Over Parenting

The Dangers of being a Helicopter Parent

"Fear is a kind of parenting fungus: invisible, insidious, perfectly designed to decompose your peace of mind. Fear of physical danger is at least subject to rational argument; fear of failure is harder to hose down. What could be more natural than worrying that your child might be trampled by the great, scary, globally competitive world into which she will one day be launched? It is this fear that inspires parents to demand homework in preschool, produce the snazzy bilingual campaign video for the third-grader's race for class rep, continue to provide the morning wake-up call long after he's headed off to college."

Don't be trapped by fear. Check out the article, it's excellent.

Musings: Reflecting on working in a SPED classroom

In the education front this week has been interesting, I subbed for the same teacher all week, a SPED teacher out in Creswell. It was a reading/writing SPED class and it was a fascinating experience. Some SPED teachers are horrible, they're impatient, they say things to kids that I don't think is appropriate for SPED kids ("If you were smart, you would do this..."). They jump to conclusions about what students are doing, and why they are doing it. And most of the curriculum is BORING. I don't really blame them in some ways. The kids can be infuriating, and it's really frustrating when you tell a kid what a word means, and he asks again what the same word means in less the five minutes. And you can't know if he's being lazy, if it's part of his disability, or if it's something that has been conditioned into him because of ineffective educational procedures. I do feel like I've gained a greater understanding for students who are learning disabled. I have one friend who is pretty much the only person (that I know of) that is learning disabled in a more severe way then just being dyslexic, so interacting with these students gave me a new insight. Also fascinating, and challenging, was the variety of levels within the class. They may all be at the same level of reading (or nearly the same) but the who gambit was there from highly intelligent otherwise (think Eli) to kids who are developmentally not all there, to kids who are just plain dumb. I would never pick SPED to teach. Never be my first choice, but I'm not nearly as afraid of it as I was before.

Well, I didn't get a job.

Despite the fact that I had several promising and engaging interviews I was not hired for the 2009/2010 school year. Fortunately, in the line of work of teaching, not getting a job doesn't banish you to the world of part time service or food industry jobs, no you have the opportunity to substitute teach. For some a way of life, for other their greatest fear, right?

I signed up with all the local districts, I printed business cards and spent the week before school started driving around to different schools where I had an 'in'. And then, when school started, I waited. And just when I was starting to get discouraged (and really worried about where October's rent was going to come from) I started to get calls. Since that first call, today is the first school day that I haven't had to sub somewhere. I have worked in 7 different schools, with ages from pre-school to seniors in high school. I've taught music (quite a lot actually), art, science, math, English... and I have learned more about my values and classroom management as a teacher then I had in a full term of student teaching last spring.

Walking into a classroom and commanding control and respect and accomplishing the goals that the teacher has set down for you is a very rewarding challenge. Thus far I seem to have been fairly successful and have gotten positive feedback from the teachers I've subbed for. Most of the time I've enjoyed what I've been doing, being in different classrooms, schools and with different age groups. I've also really enjoyed the fact that when the school day ends, I clean up and go home. No planning for the next day, no grading, no worrying about how I'll make up for lost time or take care of an issue, or anything like that.

The one aspect of subbing that I don't like is it prevents me from doing much planning in my own life. For the most part, I won't know more then one or two days ahead of time if I am going to be working on a certain day, so I can't make plans for my own life, or plans with friends. Since I am normally such a planner, this leaves me floundering a little when I wake up in the morning and there aren't any calls for the day. But somehow I think I'll manage.

Diversity in Education-August 12th

I have a problem with the fact that students have more rights about their religion then teachers do. I understand that it is true, and I understand why it is that way. But I feel persecuted that I can't wear religions jewelry or clothing without fear of persecution and even loosing my job.

During our Law and Governance course last summer we discussed the details of the case you mentioned with Sikh person who lost her job because she wanted to wear her religious clothing. If she has said, oh, I just like this fashion style, it would have been ok, but because she worse it because it was prescribed by her religion, it's unacceptable. Similarly, if I wore a necklace with a star on it that is nondescript, no problem. But as soon as it resembles a pentagram or a star of David, I am in dangerous territory. I wonder if I, as a non-Jew could wear a six pointed star, because it is just fashion, but a Jew could not.

I appreciate the separation of church and state that exists in our country, and I don't think it is the right of teachers to be able to preach to their students or try and convert their students, but it seems to me that teachers should have as much right as anyone else to express their own personal religiousness, or not.

Diversity in Education-August 10th

Post Encounter-

I really enjoyed my encounter with the Baha'i, I found that their religion genuinely appealed to me and that they were very helpful as far as giving us information pertaining to the way in which we could interact with Baha'i students we might have and any special considerations that they might need.

The one thing that I had an issue with was all the rules. If people want to follow strict rules, great, but I've never done well with them. Fortunately it sounds as if the Baha'i aren't judgmental about their rules, they don't project them on others, but it's not a religion for me.

This activity was really really interesting because I had permission to go somewhere and explore something new without feeling like a voyer, or self-entitled to explore someone else's culture. I was afraid of feeling like I was some white person headed to Africa on safari, to see the exotic animals and culture, but it wasn't that way at all. I feel like this experience will help me to branch out and explore different culture more in the future.

Capstone: In Review

This was a very challenging project for me on a number of different levels. My first issue was that I had a very had time choosing a topic to focus on, I felt pulled in many different directions. My second difficulty is that not only have I never had to do something like a Capstone project before, as it is a fairly unique project, but I have also have very limited experience doing research and writing research papers. My partner, Taunya was a very experienced researcher and paper writer, so I was inclined to allow he to take the lead organizationally. For me this is a very unusual position to be in, as I find myself more often then not taking on the leadership role when I work with groups. As we moved through the process of defining our question and gathering our research, I found that these were skills that were difficult for me and I was glad for the guidance of a more experienced researcher.

As we began the writing process it was difficult for us to not move to a more traditional research paper/thesis model and stick to the parameters that were unique to the capstone. We knew what we wanted to look for, and after researching, we knew pretty clearly what we thought our answers would be, but making it fit into the Capstone model and making sure that we included all the pieces that we felt was expected of us was really tough. In the end, we ended up doing significantly more writing then was originally necessary, but all of the writing that we did was useful and helped us in our clarifying and focusing process.

Another challenge for me was learning to use embed citations. I never really took writing classes in college, and though I feel that I am an excellent writer, I have trouble with some of the more conventional things like using APA format. I feel like I grew a lot in my ability to do proper citation in this manner through the course of this project.

Taunya and I both went through a period where we were very frustrated with this project. We felt like we knew what we were asking, what the research said, and what kind of plan we wanted to have, and yet we felt like the way that we were communicating that wasn't fitting the prescribed format, or rather wasn't being understood in the same way that we understood it. It wasn't until we sat down with our adviser for the project and explained it to her, who then explained her expectations for us that we finally felt good about the product we were creating. Were I to do this project, or another like it again, I would make an appointment to meet in person with my adviser much earlier in the processes, and to continue those visits frequently.

It seemed like having your 'ah ha' moment was a big deal, and after watching a few presentations, it sort of became a cliche, but the truth of the matter is, we did sort of have an 'ah ha' moment (though we avoided calling it that in our presentation). While we were researching and categorizing and then trying to narrow down this huge field of information, we decided as part of our part III to make a graphic. And I created this hokey chart with what was then four elements (we later combined two of the elements so we only had three) and highlight what each element shared in common with each other element. In creating this chart, we realized that though we had a really wide variety in our solution, and it seemed huge, it had to be huge, we couldn’t use one part without the other because of the way that they all supported each other. This really gave direction to the rest of our refinement and the way that we chose to implement our plan. It also helped us to keep our plan streamlined and manageable.

One thing that I am very grateful for is that my group had a variety of content areas that we represented, not just one. Having my math/social studies, and Taunya’s social studies/language arts kept us thinking about how our plan could be applied across the curriculum. We won’t have the power to change our whole school, but ideally our plan would be implemented not only in our classrooms, but in every classroom, so having already considered the challenges that might present themselves outside of our shared content area (social studies) better prepares us to aid our colleagues in implementing this in their classroom.

There were a lot of aspects of this project that were hard, aspects that I didn't want to do, or didn't understand why I had to do them. However, I am grateful for the opportunity to do this project. For the experience of doing research, and putting together a research based plan. I feel like that experience will serve me in the future, giving me the experience I need to feel confidant about creating research based plans in the future. I'm grateful that I had a committed, hard working partner who's strengths balanced my weaknesses and with whom I worked well. And most of all, I am grateful that provided that I have a job this coming fall, I will come armed with a plan to make my classroom exemplary.

