I am enjoying my first Winter Break since I was 15 during which I haven't had to work.
I should be studying for my Social Studies Praxis II coming up in January, or brushing up on my Geometry since I will be teaching it starting in February.
My placement is now official. I will be at A3 an artistically oriented charter high school. I have several friends who's children go there (as well as several of the older siblings of my students from this fall) and a few of my friends also work and/or volunteer there. I met with my Cooperating Teacher, Danny Ramirez and his partner teacher, Aaron (who is actually a woman despite the masculine spelling). They have 45 students in their class, and they teach a hybrid 'Inquiries' class including math and science.
The nature of he class is entirely inquiry based. No teacher lectures, we present the problem and the tools, the kids figure it out. This is NOT going to be an easy thing for me to do. Fortunately I get to spend a month adjusting to the school before I have to jump in and teach. They have a J term, which is a month long term where students attend only one or two classes, but they are specific and in depth. A lot of colleges do this. My father took a J term class called 'Man In Winter' that put him on the path towards his trips to the Arctic. Anyways, I get to choose which classes I want to help out in, I will be working in The History of Food, 20th Century Protest Music, or Science and Science Fiction. Needless to say I'm very excited.
However, for the time being I am finding myself settled into a lazy routine of video games, blogging, baking for Christmas and reading; and I couldn't be happier.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Christmas Music at the Holidays
Is it ok? Mrs. Keener has been playing some Christmas music, none of it is religious. Santa Claus and modern stuff. Peace on Earth, love each other etc. The kids have been begging for the Christmas music even. But is it ok? Technically as an arm of the government the school may not establish a religion, and if we had a Muslim or Jewish student in the class, they might feel uncomfortable, but I'm fairly certain that we don't have any.
I was very oblivious about other religions when I was in middle school. I saw Jews and Muslims as people who lived elsewhere, and I assumed everyone at my school was a Christian, like me, and went to church every Sunday. I soon discovered how wrong I was around the seventh grade, but the I can only assume that the students in our class are equally oblivous unless they are the one student who is different, which would be very challanging in of itself and even worse if you are blasted with Christmas music at school.
Any opinions? Is Christmas music, even non-religious ever ok in a public school? Does it depend on your school's culture? We could sing religious choir music sometimes, for its artistic merits. How would you feel about Christmas music being played in your child's classroom? Does the age of the students mattter?
I was very oblivious about other religions when I was in middle school. I saw Jews and Muslims as people who lived elsewhere, and I assumed everyone at my school was a Christian, like me, and went to church every Sunday. I soon discovered how wrong I was around the seventh grade, but the I can only assume that the students in our class are equally oblivous unless they are the one student who is different, which would be very challanging in of itself and even worse if you are blasted with Christmas music at school.
Any opinions? Is Christmas music, even non-religious ever ok in a public school? Does it depend on your school's culture? We could sing religious choir music sometimes, for its artistic merits. How would you feel about Christmas music being played in your child's classroom? Does the age of the students mattter?
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
As the term draws to a close, I have an opportunity to take a deep breath and look back on all that I've managed to over the past ten weeks. Honestly the thing I'm the most proud of is the amazing relationships I've begun at Briggs, both with my students (even the irritating ones are awesome)and the faculty (I am sure going to miss the sixth grade team). I feel a bit at a loss that I'm not going to be able to finish up the year (although it's too soon to say where I'll be in the spring) with these kids. I want to know how they do in the rest of middle school, and I want to know how they do in high school and beyond as well. Each kid has so much potential and a different set of skills, and a different set of weaknesses that will set up trials for them.
From a more academic standpoint I am very satisfied with classroom management experience I've had. Mrs. Keener's initial lessons on expectations etc. really made it easy to step in and uphold the same expectations, but I think that I also took a hand in initially setting up those expectations, so I can take some credit too. I know that I am an aggressive and some times overbearing person, so I was concerned that I would come across too harsh or strict, or conversely, I would be so concerned about creating a good relationship with students and NOT being so strict that I would be the 'buddy' teacher who doesn't enforce any rules. I feel that I achieved a happy medium. I think the students both liked me and respected me and in general they followed my instruction and behaved like responsible human beings, I never had any major behavior problems. I am a little apprehensive that I will freeze up if I am in a situation where I encounter open defiance, or an aggressive and angry student. Or even worse, that I will blow up and get in their face. Perhaps I'll have a chance to find out next term.
