couple of the other Freshmen teachers who I hadn't really been able to form a relationship with. Even though I was exhausted after a 13 hour day, I smiled to myself the whole way home. I'm excited to see what Friday's activity day looks like now!

Condensed Version of Last Week

Last week was a little less stressful than the week before. My luck seemed to have improved some.

I worked with the freshmen a lot Tuesday through Thursday, especially on Wednesday and Thursday. H and I were also able to look at Springboard and see where we can trim some of the unnecessary stuff and push through a little faster in some other areas, which was incredibly relieving to both of us. I also started planning for taking over the Sophomore class, which will be the class I focus on for my TWS. I put real grades into the gradebook on Thursday evening, but because of the snow day on Friday, didn't see any students right away to see how they felt about their incredibly low grades. After putting the grades in, most of my students were failing because they have not passed in most of their work. Work that was primarily done in class. Today (Monday) I've had several students come see me and ask me about their missing work, so it seems that at least some of them are looking on PowerSchool to see what it is they are missing.

I think H and I see grades somewhat similarly. We have a Freshman Academy grading policy, but we're a little softer on the Freshman than some other teachers might be. I believe that students are responsible for their own grades and should know what they are missing, but I also know that a lot of students, especially Freshmen haven't really figured that out, so I'm using a 0 as a placeholder to remind them what they are missing when they check their grades. If they come see me and make up the work, I will give them the grade they earned. If students put the effort into it, even if it is late, and they get a good grade, they see that as an academic success. We want students to achieve academic success, not failure, so I would much rather work with them to help them succeed.

Is it vacation yet?

Even though today wasn't a teaching day, it was just as exhausting, if not more exhausting.

Because of impending budget cuts and layoffs, the students started signing up for classes today, earlier than anticipated. Teachers were informed of this at the last minute, so no one really had any idea what was going on today. We knew that the day started with a whole school assembly, so we all headed to the gym, where the teachers were given packets of information for their advisees. Then, as an advisee group, the students went around to different classrooms to hear the different departments talk about their course offerings for next year. This meant that the English department stayed in the library for the duration, and then talked about the course offerings ten times. After about the third time, it started to get repetitive and boring, but because I wasn't required to say anything, I mostly tuned out.

After the students finished going through the rotations, we had a 30 min. lunch break, followed by a 30 min. advisory period where students were able to finish signing up for their classes. Then, there was a whole school pep rally that is supposed to get students excited for winter carnival which is happening next week. The pep rally was actually quite well done, though it was mostly led by one of the teachers from South Campus. There's not anything wrong with that, I'm just used to pep rallies and other similar activities being student led, so it was a different experience for me. Once the pep rally was finished, the school broke into different classes to start planning for the winter carnival activities. H is class advisor to the freshmen, but she left early, so along with the other freshmen teachers and the freshmen class president, I helped to explain winter carnival and survey class participation interest. The day finally ended with another school assembly and students getting ice cream.

While planning for winter carnival with the freshman class, we were talking about one of the activities where students raise money to duct tape a teacher to the wall. One of the students (not one of mine) said that they should duct tape me to the wall. I'm not sure whether I should take this as a compliment or not!

Finally Friday

Leaving for school this morning, I knew it would be a rough day. I went out to my car, got in it, and tried to shut the door. Of course, the door would not shut at all. Not even part way enough for it to latch just a little. The latch simply was not working. So, in a semi-panic, I called my mom to see if I could borrow her car for the day, since she works from home. Nope, not possible because this is the one day a month that she has to travel to the in-center location for her job. She was, however, heading the same direction as me, and able to give me a ride there. Funny thing is, when she picked me up, she got out of her car to try and fix my car's door, was unsuccessful, so she got back in her car and then her door wouldn't shut. We've decided that I'm no longer able to touch cars because I break them. So it was a lovely start to a day that has just gone downhill from here.

Period One:

H went over the agenda because I was running late, but I started the class by checking homework. As I was going around checking the homework, I realized I don't know most of the names in that class for some reason. All of my others classes I know, but period one I don't, so I'm making a mental note to get their names down soon. Then they spent some time on their acad. vocab quizlet in preparation for our discussion/review of them. They were mostly quiet during this time and transitioning them to the next part of the lesson was fairly easy. For the most part they were focused while I reviewed the terms with them. Then H did her point of view mini-lesson with them, but it ended up taking longer than anticipated, so we didn't get to everything in the lesson, but that actually worked out in our favor because period two did not go nearly as planned.