Diversity in Education-August 5th

McIntosh's article about the now proverbial 'Invisible Knapsack' is a fantastic peek at the rest of the ice burg. I'd heard about this knapsack before, and reading the actual article really articulated the issues surrounding it. I would love to find a way to incorporate that article, or a cutting from it, into my lessons, for students of all races and ethnicities. I've always found that metaphors, especially ones I could visualize, helped me to understand issues, and I don't think I am alone in that. Using the metaphor of the knapsack, and as someone in class today mentioned, identifying what is in it. What are those benefits, each day. And what is the flip side of that could be a really eye opening experience for children. Another way to approach this issue, without the complex reading or specifically saying 'this is about race'. Would be to ask students to make lists of their privileges, and things that they think aren't fair. We'd have to talk about what we mean by that. And we could discuss the reasons for privilege, such as someone being the oldest child, getting good grades, having lots of money, living near certain amenities, and hopefully also broach race and ethnicity in that same conversation.

Diversity in Education-August 4th

We.

A seemingly innocuous little word, but carries with it so much power. Being social creatures, we (see what I just did there), and by we I mean humans, desire to be part of a group, this isn't universal, but most of us do. We is generally an inclusive word, but it can also make it painfully obvious that you are NOT a part of a groups as well.

I noticed this most starkly in class with our guest speaker, but I feel like she is not alone in making this slip up, I feel like I have heard this throughout my Masters program, and my education in general. But it comes through most clearly when in a class that is discussing issues of diversity and multicultural curriculum. The professor repeatedly will say 'we' when referring to white, dominant cultures. "We must do..." "We have this privilege..." "We do this, and they do that". Some times this is appropriate. We could refer to graduate students, Oregonians, Eugenians... any number of groups that might be accurate, but when the person speaking chooses not to define what they mean by we, more often then not, the understanding is that we refers to white dominant culture. And then I look around the classroom and I know that we have people in our group who do not identify as white, and who do not receive white privilege. I can only imagine that having the teacher refer to themselves and a majority of the class as we, must be alienating to those students who are not part of the group, especially in the context of a class in which we are supposed to be unpacking and examining those issues, but there is still this invisible division.

I'm not sure what the solution is, and perhaps acknowledging that it happens is the first step. For me, whenever I refer to we, especially when in a professional situations, I define what I mean by we. That way, if I am excluding someone around me (for instance saying we, referring to white people in a group with many ethnic or racially diverse people) the people around me know that I am not assuming that they are part of the group I refer to, and that I am acknowledging that their point of view or way of knowing may be different then my own.

Diversity in Education-August 3rd

We were discussing in class racial bias and Prof. Lenssen was discussing a study where black children (girls primarily I think) were asked to choose which doll they thought was prettier and better, between a white doll and a black doll, and most of the girls chose the white doll.

This brought to mind an anecdotal experience from my own childhood that I wanted to examine. Growing up I had LOVED the American Girl dolls, I had paged through their catalogs and longed for one of their dolls. After playing a gig with my fiddle band, at the age of 10, I received a pay check large enough for me to purchase one of these dolls. At this point in time there were only five. Each representing an important period of time for America. Felicity, the colonist, Kirsten the immigrant, Samantha, the Victorian, Molly, from WW2, and the most recent addition, Addy the escaped slave from the Civil War. I don't remember my reasoning, and it might have been something simple and unconnected to race, but I bought the black doll. And I LOVED that doll, my grandmother made a trunk of clothes for her (and another doll that I eventually also got, this one made to look like me) and I played with them long after it was socially acceptable for me to play with dolls. The doll did have one issue I was unprepared to deal with, her hair was textured, much like the typical African's hair, and I didn't know how to deal with it, so years of combing resulted in very thing hair and near dreadlocks.

I don't have a lot of analysis for this, I guess. I grew up in a very very white community, I had only one black person in my entire high school. No black friends or family members, no experience with black people outside of seeing them around town or interacting in the most mundane manner. I wonder if perhaps my reasoning for choosing that doll was that she was the newest, or different then all the others (I was very interested in being different at that point in my life), or the fact that she wore a dress that I liked. Perhaps the draw was her straw bonnet. But in retrospect it's a very interesting question. Why did the little white girl choose the black doll?

Diversity in Education-July 29th

Banks & Banks-Multicultural Education
Part III discusses gender inquality and bias. I always balk at my lack of experience with this. I wonder if because of my nature, I'm just blind to it, or if I've actually been luck enough to be a part of classes that fought the bias, and pointed it out. I was flabbergast to read some of the research and statistics in chapter 6, specifically some of the facts about the boys. The things about girls, I'd always heard before, girls make less money, graduate less from high school or college, perform less well in math in science. But to hear that in some areas a black male is more likely to be killed then a US soldier in Vietname totally shocked me. I was also surprised to read that there is a documentable increase in anxiey in boys that conform to the male sterotype.

For once (so often the strategies outlined in our text books are empty recommendations without any true directions for implementation) I think the strategies at the end of the book our sound. Mixing boys and girls in your seating chart and acknowledging gender sterotypes when you come across them in books is key. More difficult is censoring ourselves as teachers to remove gender bias (as much as possible) from our own language, or to acknowledge it when we do use it. It is so ingrained in us, so deep rooted that we can't see it, despite the fact that in my opinion it is one of the most widly recognized and generally accepted (as wrong) biases that exist.

Diversity in Education-July 30th

How have we (as teachers) and our schools failed boys and girls?

In my experience, the gender gap and sterotypes that we talked about have not been the case. In my high school the top of the class (all classes) were mostly girls. We had a couple of guys that were up there too, but they were the minority. The all stars in math and science, and especially language arts and social studies, were female. We had one valedictorian and 6 (I think) salutatorians and all but one of them were female.

In my student teaching experiences (in math and social studies) boys and girls have done equally well, and often my female students do better, and this is no surprise.

I do recognize however that that may not be the norm everywhere, though that type of discrimination does seem to be improving.

The place that I see that we really fail students are far as gender discrimination is concerned is with out language. In Chet Bower's sustainable curriculum class we talked extensively about the root metaphors that our society is based on, not the least of which was the analog of patriarchy.

The obvious aspects of this in our language are things like 'don't be such a girl'. Or 'be a man' and those types of things. But throught our language's superlatives and perjoratives the gender bias of man=good and powerful woman = bad and week is pervasive.

I find that this is perhaps less the case in math class then in others, but the place that I have seen it most pervasive is in Physical Education classes. The PE teacher will often build relationships with his or her students by goading and teasing them as is culturally appropriate in our highly competative world, but saying someone throws like a girl, or telling a girl she did something as well as a man subtly reinforces the gender roles, and also contributes to the fact that many girls who exemplefy male qualities are seen as manly and called lesbians or dykes.

Just as its important for teachers to carefully choose their language to avoid being racially, ethnically, religiously offensive or judgemental, we have to pay extra special attention to our language having to do with gender as it is one of the deepest rooted and most taken for granted biases or prejudices in our culture (and most cultures of the world!)

Diversity in Education-July 28th

Why is class a predictor of student success?

Research indicates that students from a 'higher' SES are more likely to be successful in school then those with a lower SES. Clearly it isn't genetics, so what is it that makes SES a reliable predictor of student success?

There are a few things that in my opinion contribute to this.

a. Home Environment. It is likely that those students who come from a higher SES have parents who are educated, and able/willing to help them with their homework and projects. It is also likely that a student from a higher SES has a home environment that is more conducive to studying, for instance a quiet office space, a computer at home etc. It is also plausable that parents who are educated may value education more then parents who are not educated, and so parental expectations/encouragement may be higher. Higher SES students also likely have the money to purcase aids to their education, study guides, tutors, academic summer camps etc. all of which could potentially lead to those students excelling more in school.

b. School is about those with a higher SES. This is particularly apparent in social studies, but is true across the board. Generally, we don't teach/learn about the working class or the poor, unless it is shown as an exhibit of the other or the unfortunate. Those who are part of the uper class are usually those with the power, and so history, and school in general is about the upper class, and students who do not identify with that class may be disinclined to engage in study about a group in which they percieve themselves to be an outsider.

c. Teacher assumptions/sterotypes. It is probable that a teacher will see a student who appears to be poor, or lower class and assume that that student doesn't have the capabilities to pursue a rigourous academic schedule. Especially if the teacher is familiar with that family. Likewise, interaction with a parent, who is uneducated may lead a teacher to make assumptions about that parent's intelligence or capability, which then carries on to be applied to the student. Especially in high school, poorer or low class student may or may not have the resources to pay for college, and therefore might be encouraged to pursue a vocational training or no extra school, rather the look into scholarship and grants.

There is little that we, as teachers can do to address point a, except to be sensitive to it, and aware that it is a possibility. A student who's parent works nights might not have done their homework because they had to babysit their baby brother that night.

Points b and c are where we as teachers have the power to change things and provide equitable experiences. Adjusting curriculum so that it focuses on not only those with power n history and the other disciplines, but also the 'every man', the working class, the poor and disenfrancised. And of course we must constantly be challenging ourselves to acknowledge the assumptions that we are making and biases we have, examining them to see where they come from and what sort of evidence do we have to support those assumptions.

Diversity in Education-July 23rd

Low Expectations

Part of my teaching philosophy that I pride myself on is my high expectations. I have had experiences in my student teaching this year with teachers that have low expectations for their students, either all of them or just a few. And it's really discouraging for the educator, as well as the students, because neither feels like a success. For my capstone we are studying what causes students to be apathetic or resistant to learning, and how we can combat that. One thing that has come up over and over is that when students are expected to fail, they do. And if you expect the child to be successful, then they are more likely to do so.