Another thing that I am very grateful for this term was the opportunity to sit in on a Parent/Teacher intervention conference. A student was consistently having problems being disruptive, unprepared and inappropriate in nearly all of his classes. He was one of my favorite kids, and I had another meeting later that afternoon, so with Mrs. Keener's permission I sat in on the meeting. Since I first started entertaining the idea of being a teacher, working with parents has always been one of my biggest fears. Not so much because I'm scared of them, but because of how I would react, I wouldn't want to offend or be rude to a parent that was attacking me verbally (even if they did deserve it). I've received some advice as to how to interact with parents, but I went into the conference expecting blame and excuses from the boy's parents. Much to my pleasant surprise, the parents were very supportive and grateful for the teachers and their hard work and input. They were at their wits end about how to help their son, and were looking for advice. What I expected to be an argument or blame game was instead a very productive brainstorming session during which several strategies for helping the student to be more successful for the rest of therm. Even better, it's clear now from the end of the term, that since that meeting there had been marked improvement, at least in our class, in his behavior and preparedness, as well as his rate of turning in homework. Though I know this is just one example of a parent interaction, seeing such a positive meeting was the push I needed to really change my attitude about interacting with parents, and to see it as a positive problem solving opportunity.
I am looking forward to the opportunities that A3 will present as far as getting to know more about my student's backgrounds and have some more interaction with their families perhaps. I found it interesting that when I told my class that I was going to A3 next term several of them had older siblings that went there. It will be interesting to see the similarities and differences between siblings. Another of my goals for improvement is increasing the amount of activities that are are student centered, either group or individual activities. From what I know about the structure and ideas at A3 I should have ample opportunity to do that. It is very challenging for me to organize student centered lessons that are more inquiry based, as I think it is for most new teachers.
As I look back at the term as a whole I don't think that there has been a revolutionary change in my attitude or philosophies concerning teaching. Rather I am begun to refine and mature my techniques, and begin to build a toolbox of strategies. through the relationships I've built I have reaffirmed my choice to begin a career in education, and in general I have set in progress the process that, continuing through the spring and summer, will prepare me to have my own classroom.
From a more academic standpoint I am very satisfied with classroom management experience I've had. Mrs. Keener's initial lessons on expectations etc. really made it easy to step in and uphold the same expectations, but I think that I also took a hand in initially setting up those expectations, so I can take some credit too. I know that I am an aggressive and some times overbearing person, so I was concerned that I would come across too harsh or strict, or conversely, I would be so concerned about creating a good relationship with students and NOT being so strict that I would be the 'buddy' teacher who doesn't enforce any rules. I feel that I achieved a happy medium. I think the students both liked me and respected me and in general they followed my instruction and behaved like responsible human beings, I never had any major behavior problems. I am a little apprehensive that I will freeze up if I am in a situation where I encounter open defiance, or an aggressive and angry student. Or even worse, that I will blow up and get in their face. Perhaps I'll have a chance to find out next term.
Another thing that I am very grateful for this term was the opportunity to sit in on a Parent/Teacher intervention conference. A student was consistently having problems being disruptive, unprepared and inappropriate in nearly all of his classes. He was one of my favorite kids, and I had another meeting later that afternoon, so with Mrs. Keener's permission I sat in on the meeting. Since I first started entertaining the idea of being a teacher, working with parents has always been one of my biggest fears. Not so much because I'm scared of them, but because of how I would react, I wouldn't want to offend or be rude to a parent that was attacking me verbally (even if they did deserve it). I've received some advice as to how to interact with parents, but I went into the conference expecting blame and excuses from the boy's parents. Much to my pleasant surprise, the parents were very supportive and grateful for the teachers and their hard work and input. They were at their wits end about how to help their son, and were looking for advice. What I expected to be an argument or blame game was instead a very productive brainstorming session during which several strategies for helping the student to be more successful for the rest of therm. Even better, it's clear now from the end of the term, that since that meeting there had been marked improvement, at least in our class, in his behavior and preparedness, as well as his rate of turning in homework. Though I know this is just one example of a parent interaction, seeing such a positive meeting was the push I needed to really change my attitude about interacting with parents, and to see it as a positive problem solving opportunity.
I am looking forward to the opportunities that A3 will present as far as getting to know more about my student's backgrounds and have some more interaction with their families perhaps. I found it interesting that when I told my class that I was going to A3 next term several of them had older siblings that went there. It will be interesting to see the similarities and differences between siblings. Another of my goals for improvement is increasing the amount of activities that are are student centered, either group or individual activities. From what I know about the structure and ideas at A3 I should have ample opportunity to do that. It is very challenging for me to organize student centered lessons that are more inquiry based, as I think it is for most new teachers.
As I look back at the term as a whole I don't think that there has been a revolutionary change in my attitude or philosophies concerning teaching. Rather I am begun to refine and mature my techniques, and begin to build a toolbox of strategies. through the relationships I've built I have reaffirmed my choice to begin a career in education, and in general I have set in progress the process that, continuing through the spring and summer, will prepare me to have my own classroom.
Reflection: School Improvement Project
I particularly enjoyed this School Improvement Project. I have always really liked time lines and the way that they create connections throughout time, as well as being a device for comparison between cultures or societies. Social Studies is my secondary endorsement, but because of the way that the block classes work at Briggs Middle School I had little to no contact with any social studies classes throughout the term. This particular SIP allowed me to get involved with some of the social studies curriculum. I also appreciated the opportunity to work with a fellow student teacher. Melissa is primarily a social studies teacher, and her cooperating teacher was the primary organizer of this project, Laura Scruggs. As Mrs. Scruggs described it, this beginning of the year time line project was something she and the other seventh grade social studies teachers had been wanting to do for a long time, but no one had had the time to organize it and get all the different pieces together.