Period Two:

This was probably the worst class I've seen so far during the week and a half I've been here. Checking their work went fine, getting them on quizlet was fine, after that though, things started to fall apart. It was a bit of a struggle to get students to close their laptops and focus their attention on me. I started going through the terms that they had just reviewed and I was constantly interrupted by two students in particular, who were sitting next to each other. I spoke to them multiple times while I was talking and while others were talking. The entire class also kept trying to talk over one another when I asked them a question. They were reminded by both myself and H about raising their hands multiple times. When H was acting out the meaning of evoke and then explaining how that meant evoke, the students started to get off task. H spoke to them numerous times but it continued to get worse. She eventually stopped the lesson, had a stern discussion with them, and tried the silent treatment strategy with them. It focused them a little, enough for H to pass the lesson back to me. I continued going through the lit terms until we got to the PoV mini lesson, when H took over again. This was when everything really fell apart. H was teaching them about PoV, but the students were getting off topic constantly, not paying attention, and talking over each other. H got frustrated with the class, sent everyone back to their seats and asked them if they knew why she was so disappointed. Then she asked that those students who were responsible for distracting everyone and getting off topic would own responsibility for their actions and create a plan to fix their behavior in the future. Out of the students that responded, about half of them were sincere in their plans. It was easy to tell which students weren't sincere, and they just happened to be the ones who were the main cause for the disruptions. H and I talked about it after class and I think that we need to talk to the parents of one of the students to see what's going on at home that might be affecting his behavior.

Period Four:

Seniors. Same as usual. Still getting resistance from half of the class, so I'm just working with those students who will listen to me and trying to remain nice and friendly to those who don't seem to like me. One student seemed to open up to me a little more, so I guess I'm making some progress with them. 

Over all, this week has been absolutely crazy. I'm hoping next week is a little smoother at least. There aren't any classes on Monday, so it will be interesting to see how that affects the students on Tuesday.

Tuesday

Tuesday seems like it was forever ago thanks to the snow day we had yesterday. One thing I've been trying to do consistently is take notes either during class when students are working on their own or right after class so any observations are fresh in my mind. This has been useful in not only writing my reflections but also talking with H about how each class went. 

Period Five - English 9
First, I collected student work. The students had three things to turn in, all of which they had plenty of in class time to work on. That being said, I would estimate that I received about half to three-quarters the amount of work I should have received. And this was after students tried to hurriedly finish their assignments in class as I was collecting them. Which reminds me that I need to talk to H about the policy for this. While I'm totally fine with a rolling deadline of sorts for students, I know that SMHSNC has a specific late work policy for the freshman, and since I am part of the school, I need to make sure I am following the policy. After I started to feel like turning in their homework was taking way too much time, and H spoke to them about this, I told them that we were just going to move on, which we did.
Because this was the second day of this lesson with the freshman, I felt comfortable leading the lesson about The Poison Tree and guiding students through the poem. Between the Springboard Teacher's Edition and having H model the lesson for me with Period One, I knew which areas of the poem to focus on and how to help them make the connections that they needed to. With a small class like this, it was harder to get them talking, but that might also have been partially related to me being the one leading the lesson. We're still getting to know each other and they're trying to figure out what kind of a teacher I am, so I expect there will be some awkwardness/discomfort for a little while longer. One benefit of small class sizes, however, is that I'm able to move students onto the next activity at their own pace. This is helpful with classroom management because it keeps students from having down time to cause trouble and distract their classmates. It also means that I've got different students at different stages of the lesson plan, some finishing earlier than others. I'm going to start using any free time students have after they finish to work on vocabulary and roots. I'm thinking that using exit tickets more might also be helpful, so that the students are accountable and I'm able to see what progress they're making.

Period Six - English 10
Even though I don't have H to model what the lesson is supposed to look like, I have the Springboard teacher's edition, so I can pretty much figure out what to do with them. During this class we went through their homework, which was to deconstruct the prompt for their assessment. Springboard does a nice job of scaffolding the activities so that students are ready for the assessments. After a quick review of the elements of a prompt, students were able to start working on their essay in class. I'm always a little wary of giving students in class time like this, not because I don't want them to have the opportunity to work on their homework, but because a lot of students won't use their in class time wisely if not being constantly told what to do. Period six surprised me though. Not everyone worked the entire time, but for the most part, there was some significant progress made. Some students even managed to finish their essays in class. (I wish I could remember the last time I was able to start and finish a draft of an essay in class!) For homework they are to  finish their drafts if they hadn't done so. I am curious to see how many come to class with a completed draft.