Unfortunately, the problem comes down to determining what those 'high expectations' are. Not each student has the ability/capability/opportunity to perform at the same level as every other student. Creating an individualized goal or expectation for each student seems really time consuming, but when we are lowering our expectations for some students, and not others, we are really doing that same thing. What we need to do is have high, tangible, achievable goals for each child based on their background, perceived ability and past, and then hold them to that constant improvement, and help them to devise goals for themselves that they can work towards. By creating a system of indvidualized goals, rather then relying on a graded point or average system, you can avoid the discouraging low expectations, and the lack of motivation that accompanies it.

Diversity in Education-July 27:My assumptions and pre-concieved notions about people of the Baha'i faith :

We have a 'Cultural Encounter' project in which we have to have an encounter with a cultural group that we have little to no experience with, and attempt to learn more about said cultural group. My group is doing the Baha'i faith. There is a Baha'i faith center right across the street from campus, and when I lived on 15th several years ago I walked past it most days. It's small home, converted into a center with a fence around it and a welcome sign. It always seemed like a place I could feel comfortable walking into, but they also seemed a bit secluded. They never appealed to me personally because I imagined that they would be a religion (like many religions) that opposed drinking, pre marital sex, and other pastimes that undergrads often enjoy.

Due to the style of their signage and the few things I'd read or seen around, I assumed they were an Eastern religion, or perhaps Middle Eastern. I associated them with Sihks, another Eastern religion that I knew/know very little about.

My impression was always peaceful, mild mannered, and understated.

Diversity in Education-July 22nd-I am from

Our assignment/journal was to write a poem, each line beginning with 'I am from', outlining my culture.

I am from my father, Dad stayed at home and baked bread.
I am from my mother, Mom taught, now I pay attention to how things sound.
I am from the church, love, sharing, thought and injustice.
I am from a world of fantasy, faeries, goblins, princesses and dragons.
I am from a small town, big fish in a little pond.
I am from the Country Fair, community, ecology, cultural commons.
I am from the theater, showcasing skill, vying for the spotlight.
I am from the warm and playful sound of a violin.
I am from the digital world, blogging and broadcasting through the net.
I am from Oregon, green, green state.

Diversity in Education-July 21st

Today's excercise was equally facinating, and I was particularly stumped by the fact that just by chance, I ended up my 'society's' leader. I'm a strong personality and I often find myself in leadership positions whether or not I seek them out, and it was interesting for me to note that me being the leader was totally by chance, it was because I happen to be the youngest person in the group. But I am getting ahead of myeslf. The activity was that were were to take 20 minutes to create our own unique culture that didn't resemble any real culture. We were given several guidelines and probing questions and also some props to assist. Our culture was highly respectful, ritualistic, and had many rules. We were also a youth or child based culture (hence me being the leader since I was youngest). We then interacted with the other cultures that people had created and found many of the problems that occur in real life, when different cultures interact, were true in our classroom study as well. And this was with all cultures with a more or less even playing field. I look forward to the continued debrief of this activity tomorrow.

As for the required readings, I've been unable to do the Bates & Bates readings yet because for financial reasons I've declined to purchase the book at the UO book store, and instead bought it on Amazon (for a savings of $50!). So clearly it hasn't come yet, though I received a notification that it shipped today. The other readings however, I was able to do.

In the Hall, it was interesting to note that from the point of view of my sustainable curriculum class, the more ecologically intelligent and cultural commons oriented aspects of culture (as designated by the somewhat stratifying distinction of low and high) were those that were not exemplified by American culture.

The Lenssen article outlined a series of activities one could do within a classroom in order to get kids thinking about cultural differences and the difficulties that they can create. Particularly it seems to allow students from a main stream culture to identify with the disorientation, alienation etc. that students from minority cultures experience. Or along those same lines, to allow students from varied cultural backgrounds to have a culturally significant experience in common, even if it is superficial. Some of these strategies I had heard before, and others are new, but I look forward to adding them to my tool box.

In the rest of the readings, the one thing that stood out to me as somethign I'd never thought about before was the definition(s) of race and how problematic it is, and how it is used interchangebly with culture or ethnicity. Being white myself, I feel like white doesn't determine my culture, and it would be laughable if I were defined only by being white, as if I were the same as all other white people. My culture has more to do with the area I grew up in, my religion, my artistic endeavors and the people I choose to associate with. However, for people who are part of a racial, ethinic or religious minority. All of these elements are often lumped together as one thing, and generalized. That the lable of race or ethnicity was in of iteslf the problem is new to me.

Diversity in Education-July 20th

I'm taking a class called Diversity in Education this summer, which requires me to make a journal entry for each day of class. Most, if not all, of my entries for the next few weeks will be reflections on the class activities and readings.

This class has definitely not matched my expectations. Having already taken several classes having to do with issues of diversity in education, I expected a ho-hum revamp of the same info I've heard several times. It's important information, but I sort of feel like I've got it. The activity in class today, however was really fascinating. So now my impression is that this class will, in fact, deal with same issues of student identity and diversity that I've seen in other classes, but will approach it in a new and fresh way, arming me with pedagogical tools that I can then use in the future.

Today's activity asked us to make snap judgments and stereotypes about our professor, and then about each other, and to in turn debrief those judgments and see how right, or wrong we were. It was interesting from a self-serving point of view in that I always enjoy hearing from people the way I come across, the type of impression I give, and I was fairly pleased with the things my partner said about me, most of them were even true. It was neat to examine our bias, and I definitely noticed that my bias and stereotyping was effected by the class I'm taking immediatly before this one, Curriculum Reform for a Sustainable Future. And while the excercise was interesting and a great tool, I didn't feel like it pointed out anything to me that I was already aware of. Either way, I feel like I will likely enjoy the class.

In review: victim of discrimination?

After taking some time from my altercation with the librarian, I feel like I should reflect on the experience.

I did make mistakes. I shouldn't have waited until the last minute to look into getting a camera. I shouldn't have assumed, based on Marna's info, that the librarian was ok with lending me a camera. I should have accepted the changes to the expectations for me without questioning them and/or reminding her of her previous agreements.

However, in the long run, I wasn't in the wrong. I think that this person was projecting their personal concerns or difficulties with getting things done on time, or keeping commitments onto me without cause. I can't put a finger on it, but the experiences that I have indicate to me that perhaps the librarian has trouble with time management and being organized. Her behavior towards me indicates that she expected me to have the same problems, to the point where she felt it necessary to have two entire class periods of cushion time from when I returned the camera, until it was needed, in order to maker herself feel comfortable that it would be back in time. She seemed like she so overwhelmed and absorbed by her other duties, that it was more then she could handle to offer verbal advice or directions to me. It also showed arrogance that her needs were more important then treating me respectfully. There was clear bias towards me because I am a student teacher, rather then a certified teacher. I don't know if this librarian is a classified or certified employee, although the fact that she teaches a class indicates to me that she is probably certified, but I doubt that she would have given me so much trouble if I had been a first year teacher who needed to video tape her lesson, or if, like Marna, I was a veteran expert teacher who needed to tape themselves for an award they were receiving. It's possible that age played into it as well. I felt ridiculed for my youth, as if she was equating me with some stereotypical co-ed, partying it up every night and barely passing my classes.

It was an unfortunate experience, but one that I am glad to have. I will probably continue to run into people who will judge me or treat me differently based on my age, experience and gender. People will be rude, cruel, unfair and I will have to deal with it with professionalism and grace. I think that I did that fairly well this time, all things considered, and was still able to solve my problem by calling on other resources.

Figting vainly the old ennui...

The end of the year is rough. I feel like I've reached a point with my students, especially in math, where they don't care about anything. Unlike a month or two ago, I can't draw them into a lesson by making it about something relevant, telling a clever story, or including a fun activity. They don't care about those things either. Especially not with this lat ditch effort to cover percents. There are a few kids, who if you challenge them, will get into something. I had three students working at the front of the board on solving problems involving percents that they actually had to reason to solve, not just plug things in, and they were into it, and they were working together. The rest of the class was really chaotic. I had to ask one student to sit back down in her seat three or four times. Part of the difficulty was that all of the students were in different places in their work. We were working through a packet on percents, and some students were done the first day, while others were struggling. So those that finished, I had to find more things for them to do. But those who were working, and did have things to focus on weren't. They were confused, and not necessarily paying attention, I was repeating myself over and over again.

This sort of end of the year ennui seems unavoidable. Unless you have something that students are intrinsically motivated in, which some classes, by their nature more frequently have those types of subjects (such as the Musical, which performs in two weeks). So what's a teacher to do. My cooperating teacher recommends sticking to work sheets. Keep them busy, with things that engaged the lower learning levels. Higher order thinking isn't accessible for them at this point.

Obviously it depends on the class. My 8th period didn't have nearly so much trouble focusing as my 4th period, but they are learning to add and subtract negative numbers, not exactly a task requiring analytical thinking.

So the question is, are students at a total loss for deep thought and analytical thinking this near the end of the school year?