Since this was to be one of the first assignments of the school year, Melissa and I finished most of the work before school even began. The process of gathering dates was actually a lot of fun for me. We used the text book that the seventh graders used to draw dates from, and it was a fun refresher for me of World History. We enjoyed color coding and discussed the relative importance of various dates, as well as how we could tie historic events into the modern world that students had were aware of. For example, when the Islamic Empire moves it’s capital to Baghdad, we reflected that most students have heard of Baghdad, and associate it with Iraq, they may not realize that the places that these things are occurring today are the same as they were a thousand years ago.
After school began things got more difficult for us. Because I was with sixth grade and she was with seventh grade we were on totally different schedules, even our passing times were different, so collaborating was a greater challenge. It also became tedious to create the hand made copies for each individual teacher, as well as copies for us to keep in our files. The larger bulletin time line was more exciting because we were able to draw on the aspects of history that are particularly interesting to us to create a more detailed overview of the past 2000 years. I was glad to take advantage of the opportunity to share even a small amount of information about Andalusia under Muslim rule, as well as make some connections between cultures that students might not always see, such as the way that the beginning of the African slave trade occurred around the same time as the end of the complex and powerful African nations.
Unfortunately, my involvement with the project pretty much ended after we posted the laminated bulletin board timeline. Melissa, however, got to be part of the implementation of the timeline project in the classroom. Her particular class had a large number of students with a lot of behavior management issues, so she found that the complexity of the project was challenging for them, and even though they were provided with a list of the dates, many of them still failed to create the timeline in it’s entirety. It was also challenging for them to do their work neatly and in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I was able to review some of their finished products, as I helped one teacher, Mrs. Newson, to grade some of hers.
Retrospectively, the one thing that we have realized we should do differently is that we initially left the birth and death of Jesus off of the time line, when we had included the birth and death of Mohammed. Initially this never occurred to Melissa or I as a problem because we were working specifically within the confines of certain cultures. The cultures that we were dealing with around 0 AD were the Roman, Japanese and African cultures. Christianity wasn’t a major aspect of Roman culture for another couple hundred years, so we noted when Rome began to convert to Christianity, and that was all. However some parents complained about the lack of mention of Jesus, understandably, so my master copy now includes both the birth and death of Jesus. I look forward to using this activity in my own class some day.
Since this was to be one of the first assignments of the school year, Melissa and I finished most of the work before school even began. The process of gathering dates was actually a lot of fun for me. We used the text book that the seventh graders used to draw dates from, and it was a fun refresher for me of World History. We enjoyed color coding and discussed the relative importance of various dates, as well as how we could tie historic events into the modern world that students had were aware of. For example, when the Islamic Empire moves it’s capital to Baghdad, we reflected that most students have heard of Baghdad, and associate it with Iraq, they may not realize that the places that these things are occurring today are the same as they were a thousand years ago.
After school began things got more difficult for us. Because I was with sixth grade and she was with seventh grade we were on totally different schedules, even our passing times were different, so collaborating was a greater challenge. It also became tedious to create the hand made copies for each individual teacher, as well as copies for us to keep in our files. The larger bulletin time line was more exciting because we were able to draw on the aspects of history that are particularly interesting to us to create a more detailed overview of the past 2000 years. I was glad to take advantage of the opportunity to share even a small amount of information about Andalusia under Muslim rule, as well as make some connections between cultures that students might not always see, such as the way that the beginning of the African slave trade occurred around the same time as the end of the complex and powerful African nations.
Unfortunately, my involvement with the project pretty much ended after we posted the laminated bulletin board timeline. Melissa, however, got to be part of the implementation of the timeline project in the classroom. Her particular class had a large number of students with a lot of behavior management issues, so she found that the complexity of the project was challenging for them, and even though they were provided with a list of the dates, many of them still failed to create the timeline in it’s entirety. It was also challenging for them to do their work neatly and in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I was able to review some of their finished products, as I helped one teacher, Mrs. Newson, to grade some of hers.
Retrospectively, the one thing that we have realized we should do differently is that we initially left the birth and death of Jesus off of the time line, when we had included the birth and death of Mohammed. Initially this never occurred to Melissa or I as a problem because we were working specifically within the confines of certain cultures. The cultures that we were dealing with around 0 AD were the Roman, Japanese and African cultures. Christianity wasn’t a major aspect of Roman culture for another couple hundred years, so we noted when Rome began to convert to Christianity, and that was all. However some parents complained about the lack of mention of Jesus, understandably, so my master copy now includes both the birth and death of Jesus. I look forward to using this activity in my own class some day.
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