Period Seven - English 9
Round two with the 9ers today. This class was pretty much identical to period five. Some areas I noticed in my teaching that could use improvement are my transitions and my classroom management. I don't really have any transitional strategies other than verbal cues, and so far they don't seem to be working that well for me. I'm losing a lot of class time because of this, so I need to find some ways to improve my strategies. As far as classroom management, I tend to stick to proximity and the "teacher stare" because those typically are the strategies that work best for me. I also prefer proximity because when students are working independently I am able to check in with each of them to see how they are doing. However, I don't really use proximity when I'm doing whole group instruction, so that's when I rely on the teacher stare. So far this works for the most part, but I could benefit from adding a few tricks to my bag.

Manic Monday

Today really feels like I'm a teacher. I don't know if it's because it's the first Monday I've been in a classroom, or if I'm starting to take over more responsibilities, but it's starting to feel real. And I love it. I just finished entering student grades into the gradebook for the first time.

It's been a bit of a struggle with a few students who are challenging my authority/role in the classroom, but I'm sure that by the end of the semester I'll have won most, if not all of them over. One student in particular is challenging, not necessarily behavior-wise, but more in a defiance to do any work.

Because periods one and two are the same section and end up doing the same thing each day, I observed Mrs. H during period one for part of the lesson plan, then I was able to teach that part of the lesson plan during second period without feeling like I was overwhelmed. Even though I was working on the second part of the lesson plan while Mrs. H was teaching, I was listening to her teach the poem to the students, which gave me an idea of how to teach the poem to the period two folks. After Mrs. H taught the poem to the students, I took over and taught them a little bit about catacombs and Carnival, then had them start a word sort. Period one was a bit of a dry one, but considering that, I think it went well.

Period two felt like it went much smoother, even though it was a bit more challenging because some of the students in the class know how to push buttons, and they like to do it as much as possible. It's certainly a multi-ability level class, and because of that, Mrs. H and I did things a little differently than with period one. I felt totally comfortable teaching the poem to the students, so I did that, then I had them do the next two activities. Because of their different ability levels, some students finished the activities sooner than others, so instead of teaching the entire class about the catacombs we just pushed them along onto the next section as they finished. This was a little chaotic, because we had students constantly asking for help, not on task, etc., but I think it's important to experience the classroom this way, especially since I'm interested in customized learning. While this isn't exactly a model of customized learning, it's a model of differentiation in regards to pacing. It also gives me more opportunities to work with individual students, and since I'm still getting to know them, I find this incredibly helpful. The students aren't all fans of it, but I think they'll get used to it. And as I learn their work ethic and ability levels better, I'll be able to leave them alone more instead of constantly pacing and checking in with each individual student several times.

Seniors today were...challenging. I got a lot of resistance from most of the seniors I worked with, some were more frustrated with actually having to do work than they were frustrated with me, but a few of the seniors actually shut down when I tried to help them. This is the area I struggle with the most right now, knowing how to handle each situation. And every student is different, so there's a different answer each time. Sometimes there isn't an answer at all. When a student shuts down on me, my instincts are to keep pushing them, but I know that won't work, so I tend to just walk away and not go back to check on them, but I'm afraid that if I don't go back to check on them, they're going to feel as though I don't care about them/I'm ignoring them, when that really isn't the case. Again, I think that as I get to know them, things will improve, but it's still a transition period so I need to just be patient!

Days Two and Three Recap

Day two was my first day with two sections of English 9ers, and a section of seniors. Like the day before, we went around the room in each class and had students introduce themselves to me, and I introduced myself to them. I was surprised by the number of students who were reluctant about this. But one of the things Mrs. H is working on, with all of her students, is making them pro-social individuals who can communicate effectively in society.

Even though this was my first day with this group of students, I felt much more comfortable jumping in and helping students with the different activities for the day. The students also seemed more accepting of my help, I think partly because some of them had seen me around school the day before, and some of their friends had probably told them about me.