What to do when people work against you.

I'm angry. This is the first time in a long time that I've ever felt like someone was activly working against me, or to prevent me from being successful. I'm sure that that isn't this person's purpose, but it is the result.

Several weeks ago I inquired from my cooperating teacher as to the availability of video cameras for taping myself teach. She told me that all I needed to do was go talk to the librarian, check one out, no big deal. So I pushed the topic to the back of my mind. Time flew by, and before I knew it I was (am!) nearly done with my unit for my Unit Assessment Report. Here is my big mistake, I waited (accidentally) for the last minute to talk to the librarian about signing out a camera. Perhaps I didn't understand how things worked, or who the cameras belong to, but she was taken aback and put out by my request, and acquiesced because she trusts my cooperating teacher. I was allowed to video tape my lesson upon the agreement that I would return the camera before her class the next day, and I would delete my video from the card. Since this is my third term dealing with this, I figured no problem.

Well, I've tried everything I could do in order to make that clip come off the camera and I can't figure out how to do it. None of the things that have worked before worked, so I did the logical thing and asked the Librarian if she could help me out. Her response when I told her it wasn't working? "I know, I can't manage that for you". But I just need a little bit of direction.. "I can't manage that..."

The way I'm hearing that it almost sounds like she knew I (and the other student teacher using the camera) would have trouble down loading our video, but she gave us the camera anyways, and didn't forewarn us about the potential problem.

I went to the tech guy at the school and he and I spent about 15 minutes messing with the camera and my computer trying to get it to read the files, and it wouldn't work. I'm afraid to go back and ask the librarian again because I don't want her to be angry with me, but I'm at a loss of what to do. I suppose I might just loose the film and have to do it again. The other student teacher is trying to get the files off this afternoon, so hopefully she can figure it out and fill me in.

However the really concerning thing is the fact that I feel like this other teacher is working against me, particularly trying to make this a difficult process for me because she's offended that I assumed I could check out the cameras for this purpose. How do I deal with this? Is this an issue/conflict that comes up a lot in schools? I expected more professionalism. It's possible that she is just exceedingly busy and doesn't mean to come across this way, but either way the interpersonal skills could use a little work.

Social Studies is different.

I taught my first social studies lesson on Thursday. It was on the causes of the Renaissance, most specifically about The Plague, The Hundred Year War/Joan of Arc, the Market Place, Italian City-States and the 'Spirit of the Renaissance' (or humanism and the well rounded individual). Each topic had a slide with some art on it, and I asked the students to tell me what they saw, and what it made them think of. We discussed each slide and topic, it was half me lecturing/leading them to answers, and half them discussing, theorizing about why, and providing the information themselves. I worked really hard to involve them in the discussion process, and keep them interested. I was really pleasantly surprised to see that several of the most knowledgeable and engaged students (even if their information did come from Age of Empires) were students that are often disconnected in my math lessons and do poorly.


I felt like I spent the entire time talking, and was afraid that I went on much too long, but my cooperating teacher said she thought that because of the pictures and the fact that I included the students in the discussion so much made it so it was manageable for them. Now the challenge is going to be figuring out how to vary the lessons so I don't spend every day lecturing with images and discussing with the students. Needless to say, I'm finding that teaching World History is very different then preparing to teach math, both in the planning and the execution of the lesson. Tomorrow, after we finish the slides, I have them doing an activity creating a compare and contrast chart with the classical era (Ancient Rome and Greece), the Middle Ages (in Europe) and the Renaissance. There is a section of the book that outlines that really clearly, so they should alsmost be able to copy it out, but hopefully they will learn something too. It is hard to find an assignemnt that is accessable, but challenges them to think more then just copy. Perhaps I'll also assign a critical paragraph as homework? It is particularly challenging that there are only class sets of the books, so homework needs to be something that doesn't require a book, and they can do at home. I have to keep in mind that not all students even have access to the internet, so that aspect should be challanging. I don't anticipate giving nearly as much homework in that class as I do in math. Any ideas for homework assignments that fit this bill?

Time Management

It seems to me that one of the greatest lessons that I am learning this term is that time doesn't move at a constant speed, it is indeed relative. I can prove this by the fact that the moment lunch time arrives, I suddenly discover that it is 3:00, and school is nearly done. Equally surprising is that by what feels like Monday afternoon, I need only look at the calendar to discover that it is in fact not Monday afternoon, but somehow we have arrived at Thursday.

Despite time's acceleration, I think that my previous terms of practicum work have prepared me well for my 'full time teaching', and that in turn, this term's student teaching will prepare me excellently for what will (hopefully) be my first year of teaching in the fall.

I find that I am finding a method that works for me to stay ahead of the game and prepared for each week of teaching, but not so planned out and set in stone that I cannot be flexible for the speed that the students are working/learning at.

Because I have all of the classes I teach on one day, and I only assist on the other day, I am fortunate to be able to do all of my prep at once. Depending on how the days fall, either Friday or Monday (whichever is an odd day), I plan the basic format for the week, deciding which investigations will be taught on which days, picking out the homework assignments, and deciding if there are any unusual materials that I will need to find. Then, on each odd day, I make sure that I have read through each investigation thoroughly and have planned how I want to approach it, especially identifying how I want to do a warm up (pre-teaching, or review) and trying to pre-identify any aspects of the investigation that might be confusing. I also make any photocopies I need to make (usually I try and make photocopies two days ahead, in case the students rush through an assignment and finish early). Odd days are also my opportunity to write any office hour requests slips. Office hours are the last fifteen minutes of each odd day, and it's a time I can call in students that have an over abundence of missing assignments, need to retake quizes etc.

In this way I have found a rhythm that allows me to feel prepared for each lesson, without spending hours and hours of grading and planning at home.

Though I will likely not be so lucky as to have on and off days as far as teaching, while still being 'full time', using this method to keep me organizedd this term will allow me to modify it in the future when I have even more classes to prepare for, and less time to do it in.

Where do you draw the line?

Each student is an individual. As a teacher, your expectations for each student are not the same. This is especially true when dealing with SPED students.

In my math support class, called Math 360, I have to boys in particular who have special expectations. They both have IEPs (I think), and probably ADD or ADHD, although I haven't actually had access to their files. These boys are always out of their seat, talking, and they both seem to want to slap themselves, hit their heads against things, over react etc. They're both fairly bright, but can't focus for long periods of time.

So where do I draw the line with these students as far as sending them out of the room and to their advisers, rather then just dealing with the discipline issues in classroom. I don't like to take things out of the classroom if I can help it. I don't want to escalate things for the students, I don't want the paper work, and there is probably a little bit of ego that tells me that I can deal with it myself.

Today I should have sent both of them to their advisers. My co-op teacher for that class, Zach, interjected on my behalf a couple of times, and separated one of the boys at one point, but he wanted to allow me to retain the power of sending them out of the room, rather then taking over, which I appreciate.

My problem I think was that I was so involved with trying to keep them doing something, and trying to keep the other students engaged that I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until only a minute or two were left in the period. At that point it was too late to send the student out.

So when you have students with behavior problems like that, how do you make the call about when their behavior has crossed the line. I would never tolerate their behavior today from a "normal" student, but how bad do you let it get in the interest of compassion for the student?

Can you hear my voice?

Last Friday I learned that I don't have quite as much stamina as I thought I did. Friday was my first day teaching two class periods. Soon I will add a third. Friday I started the day observing and helping out in World History with Rebecca.

She had a really interesting topic tying their history topic to today. They were studying Imperial China, and specifically discussing the Great Wall of China. The students were doing an assignment writing a mini paper comparing the Great Wall of China with the potential 'Great Wall of Mexico', specifically they are asked to discuss why both walls were built, and how they functioned, and what caused it to eventually fail (in the case of the Chinese wall) or why it may or may not work in the case of Mexico.

I think it's a really fascinating topic for kids to look at, especially 7th and 8th graders, however because of the split focus, and the style of the lesson, it was really disjointed and full of tangents. Basically, the teacher talked a bunch, and then assigned a reading and the kids had to fill out a worksheet while they read. It was terribly boring, but then again, she tried to do a role play, and it was well explained and prepared, and the students just wouldn't buy into it. I'm really excited about my unit, I have the great fortune to be teaching a period that I have great personal interest and knowledge in, I just hope I can instill some of that passion into the kids.

After the social studies class I teach a Math class full of the loudest most talkative 30 7th graders I've ever met. I spend way more of the period shouting then I'd like, but the feed back that I'm getting (and comparing my lessons to the ones Marna, my Co-op teacher taught) I'm actually don't pretty darn well. The material is a bit challenging, percents, ratio proportions are not easy concepts to get, but most of my kids will do anything they can to get out of working.

After a prep that usually doesn't feel nearly long enough, I teach my second Math 7 class. Friday was my first day of teaching this class, and about half way through my lesson I quickly realized that if I didn't start doing things a little different my voice wouldn't last until the end of the day once I started teaching my third class.

Though my last class is smaller, and more cooperative, it's the end of the day, and kids are antsy.

