Life as Teacher

Kids talking about abortion

2010-01-20T21:07:00.000-08:00

Well that was a surprise. I was subbing in a Middle School leadership class the other day and the lesson left for me asked students to make posters about what they wished they could do to change the world. I had two students say 'stop abortion'.

I wasn't really prepared for this. Fortunately it was a school that I had subbed pretty frequently so I knew the students, but I didn't know them REALLY well.

Each student had the opportunity to get up and talk about their poster, why it was important to them, and what they could do in their life to help accomplish that.

I was scared, but it actually went really well. I allowed the students to lead the discussion, asking questions themselves and answering themselves. I acted as a referee, making sure kids were only talking one at a time, and that each discussion got a fair amount of time, but didn't get out of hand, over focused, or turn into an argument. There were a few times when I took the opportunity to inform based on fact, but mostly I kept out of it. I often restated what students said, clarifying and summarizing, and they then reaffirmed if what I said was what they meant.

It went really well in my opinion, and after school I asked one of the most opinionated girls who lead a discussion about ending abortion and asked how I did, and whether I let my personal bias through, and she said I hadn't and she thought I did a great job. I'm glad to hear that, and glad I've crossed that hurdle now. Students got a chance to voice their opinions and examine difficult issues, and I managed to keep my mouth shut!

Aethetics vs Excess

2010-01-20T20:48:00.001-08:00

This particular post is inspired by the building that my new evening job is on. The John Jaqua Activity Center for Student Athletes. It's a brand new building on the UO campus, built by Phil Knight of Nike, for giving academic aid to student athletes.

The building is gorgeous in a modern archetecture crazy way. The pictures give you a basic idea. However, this building was REALLY expensive. Really. Phil Knight won't stay how much, but lets just say there's a hand stitched yellow Italian leather couch in the lobby. In education, especially colleges, I love how the space is beautiful. Graceful, stately, comic, the buildings are part of the joy of attending. No one wants to go to a school that looks like a prison (anyone seen Springfield High School?)

However, when does making a space beautiful and interesting cross the line into excess? I'm not sure if the Jaqua building crosses that line, but if it doesn't it's darn close. Thoughts?

Getting their money's worth

2010-01-20T20:37:00.000-08:00

My mom warned me before I ever started subbing that some principals are super picky about making sure their subs stay all the way until the end of the day, even if they are doing NOTHING. I was very careful about that at first, but after spending some time at the same schools, which were happy to allow me to leave as soon as I was finished, I relaxed and accidently got myself in trouble.

Well, in trouble might be a little strong. At a school I subbed at a few weeks ago, the bell rang, I cleaned up the room, finished up my notes, and headed to the office to check out. I thought I'd spent a fair amount of after school time to make it seems as if I was doing stuff, so I'd only be leaving a few minutes early, but because this particular teacher's schedule had two free periods at the end of the day, I judged wrong. I arrived down at the office a full 30 minutes before I was supposed to leave and was told that I was supposed to stay until 3:45. She ended up having me stand outside (in the cold and rain) until 3:45 or the rest of the students were gone, whichever came first.

This annoys me.

I get it, you're paying me for 8 hrs, you want me to work for 8 hours. But the pure stupidity of having a person sit on their ass and do nothing (or alternatively read a novel) is ridiculous. I see it more like you are paying me to do the job of subbing for this teacher, the hours aren't the deal, it's the job. Do the job, get the pay. This is especially silly because in this situation I had already asked if the library needed help, I had asked the office and they had nothing except supervising space that was already supervised. If I'm an actual teacher who has actual planning and meetings and other things to use for that time, that is logical. A teacher who leaves early every day should be making the time up some other time. But as a substitute, there is nothing I Can do to help the teacher I'm covering for. In fact, even organizing or cleaning or grading, which might initially appear to be helpful tasks, might actually create more work for the teacher. I know that I wouldn't want a sub that I didn't know to do any of that for me, I want to look at my own students work, and do my own organizing.

Yes, the school deserves a full day of my time, but if you're going to make me stay after the work for my teacher is done, they better have something for me to do.

This is my opinion, what do you guys think, am I being reasonable? Is it ridiculous or commonplace for a school to expect me to sit and do nothing in my classroom instead of go home when I'm done.