Thursday was a Green day, this is what the schedule looked like:

Period 1: English 9
We started with introductions, then we did a DDHW (Due Diligence Homework Check), basically making sure the students attempted the homework and worked on it up until they got stuck and had questions. Before Mrs. H went around the room to check homework, she got them started on the next activity, which was making writing goals for semester 2. The students had a lot of questions about how to do this, what they needed to do, etc., so I went around the room and helped the students with this and answered any questions they had. After the students finished making their goals for the semester, they made posters for Unit 2 in their curriculum. The requirements were on the board and explained everything they needed to do, but they still struggled with understanding what was being asked of them. Mrs. H was fielding questions about it left and right, and trying to create an example poster for them, so after I finished putting the vocab they needed on the word wall, I made an example poster that we put at the front of the room. The period was over by then, so this class wasn't able to benefit from it, but we used it with the following classes.

Period 2: English 9
This class had the same agenda as period 1, but because it was a smaller class size, it was not quite as chaotic as period 1. They had the model poster to look at, and that helped them a lot. I spent more of the class helping individual students, answering questions and directing them more. Being able to work one on one with them in this setting helped me to learn most of their names faster, but that was partially due to the smaller class size.

Connections:
This was one of the dedicated days for reading. It was a little like pulling teeth, getting the students to read for twenty minutes, but by the end almost all of them were reading quietly. I particularly enjoyed this time because even the teachers are supposed to be reading, so it gave me a chance to read during school. I started Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson.

Period 3: Prep/Study Hall
I had never seen a class set up this way, but the way the schedule works, students have study in one classroom, then after lunch finish study hall in another classroom. We have prep for the first half of the period, then study hall for the second half.

Period 4: English 12
Mrs. H's senior English class is more of an individualized class. Some of the seniors are working on pre-professional skills, such as resumes, and some of the students are participating in a modified lit circle. I worked with three students on their resumes, specifically the skills section. I would have liked to work with the lit circle students some, but I will do that next class.

Day 3
Day three was a repeat of day two, with different sections of freshmen. These classes do better working independently compared to the sections from the day before.

The sophomore class had a non-party party, with chicken curry, basmati rice, and naan, then they started working on deconstructing a prompt. One of the things I like about Springboard so far is that it teaches different strategies to students, such as breaking down a prompt. I was actually able to take over part of this section of the lesson plan because the Springboard teacher's edition provides the teacher with different steps to take with the students. Mrs. H has been really good with allowing me to take over parts of the class like this, almost as though she is scaffolding my instruction too.

Definitely ready for the weekend. I've got some student work to grade (yay!), but most importantly I'm going to relax and get rested up for next week.

The First Day

It's official. I survived my first day as a student teacher. I knew I would survive of course, but I had no idea how the day would go. The night before, my biggest concern was sleeping through my alarm and/or being late. This has happened before, so I was afraid it would happen again. I don't have the best luck waking up in the morning, so I set a dozen or so alarms. Luckily, I only needed a few of them, but I had them just in case. Even though I didn't make it out the door as early as I would have liked to, I still arrived at the school by 7:35 a.m. I was hoping for 7:30 a.m., so I think I did a pretty good job. 

When I got to my classroom, Mrs. H was standing in the hallway for morning hall duty. She was talking with a group of students, so she had each of them introduce themselves to me.One of the things that amazed (surprised?) me the most was how much the students struggle to properly communicate with others. I was raised to always shake someone's hand when meeting for the first time, but for most of the students, a handshake is a foreign gesture. When I first went to visit SMHSNC (long acronym, I know), Mrs. H introduced some of her students to me, and both times she made sure that her students told me their name and shook my hand. When she introduced me to individual students today, she did the same thing. After meeting a few of the students in the hallway, the first warning bell rang and it was time to meet my first class!