So my new goals for myself include working on keeping the pitch of my voice low. 'Going under them' as Marna puts it, rather then getting shrill or shrieky. I'm also trying to employ a tactic that Jenn, a member of my cohort, mentioned, of quietly saying sit down and look at me if you can hear my voice, over and over again until the whole class is seated.

Fortunately I seem to have established a pretty positive relationship with several of the more challenging students, so even if they aren't inclined to pay attention, when I ask them specifically to do something, they smile, knowing they've been caught, rather then getting upset at being asked to stop.

Will work for salary...

On Tuesday, I attended the Oregon Professional Education Fair. This is a huge job fair in Portland attended by many districts in the area, and not a few districts from other areas, especially Washington and California, but also from as far as the Bering Strait and El Paso, Texas. I arrived early and with optimism, but despite the fact that I felt confident and positive about all of my interactions with districts it was a discouraging day.

I left my resume with ten districts, but one has to wonder how much that really matters. In the world of EdZapp and internet, especially when there are hiring freezes, is handing someone a resume going to make any difference? Even if I did make a really positive impression on people, even impress them to the point where they want to hire me, are they going to remember that they felt that way about me in a month when they perhaps have an opening I'm qualified for? At least with theater, when I gave a resume, it included a head shot so the directors could remember which one I was.

Because of my personal situation (my fiance is going to school in Eugene, and we own a house in Springfield) I cannot consider moving to a new area, which means that I could only consider districts close enough for me to drive to. There was not a single district from my county at the fair. One had been signed up, but they had canceled at the last minute, an event which was particularly frustrating for a colleague of mine that had attended the fair specifically to talk to that district (Bethel).

So I talked to Corvallis, Lebanon, Roseburg, Salem... ten districts total. Not a single district had a job available that I was qualified for, although most of them also said that they didn't know what jobs they might have at all. In general it seemed as if the fair was happening to early. I heard the same story over and over again, "we just don't know yet."

The most frustrating experience was Woodburn, which is probably too far for me to travel to, in reality. I waiting in line for at least 45 minutes. I of course had chosen the slowest moving line. It was the last school on my list, and I was already achy and tired. It moved so slowly... and when I finally arrived up to the front of the line, my mini-interview was conducted to the side of the booth, standing, in the walk way, very quickly. At that point was so terribly discouraged and convinced that there was no way I was getting hired.

I was surprised at how many positions required advanced math, so I will be actively pursuing that in the next couple years. If I am indeed unsuccessful in getting a job in the fall, I will re-take those more advanced math classes that I don't remember as well. They will likely be easy classes, and it will probably come back to me, but by taking the classes, I can also steal some ideas on how to teach the material (or how not to teach it, depending). Even if I do receive a teaching position, I still want to work towards passing that praxis. Because I have already done practicums in math, I should only have to pass the praxis in order to receive the endorsement.

Regardless, I am not terribly optimistic about finding jobs, nor was anyone else at the fair, or anyone who I've talked to who is in the same position as me. And combing the district websites for openings sure makes for tedious work in the evenings.

New School, New term.

This term I am at Roosevelt Middle School which is one of the 'premier' middle schools in Eugene, it's long had a reputation for being innovative and highly rigorous academically. It's got a fairly high SES and is a feeder school to the high school with the same reputation, South Eugene High School.

The culture of the school is very, for lack of a better term, Eugenian. Equity and diversity are highly valued, though there is still a fairly traditional status quo. But students call their teachers by their first names, they get to pick their teachers and their classes with surprising freedom. It's also the only middle school that I know of that has a semi-open campus. Students are free (with parent permission) to go across the street to the local convenience store, organic grocery, or funky coffee shop.

As far as math, there seems to be a very strong program. For the at level students they rely on a curriculum called Connected Math. This is very application based, and the books don't actually ever tell students how to do anything. Instead they lead them through 'investigations' that cause students to apply the math. The downside of this highly constructivist approach is that the students often lack the concrete rules, algorithms or equations that they would gain from a more direct instruction oriented curriculum.

For those students who are below level, either because of learning disabilities, other IEP issues, or simply because math is particularly difficult for them, they take, instead of one of their electives, a class called Math 360. This class is taken on the opposite day of their regular math class and pairs pre-teaching and over-teaching with structured and guided homework help, and time using the 'Bridges to Algebra' computer math practice program .

For students who are above level, there are several class opportunities, as high as Algebra II offered, as well as math club(s) and quiz teams for those who truly enjoy math. RMS is moving towards an 'Algebra for All' approach which would place all (or nearly all) 8th graders in an algebra class, verses Algebra being an at level class for Freshman. This is likely in response at least partially to the new state requirements of three years of math Algebra or above in high school .

My situation, being paired with four total teachers, may seem chaotic or busy, but compared with my physical classroom situation last term, I don't mind a bit. My 'home location' is with Marna, and two of my other classrooms are just down the hall. My other Math 7 class is on the opposite side of the school. Despite moving around, I feel like I have had ample time to get to know and get a feel for each of my math teachers. My Social Studies teacher has been absent, so I have had a limited opportunity to talk with her. The math teachers work together very well, and have a fairly effective communication mechanism.

Right now it seems that my challenges for this term will be juggling more then one class preparation, shifting to fit in with several different teacher's house rules and styles, and integrating skill practice and drill into a highly application centered curriculum.

Final Reflection

You can tell it's the end of the term because my blog updates are coming several times a day! This is my final reflection for winter term, discussing the term as a whole.

This term has been a term of challenges for me. I am a person who likes things to be in order, organized. In fact that is part of the appeal of ‘school’ for me. You have a schedule that only varies in predictable ways that were known ahead of time, you have a classroom that you prepare so as to be suitable for your lessons, units, style of teaching etc. You have a classroom routine, that you may then choose to disrupt at choice intervals. You set down expectations for your students, with predictable consequences. Things in a classroom should follow a certain equity and logic that is not often found out in the ‘real world’. A lot of my difficulties this term had to do with a school environment that was not many of these things. I started out ‘working’ in a class that felt more like a freshman seminar then a high school class, especially since the teachers didn’t need my help. I had very little to do at first except observe, participate and enjoy. Then suddenly everything changed and I was in a chaotic classroom, that shared many classes and teachers, that was also the lunch room, with a class that was nearly too large for the room, and didn’t have many clear expectations, at least not based on my observations of student behavior. And then again, I was thrust into yet a different classroom, with even more limitations as far as technology, resources and space. I think that the hardest part of all of this was the fact that I couldn’t be in my classroom before class started. Perhaps I could have taken more initiative and asked about getting keys, or getting let into the classroom early, but I didn’t. I was spoiled last term in that my teacher had prep first thing in the morning so I could come in at 8 am and have two hours of time in the classroom without students, or sometimes even my cooperating teacher. It was a peaceful and relaxing way to make sure that I was completely ready for class, and had all of my resources ready. I now appreciate just how lucky I was.
Another huge challenge for me had to do with the uniqueness of the students. A lot of these students aren’t regular students, they are at our school for a reason, they are artists, performers, musicians. Regular school wasn’t cutting it for them. That is the sort of high school student I was, and I find that that type of high school student is often more mature then your normal high school student. I have a knack for building relationships with my students, and maintaining positive relationships with them. With these students I had a hard time maintaining those positive relationships without slipping into my ‘just Ruth’ mode. I had to constantly remind myself that I was still the teacher. These kids reminded me a lot of younger friends and family members of mine and it was difficult not to treat them like friends. I felt like I was constantly moving back and forth between two personas inside of myself. Perhaps this is an issue that would solve itself with time as I adjusted to the age group, and as I continue myself to get older (and theoretically more mature). I think that this is part of the reason that I prefer middle school students, is that as much as I might like a middle school student at a person, I am in no danger of accidentally treating them like a peer.
Finally, designing curriculum is really hard. It sounds obvious, and I knew it was hard getting into it, but I had anticipated more resources or help. I feel like I didn’t know what I was supposed to teach about quadrilaterals, so I just sort of picked something that I thought was right, and erred on the side of the simple. I then feel like from watching Aaron teach the unit (twice now) that I taught the wrong things, or forgot to teach many things. I feel like my unit was sort of useless, which I know from the analysis in my assessment report isn’t true, but it’s hard not to be discouraged when most of your students don’t even turn in their final project.
Despite a discouraging tone in this reflection, my over all experience at A3 was a positive one. I love that school and what they are trying to do, and I feel like it is the type of school that I would like to spend time teaching at, I just don’t think I’m ready for it yet.

Homework

Homework always seems to be a point of contention and conflict in education. Some schools of thought seemed to believe that only through doing homework can students master skills. I admit their arguments are convincing. If a student can perform a skill at home where they don't have their teacher or peers to help them, then they truly know how to do it. I know from personal experience that homework tests how well I know how to do something very well. I might think I understand in class, and then get home and look at the homework and be totally lost. I've found this true in math classes, as well as other types of classes from social studies, to music, to theater.

On the other hand, I have also often done my homework with little attention to what I was doing, and just done it to be finished. Likewise I have often been in situations, most often in high school, where I knew the material very well, and had to do the busy work of homework. In many of my classes, I did all my learning in class. I also understand how many teachers give their students homework as if their class was the only class, or the most important class.