Does a sub get paid for doing the job, or working the hours?

Things I've learned

2010-01-20T20:32:00.001-08:00

After a few months of subbing all over the place i have learned two things that are absolutely HUGE to me.

1. Students are dismissed when I dismiss them. In my classroom students will work until the bell rings, when the bell rings, they will sit quietly until I dismiss them. Period. I don't want students controlling when they leave my classroom, this is a privileged that can be saved for college. Having me dismiss students isn't JUST about power, it also allows me to dispense any last minute reminders or announcements, and make changes to information that I've perhaps given out later.

2. No lining up at the door. In the event that I do ask students to clean up before the bell rings, they will not line up at the door, they will sit in their seats (unless it's the end of the day and I have to put chairs up, in which case they would stand behind their chair), and then they may leave when I dismiss them. When students start crowding up by the door it limits my ability to make any last minute announcements and encourages stampeding.

It's this sort of management stuff that I find I am learning what works, and what's my style every day I enter a new classroom.

Things have been brewing... an anecdote!

2010-01-20T20:25:00.000-08:00

I've been jotting down blog topics for a couple weeks and haven't found time to type them, so I apologies for the quickness of these posts.

The Friday before school started back up after the new year I went out for a friends birthday to a bar, I ordered a drink and some food and wasn't carded. This isn't terribly surprising, though I did notice. I'm 24 and tend to look/seem fairly mature (or so I thought).

What was weird, was Monday morning I subbed at a school I hadn't been at much. I woke up late, and didn't have time to pack a lunch so I was stuck eating school lunch, not the end of the world. I finished eating up in the staff room and headed down to the cafeteria to return my tray. As I was leaving, one of the aids approached me and said "Are you a new student?"

This was at a middle school, yes at age 24 I was mistaken for a 6th, 17th or 8th grader, within DAYS of not being carded at a bar.

Apparently I defy recognition by looking both over 26 and under 14 at the same time!

Over Parenting

2009-11-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-31T11:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-09-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

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 :

2009-07-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-21T19:54:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-06-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-06-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-04-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-04-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-04-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

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

Things I've learned it's ok to do

2009-03-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

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...."

2009-02-24T11:07:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-02-18T23:41:00.001-08:00

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...

2009-02-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-25T18:02:00.000-08:00

Euclid's Elements Interactive Text Book

Math Dictionary

Geometry Puzzlers

Brain Teasers

This is hard.

A flashlight in the dark

2009-01-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-11T23:12:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-11T22:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-11T20:41:00.000-08:00

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.

Winter Haze

2008-12-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

I am enjoying my first Winter Break since I was 15 during which I haven't had to work.

I should be studying for my Social Studies Praxis II coming up in January, or brushing up on my Geometry since I will be teaching it starting in February.

My placement is now official. I will be at A3 an artistically oriented charter high school. I have several friends who's children go there (as well as several of the older siblings of my students from this fall) and a few of my friends also work and/or volunteer there. I met with my Cooperating Teacher, Danny Ramirez and his partner teacher, Aaron (who is actually a woman despite the masculine spelling). They have 45 students in their class, and they teach a hybrid 'Inquiries' class including math and science.

The nature of he class is entirely inquiry based. No teacher lectures, we present the problem and the tools, the kids figure it out. This is NOT going to be an easy thing for me to do. Fortunately I get to spend a month adjusting to the school before I have to jump in and teach. They have a J term, which is a month long term where students attend only one or two classes, but they are specific and in depth. A lot of colleges do this. My father took a J term class called 'Man In Winter' that put him on the path towards his trips to the Arctic. Anyways, I get to choose which classes I want to help out in, I will be working in The History of Food, 20th Century Protest Music, or Science and Science Fiction. Needless to say I'm very excited.

However, for the time being I am finding myself settled into a lazy routine of video games, blogging, baking for Christmas and reading; and I couldn't be happier.

Christmas Music at the Holidays

2008-12-12T10:31:00.000-08:00

Is it ok? Mrs. Keener has been playing some Christmas music, none of it is religious. Santa Claus and modern stuff. Peace on Earth, love each other etc. The kids have been begging for the Christmas music even. But is it ok? Technically as an arm of the government the school may not establish a religion, and if we had a Muslim or Jewish student in the class, they might feel uncomfortable, but I'm fairly certain that we don't have any.