SMHSNC operates on a rotating block schedule with four classes a day meeting every other day. Today was a black day, so first period was English 9. This group of kids was great. They introduced themselves to me by telling me their first name, last name, and something interesting about themselves. It's a small class of ten or twelve students, so it shouldn't take me too long to remember their names. There is also an Ed Tech in the class who I'll be able to work with, and I'm looking forward to that opportunity. Where today was the first day of the new semester for this class, we spent some time free writing because that is one thing that Mrs. H wants to focus on, along with free reading. After the students wrote for 15 minutes, they went through and marked two things in their writing that they thought they did well on and one thing they would like to improve. Mrs. H calls the activity two stars and one wish. I really like this activity actually and I think it's something I will continue to use in the classroom, both now while I'm student teaching and when I have my own classroom. It's an easy way to get students to start assessing their writing. Mrs. H then had the students use a rubric for the 6+1 traits to relate their two stars and one wish to. Things got a little wonky after this because we tried to introduce their homework to them, which was to use the 6+1 rubric and the MUGS definition to self-assess their writing in general, which they seemed to understand. Then we jumped back and had them fill out an exit ticket about their free writing pieces. Mrs. H then tried to get them started on the next activity that she wanted them to work on, which was going through unit two of the Springboard book and looking for academic vocabulary, but most of the students were missing the document she had asked them to create, so this made it difficult for the class to do what she asked. At this point, time ran out, so I think we'll pick back up from there on Friday.

13 minute break between periods 1 and 2...

Period two is English 10 with a large group of sophomores. Most of the students are in their second year with Mrs. H, so they have had extra time to create a bond, and you can certainly tell with the way most of the students respect her. They have their behavior issues like any other group of teenagers stuck in a classroom together for 70+ minutes, but really there doesn't seem to be much more than a few students talking when they're not supposed to be. Just like period one, everyone introduced themselves to me, then we planned the not-party we're having next class. They're studying different cultures right now, so Mrs. H is going to bring in some curry and a few other dishes for them to try. Some students are bringing in drinks and cups, and I think I'll make some brownies. They might not be from another culture, but what party isn't complete without brownies? After students signed up to bring different items for the party, Mrs. H went through the sections of unit two that she is going to be collecting on Friday. The students had a majority of the sections complete, and because some of the sections overlap, they only have to turn in one out of three options. 
Mrs. H told me that this section of sophomores needs to be challenged more than what the curriculum is doing, and she wants me to take over this section soon, so I'll be looking at the Springboard curriculum to see where I can push them further. I'll also be working on incorporating grammar and vocabulary into my lessons, which might possibly be two of my favorite topics to teach. There's a book coming out in February, called Word Nerds that has some strategies for implementing vocabulary in the classroom. The full text is currently available online, so I'm going to check it out and see if there's anything I can use in it that my students will benefit from. 

After period two is a 20 minute "Connections" period, which is basically homeroom. 2-3 days of the week the students have what is called a Guided Work Period, where they work on homework and sometimes have group activities that they do. The other 2 days of the week are for independent reading, which at SMHSNC is called Free to Read (or as the students say, Forced to Read). Tomorrow is a reading day, so it looks like I'll have to bring a book to school with me (worst thing ever, right?). I don't know if this daily structure is the same in other rooms, but I do like it and look forward to seeing how it goes this semester.

Lunch comes right after Connections and because our classroom is on the first floor, we have first lunch. Mrs. H eats in her classroom, mostly to avoid the politics that happen in the teachers' room. This is not the first time I've heard this, and I think it's a good piece of advice. It's really easy to get swept up into the negativity of other teachers and forget why you wanted to do what you're doing.

Period three was another group of English 9ers. This section was bigger than the first and within the section there are several different ability levels. Mrs. H said that she's been trying to differentiate but with the way Springboard is set up it is challenging, and having looked at Springboard, I can see why. One of the important things for student teachers to learn how to do, in my opinion, is differentiate, so this section will be really good for me to work with. It will certainly be challenging, but I'm definitely up for the challenge. Mrs. H let me teach most of the class, with some help from her, because it was almost the exact same as the first section of freshmen from today, so I had already seen the lesson once. I think my explanations were a little rough, mostly because I wasn't entirely sure what the lesson was. I had seen her teach it, but I hadn't been paying a lot of attention because I wasn't expecting to teach it the same day. Thinking about how the lesson went with this section, I think that a lot of the students would benefit from small group work. I found that I was explaining myself to each student, and some students needed multiple explanations. Group work would not eliminate my having to explain myself again, but it would allow the students to feel comfortable about asking a peer for help. One of my favorite moments from the day came from this class. One of the more vocal students, D, was sitting next to a quiet student, T, who was struggling to follow along and did not really understand what was being asked of him. I had approached T a few times and offered more explanation and tried to answer his questions, but he didn't have any, at least not that he was comfortable sharing with me. At one point, I looked over, and instead of goofing off like I would have expected, D was explaining to T what the assignment was and going through it step by step. Mrs. H says that D sees me as a fresh start and she thinks he is trying to impress me. I'm hoping that this means he will be a good student and will actually do his work for me. I'm going to try and push him a little because from what I've seen, he seems totally capable of doing the work, but just doesn't want to do it. There's a group of students in the class who are also capable and have a lot of potential, so I'll be working on pushing them more too.