So what do we do about homework? All things in moderation I suppose. I think it is important that students learn how to do homework. They need to learn how to budget their time and plan ahead so that they can turn in an assignment when it is due, even if they have no little to no time in class to work on it.

I have recently been working in a class that Does Not Do Homework. The fact that these students lack the will, work ethic, or whatever to do homework is incredibly frustrating, and it means that I have only the time in class to give them to practice their skills. It is clear to me after this experience that No Homework is not a good option for my style of teaching.

I think that perhaps I would start of the year with homework most nights, and grading it all very carefully. This way I would build the homework habit, and students would be concerned about doing it. Then I would slowly ease up on the amount of homework assigned and choose to grade only a couple problems, or grade it for completion. This seems to me like a happy medium, but do you think the students would 'catch on' and stop doing the homework? I know that it's not always a priority for students, especially it seems high school students who have all kinds of other drama of relationships, friendships, and more 'real world' issues. So how do we convince students that it's important to do their homework?

Pessimism

During my ELL class last week the HR guy from one of the local school districts came in to speak to our class. I think that my professors purpose was to bring in people who could talk about the opportunities for ELL education in Lane County, and discuss what sort of programs existed in this area. However, I felt more like he came in to tell us all that we weren't going to get jobs.

I understand that he was speaking to a class that was focused on teaching strategies designed for working with EL students, specifically the SIOP model, however I'm not sure if he was aware that many of us are not receiving ESOL endorsements, and none of us are receiving SIOP certification from this course, despite the fact that we have spent at least the last five weeks on the protocol.

The message that I received was that if you didn't have an ESOL endorsement or some sort of SPED certification, then that school district probably wouldn't even look at you for a job. And unless you were foreign and bilingual, your chance at getting a job was slim.

So I understand that this is just information from one guy, about one district, but it leaves me significantly less optimistic then I was before, and it also leave me feeling a bit tricked. If EL certification was so important now, why didn't they tell us this back in the summer when we could have done something about it. Why didn't they tell us then that they were going to start requiring it as part of the program, instead of waiting until part of the way through Fall term when it was too late to take the methods course?

I understand that things take time to change, and I can appreciate that, but it seems like the least that they could do is make it so that the ESOL strategies class that we elected to take actually left us with some sort of certification. After having spent a term learning all about SIOP, I feel sort of cheated that I don't have the sort of certification that a person who takes a weekend seminar on SIOP would have simply because our teacher wasn't certified by the company. It comes down to money. Whoever publishes SIOP wants to be paid for letting people teacher their stuff, and someone somewhere at the University decided that the SIOP class wouldn't include an element by a certified SIOP instructor, so I am left with no certification in an area that could mean the difference between me getting a job, or not getting a job.

I guess it's all just making me a bit blue.

What Teachers Make

If you haven't heard this poem before, hear it now.
By Taylor Mali

Things I've learned it's ok to do

Aaron, the primary geometry teacher at A3 is now teaching practically the same unit as I taught right now, to a different group of kids. As she is combating the same issues I ran into, I am pleased to be able to steal the ways with which she is dealing with them. A lot of things that she is doing, I feel like they are things for which I feel as if I need 'permission'. For instance, I need permission to give them lots of extra time, permission to extend the deadlines, permission to give different students with different needs different requirements or levels of expectations, permission to have students retake a quiz if they are unsuccessful. I don't know if it is my background as a good student, or how much time I've spent recently in college, where you are accountable for your own assignments, and have to make things up on your own time, or if these students are particularly challenging (probably a little of each) but I feel like if I have them redo a quiz or something like that, during class time, I'm losing in some way, or giving in. It's apparently a feeling that I need to get over, because it isn't helping my students.

I am also keenly aware of how important time is. More then ever I am happy that as I begin teaching we are beginning to implement the new State Focal points, rather then the multitude of standards. These focal points, if you aren't familiar with them, are a new format of standards, where each year there are three topics that students are expected to master. There are several subtopics, and mini-units within this, but the focus is on mastering several skills, rather then being introduced to many skills. For instance, for 8th grade math the three focal points are:
8 .1 Algebra: Analyze and represent linear functions, and solve linear equations and systems of linear equations .
8 .2 Data Analysis and Algebra: Analyze and summarize data sets .
8 .3 Geometry and Measurement: Analyze two- and three-dimensional
spaces and figures by using distance and angle.

There are 6-8 sub points beneath each, but this is everything that 8th grade math should cover, right there.

The high school focal points have not yet been instated, but I am confidant that focusing on fewer topics, with the goal of mastery, will better serve students, and allow for teachers to feel less rushed.

The other thing that I have been working on is my data analysis from my unit. I am disappointed in a few things. First of all, my average on my post assessment was below passing, not by much, but still below, second, several of the topics that I figured were easy, and spent little time one, the students didn't internalize. Specifically, the fact that the measure of the internal angles of a quadrilateral is 360 degrees. This is my fault, because the fact seemed so obvious to me that besides mentioning it a few times near the beginning of the unit, I hardly focused on it. Likewise, I focused a lot on characteristics, and it showed in the test scores, being one of three objectives that scored a passing average, but students were bored to death. In this new unit that Aaron is teaching (and I am teaching as well, since she has been absent, and I have taught her sub plans), we are focusing less on characteristics specifically, and more on the math symbols used to describe those characteristics, and focusing a lot more on interior angles and solving for them, which helps to integrate problem solving into the unit earlier. I didn't get to actual problem solving until only a few days before the end of the unit.

I guess you could say that the experiences of reteaching/observing the same material, with the same type of students, in the same space immediately after I've taught it is a particularly enlightening learning experience that most people don't get to experience, and I am glad for the opportunity.

Old News

I feel a distinct impression of being 'old news' now at A3. Initially (once J Term was over) I received a lot of help, explanation, people told me what was going on. This morning as I came into school, the staff room was deserted, my cooperating teacher was no where to be found. I didn't have anything to prep, since I was finished with my unit and I couldn't find anyone to see if they needed help.

It was a strange feeling. Suddenly I was 'done'. This is particularly concerning because I still have to do my midterm PGA, and a large portion of my School Improvement Project.

I just have this feeling that as far as the school is concerned, I'm old news.

"Not my responsibility...."

Student accountability seems to be one of the biggest challenges at A3. Students do not do homework most of the time. And if you let them, they will be totally off task during class. They do this even when they have a large project due. So if they won't work on it during class, and they won't work on it out of class, then how do you get them to do it at all?

Another way that this effects the classroom is if a student is absent, they take no responsibility for finding out what they missed and making it up, or if they were late with something or haven't turned it in yet, they forget about it. I was just entering the grades in my cooperating teacher's grade book and there are several students who I had noted that they had it done, but had left it at home, or they had asked for their missing work, and I'd given it to them. But none of this work has found its way back to me.

So what are a teachers options in a situation like this? My first inclination is that it is something that needs to be addressed at the very beginning of the school year. Setting protocol and expectations for what happens when you are absent. The expectations for missing work, homework etc. I feel like perhaps those types of expectations were not very clearly set up at the begining of the year. But, barring that kind of intial set up, what are the other options? Will being a hard ass help? Can I remind students enough to actually make a difference? There is only so much that I can do to make a project interesting, I think the archetecture project that we are doing is really interesting and engaging, with lots of options for creativity, but that hasn't been enough to motivate all students. Maybe a big tracking chart for assignments would help. In the spring I will be faced with long term teaching of a group that I didn't set expectations for at the begining of the year. I won't necessarily know what kind of expectations the teacher will have set up, and it will be up to me to set a classroom situation where students are held accountable for their own assignments and missing work.

Gah!

I am completely using up my color ink cartridge in order to print stuff for my Professional Portfolio. I hope it's worth it!

High school is kinda scary...

My experiences so far tell me that I like Middle School students better then high school students. Well, that's not quite right, I don't necessarily like high school students less, I just like teaching them less. The apathy is astounding. I'm sure it doesn't help that I have a really unique and particularly challenging group of students. Many of the A3 students are kids who have tried other high schools and been unsuccessful. Also, since it is an art high school, there is a high volume of math phobics. I am also truly appreciating how difficult it is to start with students half way through the year.

Yesterday my lesson started out ok, if not particularly exciting, but then, when we got the interesting part, I floundered. We spent some time with vocab, before doing a neat little activity called polygon brainstorm.

I should preface this by saying that the classroom I'm using is less then ideal. For Monday and Tuesday I didn't have enough tables for all of my students so five of them were on the floor, or just in chairs. It just so happened that that group of students was also my loudest and most challenging group. Not just that, but it is a shared space with lots of windows and mirrors (that can be distracting) that is a block and half away from the main school. There are minimal in classroom supplies available, and I can't get into the classroom before my class starts, so any classroom prep that I want to do has to happen in the five minutes as the students are milling into the room, and setting up the extra tables. Fortunately today (Wednesday) I got my fifth table, so everyone is now at tables.

So, since I have a very heterogeneous group of students, some finished really quickly, others took forever. But for the most part it was ok, until we moved on the formula invention activity I had planned.