I was very oblivious about other religions when I was in middle school. I saw Jews and Muslims as people who lived elsewhere, and I assumed everyone at my school was a Christian, like me, and went to church every Sunday. I soon discovered how wrong I was around the seventh grade, but the I can only assume that the students in our class are equally oblivous unless they are the one student who is different, which would be very challanging in of itself and even worse if you are blasted with Christmas music at school.

Any opinions? Is Christmas music, even non-religious ever ok in a public school? Does it depend on your school's culture? We could sing religious choir music sometimes, for its artistic merits. How would you feel about Christmas music being played in your child's classroom? Does the age of the students mattter?

2008-12-10T15:22:00.000-08:00

As the term draws to a close, I have an opportunity to take a deep breath and look back on all that I've managed to over the past ten weeks. Honestly the thing I'm the most proud of is the amazing relationships I've begun at Briggs, both with my students (even the irritating ones are awesome)and the faculty (I am sure going to miss the sixth grade team). I feel a bit at a loss that I'm not going to be able to finish up the year (although it's too soon to say where I'll be in the spring) with these kids. I want to know how they do in the rest of middle school, and I want to know how they do in high school and beyond as well. Each kid has so much potential and a different set of skills, and a different set of weaknesses that will set up trials for them.

From a more academic standpoint I am very satisfied with classroom management experience I've had. Mrs. Keener's initial lessons on expectations etc. really made it easy to step in and uphold the same expectations, but I think that I also took a hand in initially setting up those expectations, so I can take some credit too. I know that I am an aggressive and some times overbearing person, so I was concerned that I would come across too harsh or strict, or conversely, I would be so concerned about creating a good relationship with students and NOT being so strict that I would be the 'buddy' teacher who doesn't enforce any rules. I feel that I achieved a happy medium. I think the students both liked me and respected me and in general they followed my instruction and behaved like responsible human beings, I never had any major behavior problems. I am a little apprehensive that I will freeze up if I am in a situation where I encounter open defiance, or an aggressive and angry student. Or even worse, that I will blow up and get in their face. Perhaps I'll have a chance to find out next term.
Another thing that I am very grateful for this term was the opportunity to sit in on a Parent/Teacher intervention conference. A student was consistently having problems being disruptive, unprepared and inappropriate in nearly all of his classes. He was one of my favorite kids, and I had another meeting later that afternoon, so with Mrs. Keener's permission I sat in on the meeting. Since I first started entertaining the idea of being a teacher, working with parents has always been one of my biggest fears. Not so much because I'm scared of them, but because of how I would react, I wouldn't want to offend or be rude to a parent that was attacking me verbally (even if they did deserve it). I've received some advice as to how to interact with parents, but I went into the conference expecting blame and excuses from the boy's parents. Much to my pleasant surprise, the parents were very supportive and grateful for the teachers and their hard work and input. They were at their wits end about how to help their son, and were looking for advice. What I expected to be an argument or blame game was instead a very productive brainstorming session during which several strategies for helping the student to be more successful for the rest of therm. Even better, it's clear now from the end of the term, that since that meeting there had been marked improvement, at least in our class, in his behavior and preparedness, as well as his rate of turning in homework. Though I know this is just one example of a parent interaction, seeing such a positive meeting was the push I needed to really change my attitude about interacting with parents, and to see it as a positive problem solving opportunity.

I am looking forward to the opportunities that A3 will present as far as getting to know more about my student's backgrounds and have some more interaction with their families perhaps. I found it interesting that when I told my class that I was going to A3 next term several of them had older siblings that went there. It will be interesting to see the similarities and differences between siblings. Another of my goals for improvement is increasing the amount of activities that are are student centered, either group or individual activities. From what I know about the structure and ideas at A3 I should have ample opportunity to do that. It is very challenging for me to organize student centered lessons that are more inquiry based, as I think it is for most new teachers.

As I look back at the term as a whole I don't think that there has been a revolutionary change in my attitude or philosophies concerning teaching. Rather I am begun to refine and mature my techniques, and begin to build a toolbox of strategies. through the relationships I've built I have reaffirmed my choice to begin a career in education, and in general I have set in progress the process that, continuing through the spring and summer, will prepare me to have my own classroom.