Period four was prep, which was a nice way to end the day. It gave Mrs. H and I a chance to talk about the day and tomorrow, and a chance to unwind. We took a trip to the library, where the librarian offered me any of the reference books that they're getting rid of! I was really impressed with the amount of YA Lit I saw when I first walked in. Not what my high school library looked like when I was in school! 

Philosophy of Education

A Personal Philosophy of Education

As a person, I am eclectic. My taste in food, music, movies, and other personal interests range from one extreme to the other. It is a challenge to box me up into one particular category, and this is no different when it comes to education. As an educator, my teaching philosophy is all over the board. I do not identify entirely with any one philosophy, but rather draw on all of them to create my own personal philosophy. There are five defined philosophies that I find myself using to build my own: perennialism, idealism, pragmatism, existentialism, and humanism. Before discussing each of the individual philosophies, it might be helpful to first define philosophy. Philosophy is the set of beliefs and values that comprise the way an individual thinks about the world; it is a search for meaning and understanding, as well as an analysis of the concepts that define an individual’s personal values and beliefs. Each of the philosophies describes a different set of core beliefs, including beliefs relevant to education. There is not one particular philosophy that can be said to be the right philosophy for education. Rather, each one has merit to be used in the school or classroom in some way or another. 

The perennialist philosophy is also known as the essentialist philosophy. Supporters of perennialism believe that there is a core set of knowledge that all students must know in order to be successful. Within this core set, perennialists want students to know certain things by the end of each grade. For example, if students study the Civil War in seventh grade, they are expected to know key facts about the war, and if they are not able to prove that they have learned those facts by the end of the year, they are not able to move on to the next grade level. That student must then repeat the seventh grade until he or she is able to demonstrate all of the knowledge required of students in the seventh grade. In the lower grades, primarily up to third grade, this might work as well in practice as theory, but as students grow and mature, they become aware of the reasons for students repeating a grade (or grades), and a social stigma becomes attached to repeating a grade. The social stigma then can impact the student staying back, and very rarely is it positive. Repeating a grade can cause a student to become disengaged, even more than before; sometimes a second chance at the content is not the solution for a student; and can stunt personal growth, as well as social growth. A perhaps outdated but popular author of the perennialist philosophy is E.D. Hirsch, Jr., who wrote Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. In this book, Hirsch argues that the then-current education system is depriving students of valuable, even vital, knowledge--basic knowledge which would allow them to function in society. To accompany his argument, Hirsch includes a list of the 5,000 things that “every American needs to know,” a list ranging from important dates and people to common sayings and places. While this list is not comprehensive, it is a suggestion of the content that Hirsch believes Americans need in order to be able to communicate with one another, no matter the person’s background. 

Personally, I agree with little of the perennialist, or essentialist, philosophy. I do feel that students should have a common set of core knowledge, but I do not think that the list Hirsch created is the magic core. I do not think 5,000 is the magic number and that once students know all 5,000 items on the list that they will suddenly become engaged students who enjoy learning. If schools want to use a core list like Hirsch’s, I believe they need to be willing to change every few years, to keep it current and relevant, so that it reflects the current society. I do not believe that students are empty receptacles for teachers to fill with knowledge. They may begin school as empty receptacles, but it is not the teacher’s role to fill them up. As Will Richardson, former public school educator says, “Education will only truly be transformed when we stop trying to jam content into our kids’ heads and start allowing them to explore and learn in contexts that feed their desire to keep learning” (Richardson 2012). I want my students to be able to explore content, find what they are interested, and create habits of lifelong learning. With society evolving at increasing speeds, a core list of things to be taught will become outdated just as quickly as it is created, generating an archaic curriculum that will not engage students because they will not see the relevancy to their lives. For this reason, I believe that perennialism should not be the entire foundation of an educational philosophy, but rather a building block that works with parts of the other philosophies to forge a stronger foundation. 