I should say I was not entirely prepared to teach that activity. I had ideally planned for it to be the activity for Wednesday, but since I wasn't sure how long the brain storm activity would take, I wanted to make sure that if they finished early, I had something for them to do. Well they finished early, not just early but 30 minutes early. So I plowed right into the equation invention activity, and totally botched the explanation. It's a really logical activity to me. There are large shapes of a right and nonright triangle, a trapezoid, and a parallelogram and you have to cut them up and make them into rectangles in order to invent the equation for them. Seems like a really visual, really great way to make sure that students understand the origins of formulas. They were totally lost, and not just confused, but vocally expressing how lost and confused they were and how stupid they thought the activity was. It was all I could do to try and help those students who were actually trying, let along try and get those off task back to math.

Today I had a behavior problem as well, but this was one I was more prepared to deal with, although I've never had a confrontation go this far before. I have a student who is autistic. He is not super high functioning, but he also isn't severely handicapped by it. He's a huge geek, in fact this is the kid that I discussed D&D with a few weeks ago. He was blatantly not participating in the flash card/vocab activity they were working on. Not only was he not participating, but he was being really rude to one of his group members who was trying to get him to do something. I asked him to participate, and suggested some solutions for how they could both work on the project and he flipped out an started saying how stupid the assignment was and how he didn't have his notes, and that if he wrote down this stuff it would mean he was stupid etc. He was starting to get really loud so I asked him to leave the room with me, and he refused. So at this point, inside I'm freaking out. I have this combatant 14 year old boy who has all sorts of negative experiences with school and probably especially group work, who is flat out refusing a direct instruction by me. Finally after some insisting using my "I'm serious" voice he agreed to leave. At this point the teacher (not Danny, my cooperating teacher, but Aaron, his partner teacher) joined me in the hallway, though she let me take the lead in the discussion with him. The kid wouldn't let me say much, just kept repeating himself, and how it was stupid to write stuff down, and asking why I was treating the class like kindergartners etc. he specifically said that just because he's autistic doesn't mean he's stupid, which indicates to me that he has had people call him stupid because of his autism before. I wasn't making any progress getting him to even listen to what I was saying, let alone convince him to work on his assignment. Aaron finally joined me and her strategy was to ask what we could do to make the assignment more interesting. She had noticed, where I had missed, that he was saying that the assignment was boring. I had gotten caught up in the 'taking notes makes you stupid' comment, and forgotten what has started the whole conflict. Finally he agreed to do the assignment, and we went back into the classroom. One thing that was interesting to me throught this interchange was that he kept trying to leave and go back to class, and I had to physically stand between him and the door, and actually put my hand on the doorknob to prevent him from going back into the class. It was clear that he didn't like the attention from the teachers, and wonder if the fact that we were both women had any effect on his attitude.

After he rejoined the class he made flashcards, but he just made them randomly of words he could think of instead of the six words that he and his group had agreed to do. Only two of his other group members were there, one is very smart and tried hard but is a smart aleck and talks a lot. The other was a girl who was very smart, and I think already knows most of this, she was working on the flash cards, by drawing anime faces on the ones she had already finished (She proceeded to do that for the rest of the period, despite my gentle reminders to do otherwise). So the boy who was trying hard was extremely frustrated. He was one of my problem kids from Tuesday's lesson, and he wasn't any trouble today, but I could see on his face he was ready to just give up because of how frustrating his group members were, and honestly I don't blame him. if I were in his position, I would probably be a pain to my teachers too. I'm not sure what to do about that group. Aaron and I are going to meet during lunch to talk about today's incident.

The other thing that I've notices with high school students is that I relate to them really easily and well, which makes it that much more difficult to maintain a sense of authority with them, especially in this environment. I'm finding it hard to fit into the culture of the school, while still being an authority/teacher figure.

Resources/Brainteasers for Quadralaterals Unit

Euclid's Elements Interactive Text Book

Math Dictionary

Geometry Puzzlers

Brain Teasers

This is hard.

A flashlight in the dark

I finally got a few minutes to talk to Danny, my co-op teacher about my unit (which will probably be starting February 9th). Unfortunately, he doesn't really know much about it. In general the math curriculum, well, doesn't exist. I think that this is the first year that he has taught geometry here and there aren't many/any resources that the school has. As a policy, the school doesn't use text books. This is both a philosophical and a monetary decision, I believe, and I appreciate what they are going for with that. Too often it seems like teachers take a text book as curriculum whole sale, and just go through the book with little to no supplementing. This can be a particular mistake with students that are similar to the ones at A3. As an arts high school, a lot of the students have math phobia (and many of the teachers too). In an effort to draw in those students, and help them to appreciate and enjoy math, most of the instruction is inquiry or project based. The problem being that as of yet, there aren't any existing lesson plans or projects, or even sources for problems for me to draw from. Maybe I'll go buy a Geometry text book from Smith Family, just to use as a resource for equations/problems, I already have an Algebra and a Calculus book.

Danny walked me through how a typical day goes for them in math. He says they like to start with a warm up or brain teaser, and then move into explaining and discussing the concepts they'll be working with. He didn't really go into any specifics as to how that is usually done. Definitions and vocabulary are usually a large focus for the students, as that is often what holds them back from understanding what is going on. After the concepts are addressed, the students break into small groups and work on figuring out one or two problems. After they have had a period of time to work, and come up with a solution, each group shares what they did and how/why they did it. This, Danny said, is often the most difficult part for students, the explanation of why thy do certain steps. It seems like there is a general 'no homework' policy, though I'm not sure if that is just these particular teacher's philosophy, or a school wide policy. In general I don't think that assigning tons of homework is necessary, however, allowing students an opportunity to work on the math concepts in a different space, without the resources of their friends and teachers can be a great learning experience. On the other hand, I was just reading an article for my Curriculum Assessment Alignment class that was discussing the fact that school trains students for a type of work that is not often found in the real world. How often would a person have to do computations without the aid of a peer or adviser, outside of academic and assessment situations?

So now my task is to search for problems, vocab and brain teasers for dealing with quadrilaterals, and find a way to integrate them into the culture of the math classroom, without ever actually seeing that culture. Not to mention make sure that those materials and goals are aligned with the content standards for Geometry. This is definitely a new challenge.

Stepping back into music, a bit.

This week, I had the pleasure of observing in the '20th Century Music' class. Rather then having a feeling of a beginning and end, the class felt more a continuation of the previous class, like I did when I was doing my Webquest last term. After some off topic (though slightly related, and definitely important) discussion about the violence in the Middle East, and how that affects American military, the students spent some time working on a comparative timeline, they were to hit a variety of dates from 1938 to 1975. They had to list major events in the Civil Rights Movement (if there were any), the Vietnam War (if there were any), and several of the top songs on the charts. For each topic, the teacher had a website designated as a starting place to look, though students were allowed to look at whatever sights I wanted. I was very surprised to hear that students were allowed, even encouraged to use Wikipedia for facts such as dates, who what when where etc. though cautioned that it is less reliable for things that are more subjective. I'll admit I use Wikipedia frequently, either for info that is for my interest only, or as a starting place to find links to other, more reliable websites, but to see it encouraged in high school was a little strange. I think it also makes it so easy for students to find the info they need, that many of them will stop there, and not learn the skills necessary to do actual internet research, which they will need come college.

The next focus for the class was listening to the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song 'Ohio' and discussing the Kent State tragedy. We listened to the song and looked at pictures from the riots, as the two teachers (mostly Jim, the music teacher and the older of the two, Josh, the humanities[Social Studies/Language Arts] teacher may not have been alive during Kent state, he looks to be in his late twenties). After discussing the event, which many of the students hadn't heard of, there was a teacher dominated, but very informative and student participatory discussion about different social issues of the late Vietnam War (and any war really), war weariness, nationalism, polarization, the draft. We spent a particularly long time discussing the draft, draft dodging, what people's options were and what that means to people who's children are serving, or who served themselves. Both Jim and Josh shared personal experiences which I thought was very touching and really helped the kids identify. It was a particularly interesting dynamic in that class because there was one boy who was quite negative in general, but I couldn't tell if his negativity was directed at the army, or at those to avoided the army. He made mention of plans to go into the military, but several of his comments seemed to indicate a distaste for the draft or coerced service at least. Either way it added an interesting dynamic to the discussion, and either by merit of the boy, or merit of the expectations set down by the teachers, the negativity did not escalate in to confrontation, and when the discussion ended, it seemed like everything was normal.

The final portion of class was spent working on a project that they had started the week before. Each student was using a Mac laptop and the program Garage Band, with a synthesizer hooked up, and they were creating their own arrangements of the song 'Strange Fruit'. Students could use the melody and the lyrics, or one or they other, and they were creating their own version. They seemed really into the project, though the idea of it terrifies me, I've always had an aversion to composition. However, as the students all disappeared into their own worlds with their pianos and headphones, Jim and I got a chance to sit and talk about the types of classes he and the other music teacher teach during regular terms, as well as his focus. He is highly into composition, and composes many of the pieces that the ensembles perform, as well as teaches a composition class. It was also just really nice to sit and geek out with someone about music theory, obviously since starting the Education program, I have had limited contact with other music students who care about chord progressions, or would know what I mean when I talk about counterpoint. The music group at A3 seems very welcoming and energized, I can't wait for the opportunity to check out some of their ensembles later in therm.