Reflection: School Improvement Project

2008-12-10T11:33:00.000-08:00

I particularly enjoyed this School Improvement Project. I have always really liked time lines and the way that they create connections throughout time, as well as being a device for comparison between cultures or societies. Social Studies is my secondary endorsement, but because of the way that the block classes work at Briggs Middle School I had little to no contact with any social studies classes throughout the term. This particular SIP allowed me to get involved with some of the social studies curriculum. I also appreciated the opportunity to work with a fellow student teacher. Melissa is primarily a social studies teacher, and her cooperating teacher was the primary organizer of this project, Laura Scruggs. As Mrs. Scruggs described it, this beginning of the year time line project was something she and the other seventh grade social studies teachers had been wanting to do for a long time, but no one had had the time to organize it and get all the different pieces together.

Since this was to be one of the first assignments of the school year, Melissa and I finished most of the work before school even began. The process of gathering dates was actually a lot of fun for me. We used the text book that the seventh graders used to draw dates from, and it was a fun refresher for me of World History. We enjoyed color coding and discussed the relative importance of various dates, as well as how we could tie historic events into the modern world that students had were aware of. For example, when the Islamic Empire moves it’s capital to Baghdad, we reflected that most students have heard of Baghdad, and associate it with Iraq, they may not realize that the places that these things are occurring today are the same as they were a thousand years ago.

After school began things got more difficult for us. Because I was with sixth grade and she was with seventh grade we were on totally different schedules, even our passing times were different, so collaborating was a greater challenge. It also became tedious to create the hand made copies for each individual teacher, as well as copies for us to keep in our files. The larger bulletin time line was more exciting because we were able to draw on the aspects of history that are particularly interesting to us to create a more detailed overview of the past 2000 years. I was glad to take advantage of the opportunity to share even a small amount of information about Andalusia under Muslim rule, as well as make some connections between cultures that students might not always see, such as the way that the beginning of the African slave trade occurred around the same time as the end of the complex and powerful African nations.

Unfortunately, my involvement with the project pretty much ended after we posted the laminated bulletin board timeline. Melissa, however, got to be part of the implementation of the timeline project in the classroom. Her particular class had a large number of students with a lot of behavior management issues, so she found that the complexity of the project was challenging for them, and even though they were provided with a list of the dates, many of them still failed to create the timeline in it’s entirety. It was also challenging for them to do their work neatly and in an aesthetically pleasing manner. I was able to review some of their finished products, as I helped one teacher, Mrs. Newson, to grade some of hers.

Retrospectively, the one thing that we have realized we should do differently is that we initially left the birth and death of Jesus off of the time line, when we had included the birth and death of Mohammed. Initially this never occurred to Melissa or I as a problem because we were working specifically within the confines of certain cultures. The cultures that we were dealing with around 0 AD were the Roman, Japanese and African cultures. Christianity wasn’t a major aspect of Roman culture for another couple hundred years, so we noted when Rome began to convert to Christianity, and that was all. However some parents complained about the lack of mention of Jesus, understandably, so my master copy now includes both the birth and death of Jesus. I look forward to using this activity in my own class some day.

Come together, right now...

2008-11-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

This week has been a sense of things coming together. As I discussed in my last post, I was sort of put on stall due to the needs of other classes and such. But this week, things have gone my way. We've been able to review for the test, do some reteaching and even create the cool foldable flap books that the kids got to use on their test (not that most of them did...) In the early part of the week I was able to work on catching up those that had been gone, and Wednesday everyone except for one absent person and the girl who missed all of the week before took the test.

It always confounds me the lack of study and test taking skills that these sixth graders have. They have sitting next to them a flap book with step by step instructions for how to multiply fractions, and two methods for dividing fraction. Yet many of them still did the wrong methods, or forgot to do steps, or mixed up division and multiplication. I couldn't believe it. I think that in my class I need to spend some serious time teaching study skills and strategies. Maybe something like a fifteen minute mini-lesson every Friday or something. Of course, with older students (theoretically) it will be less of an issue.