Similar to the perennialist philosophy is idealism, which focuses on teaching students through lectures and discussion rather than passive listening. However, learning is still curriculum centered, specifically a core set of standards that students must know. In addition to the core standards, idealists support the teaching of absolute truths. An idealist’s curriculum would include much of the Canon, history lessons that focus on places and dates rather than issues, and math would be taught lecture style with no hands on applications for students. Idealists believe in learning for the sake of learning, but students are not actively engaged with the content.  Today’s students “are growing up in a sea of information 24/7, and schools must be helping them formulate questions, encouraging them to dig deep, to prepare them for a world which values the ability to formulate questions and then find answers to those questions,” (John Merrow 2012). In this quotation by Merrow, he includes a piece of idealism: “schools must be helping [students] formulate questions.” With the lecture and discussion style of teaching, schools are teaching students to ask questions, but the schools then leave students with questions that have yet to be answered. There is no freedom for students to seek out the answers to their questions during school. In an idealist’s classroom, students with questions irrelevant to the exact content they are studying, the students are expected to find their own answers, outside of class time. For some students, that time is spent taking care of family, working on homework for school, working, or playing sports. Students often have little time to continue their studies above and beyond the required curriculum outside of school because of their other responsibilities. The aspects of idealism that I do agree with are the lecture and discussion methodologies. I am not in favor of long, teacher-led lectures, but I do think that short, ten minute lectures can be useful teaching methods, as well as short discussions. Students need a variety of ways to handle content, and a combination that involves either lecture or discussion can be helpful for some students, depending on their learning preferences. 

Pragmatism, also known as experimentalism, is a philosophy that tends to focus more on the learning styles and preferences of students and less on the curriculum. As the root word of experimentalism suggests, experimentation is the center of learning. Students are taught more life skills and real world content rather than a list of core knowledge. The role of students is to be active participants, while the educators are responsible for teaching methods related to reasoning and observations--skills that will teach students how to learn, not what to learn. By teaching students the scientific method (problem solving) and inductive reasoning, teachers are showing students how to be lifelong learners. The knowledge pragmatists value is practical and the skills are applicable to society. They are teaching students to be valuable members of society. A school developed around the pragmatist philosophy would allow students to take electives in a large variety of subjects. This lets students take classes that they are interested, which helps them to engage in learning, rather than being passive receptacles. Schools would also emphasize projects over tests, where students are able to show what they have learned instead of telling. 

Of the five philosophies, I find that pragmatism is one I mostly agree with. I believe hands-on learning is important for students, as well as experimentation. Sometimes trial-and-error is the best way for students to learn. They might become frustrated with every failure, but when they finally understand the content, they will be proud of themselves, and not because they memorized the facts. Students will be able to apply what they have learned to real world situations, and that makes them better citizens--not knowing a list of important nouns. While it is difficult to escape the test, I do believe there are other ways of having students demonstrate mastery of the content. If a test is required, either by the school or the government, then the student should also have the opportunity to demonstrate his or her learning through a project or some other means, perhaps even before the test is administered. Giving students a chance to practice displaying mastery of the content prepares them for taking the test in a method that they are comfortable with, which increases the chances that they will do well on the test. 

While perennialism is on one end of the philosophy spectrum, existentialism is on the opposite. Where perennialists believe in rigid, structured curriculum, existentialists believe in freedom of choice in regards to learning. An excellent example of this philosophy is the Summerhill school, founded by A.S Neill in 1921. At Summerhill, students are responsible for their own learning. Students between the ages of 5 and 18 have complete control over their learning and the school. If students do not want to learn a particular subject, are too tired to learn one day, or simply do not feel like it, there is no one to tell them otherwise. They are also responsible for creating the school’s government system. The teachers are there to encourage and facilitate learning, but only when the students show an interest. The structure of the school, or rather lack thereof, is meant to develop independence and responsibility in the students, but there is no way to measure whether this is happening or not. 