On an unrelated note, I am having a hard time trying to choose which school to go with in the spring. I am totally loving A3, though I've yet to see what teaching math looks like here yet, but I also loved working at Briggs. I think Briggs would be easier for me to do my student teaching at, as the resources are more plentiful and the techniques more standard, but the challenge and attitude of A3 is very attractive. A3 is the type of school that I would want to be my permanent home, but the facts of the matter are, I am not well certified to be a high school teacher, so perhaps I should focus on getting more middle school experience. It's a decision I can't possible make until we go back to the regular term, and I get to know these kids better.

Stardate 010609

The students keep a journal, excuse me log in which they write their responses to the readings. Since I read at a much greater speed then the students, I found myself with some extra time during their hour of reading, and have written a few posts during that time.

Jan 6, 2009

Despite the fact that class was supposed to begin at 8, the teachers didn't arrive until 8:03 and 8:10 respectively. Understandably class should begin a bit late, allowing student to find the way but 8:23 seems a lot late.There are also quite a few fewer students there. It is yet to see if they are absent or late, or have dropped the class.

One of the teachers, Scott, is definitely the old hippie type - very Counrty Fair, long shaggy hair, round John Lennon glasses, tye dye shirt, glass om pendant. Even his speech patterns. I like him, he's a little scattered and seems to dominate the teaching, although that could be because he is the Humanities (Language Arts/Social Studies) teacher, and Danny is the Inquiries teacher (Science/Math)

We read 'Who Goes There', or began it anyways, a novella that the movie 'The Thing' is based on. They will watch the film one of these afternoons. Danny and Scott make a bit emphasis about the high expectations that they have for this class, 'We are at a college, we need to act like we are in college'.

The students are given about an hour to read the 15 page assignement and respond to the questions, then there i a discussion, which is really mostly summary, and pulling out the important bits to make sure everyone notices, and a discussion of the science that is used.

-I noticed that there are a ton of late students, very late
-Scott often used a character voice or anecdotes, especially non-examples or counter examples, to explain ideas, or how characters are thinking, it's a little hokey, but I think it really helps the students.
-Danny frequently makes depreciating comments to himself, and/or his geekery.

January 7, 2009

Considering that the original impression that I received implied that A3 was all about cooperative learning, so far this class has been very teacher centered. There has been silent reading, teacher led/facilitated discussion, and video watching. It's a great class, don't get me wrong, but it is more 'typical' then I expected.

-Students are allowed to wear headphones/iPods while they do their silent reading, there was no question or discussion about it, just something the students did. However it isn't disruptive, and they don't wear them during the discussions.

-IRE model is rampant, teachers are definitely searching for specific answers and trying to get the students to say them. Polite disregard of answers that are unexpected or don't match.

-In general, most students seem to be on task, and engaged in each activity.

January 9, 2009

Operation Carrot: The plan is to show a film right at 8 o'clock to encourage kids to show up on time. This morning it is the pilot of 'Firefly'.

I was able to make a connection with a kid over D&D. He was looking for some non-combat skills to add to a character creation sheet he was inventing and I suggested a few, and then a few more. He responded "Wow, you're good." Interestingly, this is one of the students that I find the most trying, he is frequently off topic and shouts out commentary during films, but apparently compared to the fall, the fact that he is engaged is huge.

January 14, 2009

There is a a girl, who always sits in the back, on the floor, even when there are seats in chairs available. During the movies she reads her novel (not the novel assigned for class), using a book light. ON the one hand, it seems that the teachers here allow students to make their own choices about learning, as long as it doesn't disrupt others, but no one as has asked her not to do it. I would have said something by now, in a private conversation after class. In general I've noticed that the teachers don't say 'no' much. They make a suggestion for an alternative, and give a reminder about what you are supposed to be doing, but not once have I heard "Please stop doing ______".

Elements of discussion

I mentioned a few elements of the discussion elements of the Sci-Fi class. Though especially initially I found several things foreign, there aren't as many differences n the teaching styles as I expected. When the class isn't reading or watching a film, they are usually discussing, (although there has been some writing as well). The discussion is teacher guided and facilitated (usually by Scott) though the students take a very active role. The discussion questions supplied aren't just vehicles for the student understanding, but the teachers each answer the prompts themselves as well, and discuss their understanding, and the things that they are ore ignorant of.
There is a wide variety of levels of eloquency and thoughtfulness is huge. Some students levels of discussion are simple anecdotes that bear little to no relation to the subject at hand. Others bring of deep and meaningful points that are things I hadn't even thought about. I'm not used to that, it's very different from the middle school where students discussion level is more on the same level. Perhaps that has to do with the fact that in elementary school there is less opportunity for discussion then in other levels. But in High school the stratification is so much greater. It could also have to do with the fact that high schoolers look older. Many of them look to be adults, or at least look old enough that I associate them with peers more the middle schoolers. I also noted that in the discussions, the students are very respectful of each others opinions (for the most part) they participate in the discussions without shooting down each other ideas, a lot of interrupting or other disruptive behaviors.

On the first day the teachers made an important distinction, they said that grading for the class will be based on effort, which I think is really important to spell out for the kids from the begining, to know that they will be graded on their best effort, rather then only the quality of their work, or how 'right' it is. I think that making that clear will encourage kids to do their best work, and not let an idea that they can't do a good enough job keep them from trying, after all, if they are genuinely trying, they will get the A.

Initial Impression: A3

http://www.athree.org/
The new term/year began with everyone meeting up in a gym in the community center across the street, being the only room the school has access to that is large enough to fit the entire school. The lead teacher welcomed everyone and gave instruction. For the few minutes prior to the announcements however I was able to observe the general interaction at that school, and the student body. High energy. Many of the kids were very excited to be there, however their greetings and excitement weren't limited to just the other students, teachers were also greeted with hugs and enthusiastic welcomes, and a ton of questions of a fairly personal nature. Anecdotes of vacation were traded in all directions, with a level of detail and honesty on the part of the teachers that surprised me. It is unsurprising that at A3 everyone is on a first name basis, no Mr. or Mrs., so I am Ruth, not Ms.Ames. Another thing I've noticed is the prevalence of minor swear word by both the faculty and the students. Now, no one is dropping f bombs or anything, but it is commonplace for hell, damn, shit, crap or bastard to be used not only in conversation between classes, but even in the vocabulary of the teacher during discussions. I have mixed feelings on this issue, and it took me a bit to get used to, especially since at Briggs were were asked not to say crap or sucks in front of students, or where students might overhear. I personally have no problem with so-called strong language. Word have the power we choose to give them, and if you say fudge instead of f**k, people still know what you mean, and what your intention is, so how is it different? On the other hand, I know that a lot of parents don't want their children to be exposed to that sort of language, and many students may be uncomfortable with it themselves. By using strong language a teacher might set up a barrier between themselves and a student and loose someone's respect. I've been told that you can gain student's respect either by being their friend, or being their authority figure, or mentor. Some people can walk the line and be both. So far, from what I've seen these teachers are doing a great job of treading that thin line.

A3 has a J term for the month of January, their students get to pick from one or two classes to take, which they are in all day, from 8 to 4:15. The options for the J term classes are quite varied. I'm currently working in the Science/Science Fiction class, which is taught by my cooperating teacher Danny Ramirez, and another teacher named Scott, who teaches humanities normally (Language Arts and Social Studies). So Scott handles most of the lit stuff, and Danny takes more of the science side of things. The class is run much like a college film study class, with reading as well. It reminds me a lot of the freshman seminar I took called Tokyo:Cyberpunk where we watched, discussed and wrote about a variety of cyberpunk films, a sub-genre of Sci-Fi. Another surprising thing to me is that several rated R movies are on the list. This decision I support wholeheartedly. So many of the quality Sci-Fi films out there are R, the ones that are pivotal, and set trends. One notable subtlety in the language and culture of the class is the use of the word 'geek' as a title of honor, and something strive for.

The format of the class, as I said, resembles that of a college film seminar with one huge difference. Unlike any other class or classroom I have ever been in, their is no sense of "NOT ENOUGH TIME!" The class moves along at a leisurely pace, class starts about 5 minutes late each day, allowing for students who missed the bus to the U of O (where our class is held, we use a room in the Science Library). Scott and Danny recently decided to shift to beginning class with an episode of either The Twilight Zone or Firefly, hopefully to motivate students to arrive on time. There is some discussion of the different elements and then we move onto the reading for the day. This was the most strange, foreign thing to me the first day. We spent an entire hour silent reading, and they only had to cover 15 pages in that hour, though they were free to read farther if they needed to. And everyone was so relaxed about it. No sense of rush, no worry that we weren't going to get through the material. It was a much nicer way to run class. Now that might be unique to the J term, but getting to feel how it is to be relaxed and take time during a class session will help me to strive for that sort of ambiance in my own classroom, even if I can't achieve it in whole.