Well, we tested on Wednesday, and then allowed those who wanted to to re-do things that they missed on Friday. All in all it went pretty well, with no scores below a 70%. Though one student still needs her opportunity to retake. Now we're jumping into decimals, and the students seem to be having a much easier time with that. Its a bit more similar to things they are already (theoretically) good at. My big challenge now will be making my webquest functional. A webquest, for those that don't know, is a project that is hosted online, and most of the research and work are done online, and then presented in a computer format, often a power point. We are going to do one where the students have to plan a Winter vacation trip to NYC. They have budget of $2500, though I may increase this. The details are here. Monday I introduce it, and Tuesday we start working on it. Hopefully I can get it done in the time allotted. This is the first project I've tried to teach and I really hope it doesn't bomb. I guess good planning is really the only thing I can do right now, the students will determine the rest.

On other people's schedules

2008-11-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

I had challenging situation this week. First of all I had two students who were out sick all week, one of them is a student that I am taking data on for my term project, she is also a girl who needs a little extra help usually to really grasp stuff, so I'm really concerned about what to do to get her caught up when she gets back to school. The other girl's mom has been amazing about coming in nearly every day to get homework for her daughter. She even had me explain to her what I was doing with the students so that she could teach it to her daughter. What an awesome thing to do.

So on top of having those students out of school completely, this is also the week that the sixth grade drama class performs their play. I am totally supportive of the drama program and I'm thrilled that the sixth graders get to put on a play. I am also glad that they perform it during school so that the other students all get to see it, however it did make planning my lessons on Thursday and Friday really difficult because one of the play performances was during my math class, so I didn't have nearly half my class for two days! Of the students I did have were some of my top kids. Now I couldn't very well teach a bunch of brand new stuff, because the drama kids would be totally lost, but I also couldn't just ignore the students who were in class either, especially a few of those really 'high flying' kids who were pretty much demanding a challenge.

So here is what I ended up doing. Thursday I retaught the algorithm I had been teaching earlier in the week. It's a way to divide fractions by finding a common denominator work. I like it because it functions the same way that the model method for dividing fractions works, and it builds off of the algorithm they already know for multiplication (multiply the denominators and the numerators straight across). But it is asking kids to think a little more then simply 'flip and multiply'. To make matters more difficult, the other math teacher, as well as many kids parents or previous teachers have taught them the standard algorithm. So getting them to do it this way has been difficult and some of them are just finally getting it now. So I retaught that.

My teacher's policy is that any homework that is a 60% or lower must be redone in order to receive credit, so I have a lot of kids with 'missing' work, either they didn't' turn it in or need to redo it. A lot. As in more then half the class. So after reteaching the algorithm, I posted a dozen practice problems on the overhead, and students could work on makeup/late/redo work, or work on the practice problems.

A couple of my high students wanted a challenge, so I briefly explained to them the extra step in dividing mixed numbers (still using my common denominator algorithm) and then let them work independently out of the book to practice that (even though we aren't getting to it officially until Monday).

Friday was more or less the same, except instead of reteaching the algorithm, I spent some time teaching dividing mixed numbers, but again, I didn't spend very much time on it, just an introduction, because that is my topic for Monday's lesson. I'm glad that students ended up getting some time to work on late/redo work because the number of missing assignments now is about half of what it was on Wednesday. Sixth graders are still really committed to wanting to do well in school and getting all their stuff in, even if they don't always have the organizational or study skills to make it happen effectively.

So the lesson learned is that even though it may eventually be my classroom, I will still have to work around others schedules. And also that some catchup time for students can make all the difference for them getting things or not getting things.

Things I've noticed

2008-11-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

Students sure behave differently when they are on a field trip. This was a while back, but I never got a change to write about it. On the bus to and from Sky camp, I observed how opposit some students behave. Maddy, who is a great student, pays attention, always asks for help and is very respectful was really loud and rambunctious on the bus. Grant, a student who doesn't pay attention, cracks jokes, doesn't always turn in homework was sitting quietly without cahtting with others, just playing his hand held video game and minding his own business. I must admit I was very surprised.