While I agree with this in theory, I feel as though the practice is poorly executed. In a school of 95 students, of all ages, there are not enough teachers. If you want students to be able to learn what they want, when they want, you need to provide more teachers to facilitate learning. I also think the school might be more effective if it were divided into two sections based on age, one for children ages 5-12, and one for children ages 13-18. Children in these two age groups are in different stages developmentally, and while the school can function with students of all ages, I think the younger students look to the older students as role models, when that might not be the best scenario for them. I also think that there should be some set curriculum that students are required to master. It does not need to be extensive, but it should include the basics of reading, writing, math, and some communication skills. I do like that students are able to study what they want. If a student is interested in snowboarding and wants to learn all there is about snowboarding, then as a teacher, I would take advantage of that student’s interest and find ways to use snowboarding to engage him in all of the subject areas. The student can read about snowboarding, research the history of snowboarding, learn business related to snowboarding, calculate angles and trajectories in math, etc. If snowboarding, or anything other hobby, can be used to engage a student, then we should use it as a vehicle for teaching valuable skills to students. Who knows, maybe even the student will actually enjoy learning. John Seely Brown says that “...learning should be viewed in terms of an environment--combined with the rich resources provided by the digital information network--where the context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it, and the students, teachers, and information within it all coexist and shape each other in a mutually reinforcing way” (Seely Brown 2011). 

Each of the previously mentioned philosophies centers around learning or curriculum. Humanism, however, focuses more on the student and helping the student to attain certain needs. Mike Rose, author of Lives on the Boundary, has a philosophy that leans heavily toward humanism. He believes that every student, even those who have failed time and time again has ability and potential to learn; it just needs to be discovered. In his book, Rose shares his journey through school and into his work as a tutor, where eventually he starts teaching a course at a Veteran’s Program that served veteran’s of the armed forces. The stories that Rose shares are poignant, and truly show how Rose treats each student as an individual. Rose does not care what history or background his students bring to his class, he is just as willing to work with each and every one of them, for as long as it takes, to help them master the content. To engage his students, Rose finds ways of connecting the novel, play, short story, poem, etc., with the student’s lives. Teachers today complain that it is too difficult to connect everything to the real world for students, but Rose found a way to do it for his students, and he had students from a diverse background, students of all ages, students who were driving upwards of an hour to get to class. If Rose can connect Australian myths and the big bang theory to the lives of military veterans, we can connect Hamlet to our students’ lives. 

Humanists also focus on helping students to become self-actualized. Boiled down, this means fulfilling one’s individual potential. In order to become self-actualized, one must first meet the needs of the lower tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, and self-esteem. Once all of these needs have been met, a student is able to fully reach his or her potential. While the philosophy focuses on the goal of self-actualization, humanist teachers connect learning to the students’ environment; make the learning relevant; and show students how the curriculum applies to themselves, the community, and the world. The instructional methods for a classroom based on the humanist philosophy would focus on group work and would allow students to spend one-on-one time working with the teacher. The curriculum would include topics such as would be found in a perennialist curriculum, but there would also be an emphasis on the needs of the students, which could be taught in units that focus on real world issues.

Ann Camacho, English teacher for 20 years, recently said,

“Educators must give assignments that engage students; curiosity and imagination instead of those that hold little authenticity and are simply to satisfy answers to a test; when they do, students will rise. They will lean into the issues in the world if given a chance, and it is inspiring to see that, when given an opportunity to voice their opinions and share experiences, they can do just that. In this kind of atmosphere, compliancy gives way to engagement and it is here where students find their own voices, where they uncover the seeds of their own stories and where they discover themselves.” (Camacho 2012)

Camacho does an excellent job synthesizing what I believe are some of the essential ideals and concepts for a classroom of the 21st century. She understands that students need to see the relevancy in what they are learning in order for them to reach their potential, which ties back to the humanist philosophy and Maslow’s theory on self-actualization. As George Cuoros says, “learning should be continuous, connected and meaningful” (Cuoros 2012). As a future educator, I believe one of the most important roles of the teacher is to take the content, whatever it may be, and find ways to connect it to the learner. In a recent blog post on education by Grant Wiggins,“...the point of learning is not just to know things but to be a different person--more mature, more wise, more self-disciplined, more effective, and more productive in the broadest sense. Knowledge is an indicator of educational success, not the aim. . . If a primary goal of education is high-level performance in the world going forward, how can marching through old knowledge out of context optimally prepare us to perform?” (Wiggins 2012). The common thread between Camacho, Cuoros, and Wiggins is that they all believe in teaching the student how to learn, by providing him with the skills necessary to be an effective citizen, which is done by making the content relevant to students in an engaging way that makes them lifelong learners.