I've also noticed that there is a trade off for semantics of homework. I may have mentioned this before, as it bugs me. A teacher can require that homework be in a certain format. Problems in collumns down the left side of the paper, one line between each problem etc. However, that level of detail for homework layout causes confusion and unnecessary 'mistakes' for the kids. It is a trade off though. The homework that is all organized exactly the same is also much easier for the teacher to grade. Is it a fair trade off? Something else that enters into this discussion is whether homework should be given a grade for being done, or if home work should be graded as assessment and given a score out of a total.

Something I noticed just today is that for a warm up, if you plan on going through the problems, more then two questions is too much, you'll spend half the period going over the warm up. Stick to one or two. If the warm up is just to jog their memory, and they won't be correcting it, doing four or 5 problems is acceptable, but then just move on after they have completed it.

Cave Man Day

2008-11-08T21:29:00.001-08:00

Things are going much more smoothly with my unit this week. We are way behind where I had planned for us to be, but it's more important that the students are getting this, then that they stay on schedule. My observed lesson on Tuesday went well, all things considered, though I wasn't able to video tape the whole thing (the battery died) I did get the first 15 minutes. I am avoiding watching it because I hate the way my voice sounds recorded.

On Thursday we did a very interesting Prehistoric Man thing. Rather then have 3rd or 4th period, the 6th graders were divided up into clans (Clan of the Cave Bear, Clan of the Saber Tooth Tiger etc.) They rotated through five different stations. One was 'Mammoth hunting", some folks from Doris Ranch had spears with the stick you use to throw them (I can't for the life of me remember the name of it) and were showing the kids how to use them. There was a painting of a Woolly Mammoth on cardboard that they were trying to hit (this activity was out in the field). Also outside was a pavilion under which they were making fire by rubbing sticks together. Indoors there was a 'stick dice' game spread out on furs where depending on which symbols were showing when you threw the sticks you received points. There was also a 'cave painting' activity in which students painted on butcher paper using paint brushes made of sticks and leaves. Finally (the one Mrs. Keener and I were in charge of) there was totem making. Students used clay to create pendants with the image of their clan's animal.

Now Mrs. Keener is not a social studies teacher, and doesn't really know much about the stone age (or claim to know). About halfway through the activity she asked me if I knew what the totems were for. I replied that they were a spiritual or religious symbol. That people believed that the spirits protected them and had power. During the next rotation, Mrs. Keener proceeded to use that as part of her introduction to the activity, but in my opinion, she took it a step too far. First of all she used a subjective second person present tense. "You all worship your totem, you will make a pendant to celebrate your totem". After telling them what they are going to do and how they are feeling about it, she led them through this mock prayer to the great spirit type thing. It made me feel really uncomfortable. This kids may have thought it was silly, and she may have thought she was adding meaning, but it seemed inappropriate. She could have discussed the issue in a more third person objective way. I was afraid that those children who's parents are very religious from a mainstream religion might be offended or angry, thinking that the teacher was promoting paganism of some sort. And those children who may be Pagan or Wiccan or something might be offended that their religious views (totemism, shamanism, natural spirits etc.) were being mocked. No win for anyone! I'm glad she decided to try and educate the kids a little more about what they were doing and why, but she could have chosen a more sensitive way of doing it.

My unit begins

2008-11-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

I administered my pre-test on Monday, and started my unit on Tuesday. As I've mentioned before I have about ten kids in my class that I've never had before. All of the kids in my class are at or above where they should be as far as the material I will be teaching. There are two students that lack the confidence in their math skills that would allow them to excel, even though they both scored above average on their pre-test and have showed ample progress throughout the term. On the day we switched one girl came up to me after the switch had occurred. Even though I had told everyone before that the people staying with me would be doing a little more advanced, slightly accelerated math, and the kids with my partner teacher would be doing a little more practice, she needed to reconfirm for herself, "Is this the higher math class, am I supposed to be here?" This girl fits the stereotype for a 'popular' attractive young girl, and she receives extra scaffolding in reading. She has told me before that math is hard for her, which I told her was good thing, it meant she was learning.

I have to admit, my first two lessons were really discouraging. The students were well behaved, they respected me and participated in the discussions I attempted to instigate. But it was all really deadpan. No one seemed like they were having any fun. I don't know if it's me, or the material, or my methods, or them or what. When I have taught lessons before, like when there was a substitute, I felt confident, the kids were engaged and teaching energized me. This was just draining. Part of my problem was that during Wednesday's lesson, I got confused and switched up a few of the examples that I had planned to use that day, and some that I was planing to use on Monday. Not only that, but no one had told me that due to an assembly it was a shorter time period then normal. Due to that I am now about a half a class period behind. It shouldn't make too much difference, I just may not quite be to the lesson on Tuesday that I was planning to teach for my first observation. We will have to see how things go on Monday, and how far we get. I could take extra time on Monday, and then teach what was originally Monday's lesson on Tuesday. Or I could try and move through it really quickly and 'catch up' for Tuesday. Tuesday is designed to be further exploration of the concepts introduced on Monday, so it might work either way. I will have to look more at the two potential lesson plans before I make up my mind.

Frustrations and Challenges

2008-10-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

People get stressed out about things. Sounds obvious, but I've had several examples for me of people stressing, and affecting their choices and behaviors. One person is faced with a situation that seems to me like she is being asked to do something she knows how to do, but asked to do it a different way. A stressful and frustrating situation, no doubt. However, she has chosen (in the instance to which I was witness) to deal with the stress by taking a superior and exasperated attitude and tone of voice, and demanding answers to her questions, in specifics immediately. No doubt she deserves answers, and is justly frustrated. But it seemed like the way that she went about attempting to get those answers was counter productive to the specific situations, as well as putting the person she was asking on the spot, and in what could potentially have been an uncomfortable situation.

In a similar vein, but a different situation, I know that my Co-op teacher has been under a lot of stress in her personal life, things I won't go into. I have noticed they she seems to allow this to affect the way in which she interacts with students. Now I'm sure this is unavoidable in some situations, and obviously no one can completely control themselves, nor is anyone perfect. But things that she might tolerate under ordinary circumstances she reacts more strictly to. Students whose jokes and clowning she might laugh at, not get them a trip outside the door for a minute to calm down. Let me clarify, that I don't think she is over reacting to any of these off task behaviors, on the contrary, I think it is good that she is beginning to disallow some of the messing around. But, she is making a change in the way she deals with things, which might be difficult for students to adjust to. I imagine it is very difficult to avoid doing this sort of thing to a certain extent, so we will see how I do at this next month. I already know that there is one student in particular who annoys me so much I have no paitence for off task behavior from her, that I might tolerate in another student, and i have to work very hard to combat that, and not allow it to show.

The moral of the story is to find healthy ways to deal with frustration, or to not let things get to you at all. I'm trying, but I can always use more practice.

I ran into one other big challenge this week, as I was preparing to start my unit. This one has to do with teaching cooperatively with partner teachers, etc. But first a little bit of background. We have heterogeneous math classes, meaning there is no high and low class, it's a mix of all levels. However, we are still expected to differentiate for a multitude of student levels and abilities. In order to do that, one strategy that my school is implying is some splitting of the classes. So I will have half of my kids, and half of Mr. Smith's kids for a period of time, and then we will divide again, differently, or go back to the original classes. I'm not entirely sure how the whole thing will work, I'm just doing what they say, since I don't really have any clout in the matter. One of the biggest challenges of doing this though, is the two classes must absolutely stay 100% together, and must be consistent with what they teach. When you have one teacher for a whole year, it's ok to do something a little non-traditionally, or quirky, if it's what that teacher expects. But switching back and forth every few weeks, we have to have consistency. Now here comes the issue. When I learned to perform operations on fractions, we wrote the problem out horizontally, all on one line. We then did computations below and around the original problem. The way they do fractions at Briggs, is straight up and down, with the fractions stacked, you do the work only to the right of the problem. I've never seen this before. In fact, I wouldn't know about it now except I asked Mr. Smith to look over the pre-test I wrote up (since his students would take the same test too) and he told me to change some of them to that direction. I have found that it's been really tough for me to simply change the direction that I write equations. It makes sense, I understand it (though I like my way better), but I am going to have to be keeping myself in check for the next few weeks as I write equations out, that I am consistent with what the students have already learned, and will continue to learn after my unit is done.

Backing Up

2008-10-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

There are two things in my notes, that I have failed to blog about. As follows:

September 30th
I observed Laura Scruggs. She was the first person at Briggs I found I really liked (she is the one who complemented my hair!). She teaches 7th grade Social Studies and Language Arts, she is the teacher we worked with for our time line, and is Melissa's cooperating teacher. She is ex-military, and Denis, our VP insisted that all of us make a point of ovserving her.

Apparantly I observed her on a good day, the students were more well behaved then usual. The group in her morning class are particularly challanging. I hear there are several IEP kids, as well as other behavior issues. The afternoon group for her is the 'Algebra class', and so there is a smaller percentage of high flying kids in her morning class as well.

The day I observed they were presenting interviews they had done with a student and were imitating that student in an effort to get the class to guess who they had interviewed. The biggest thing I notcied at first is how different this class was then my own. Part of it is that perhaps this class is just more difficult in general, there is the 7th grade Algebra class during this time period, so none of the 'high fliers' are in the class at all. On the other hand, I have heard from many people that seventh grade is the hardest, and that they are the meanest.

The activity that they were doing was presenting an interview that they had done of another student. They spoke as if they were the interviewee, and then the rest of the class had to guess who it was. In addition to the verbal information, many students also did a physical imitation of their persion. The class thought the whole thing was pretty funny and were fully of snickers and giggles. They laughed at the reason that people recieved the name that they did, and at the hobbies people put down and in general were not respectful. Mrs. Scruggs was frequently having to remind them; "Attention to the front, please".
It seems like the seventh graders are a lot more self conscious then the sixth graders. They are more nervous about presenting, and seem more afraid that what they do won't be ok. Less of a willingness to try.

When things started to get out of hand, and the kids couldn't focus at all, Mrs. Scruggs told them to stop, and take a break, but not leave the room. I thought this was a good idea. It gives kids the opportunity to stretch their legs and get some f the antseyness out without spreading the kids out and loosing track of them. When the break was over, she ws easily able to countdown from ten, and the students went back to their seats. During the break I noticed that the class immediatly split into the girls and boys sides of the room.

Later on during the interview process Mrs. Scruggs interrupted the class and very pointedly said "Some of you are being rude". This seems like the sort of tactic I would try and employ, although I'm not convinced that it was an effective one...

Soon after that they changed activities. Mrs. Scruggs had them pull out their spirals. She had a set up for the spirals that I hadn't seen before. They had a table of contents, and had numbered their pages, so there was a limited amount of space for each entry. But, they also knew exactly where to look in order to find their notes on a certain subject.

Today they were doing an activity called 'Hit the Bridge'. Using bridge words, or conjunctions. She had the acronym (fons BAY) to stand for the words, the capitals being the most commonly used. The then spent some time writting compund sentances and using examples of all of the different conjunctions.

In the middle of the explanation her overhead projector broke. She very smoothly moved to using the white board instead.

In order to integrate this lesson with the social studies she had been doing she had them use topics from the timeline that they had been making.

The lesson was effective and efficient, if not perhaps the most enojoyable for the students. And she maintained control of her classroom at all times.

Word Processing; likes and dislikes

2008-10-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

Unti planning is chugging along. I wrote my pre-test yesterday. I ran into a problem that I'm sure plagues math teachers everywhere. How DO you write equations in Microsoft Word? Are there special math word processing programs that you can use in order to write these things? Now I know why my tests in calculus were always hand written by my teacher. Fortunately I have decent handwritting, so in the future I might choose to take that route. For the time being however, and the perception of proffessionalism I will continue to try and type them. The pretest required nothing more complicated then fractions and division signs. But I could not figure out any way to make the fractions be vertically aligned rather then on a diagonal from one another. Which is no big deal in every days use, but when you are teaching students the algorithms for multiplying and dviiding fractions (or even adding and subtraction) having a clear sense of top and bottom is key.

I am starting to get a clear list of things that I do and don't want in my classroom. I love the expectations from teh begining. Having the students help compile them. I even sort of like the 'give me five' thing, although I don't prefer it to just generally respecting one another. It's better then shouting. I like the use of comedy and humor that Mrs. Keener uses, she is goofy and silly and makes things fun.

Things I don't like so much, or would do differently: As I've mentioned before, if I ask for questions from students, they will not be allowed to make comments. They should know the difference between questions and comments by now. I also have noticed that sometimes Mrs. Keener makes a big deal out of things that would be less important to me. For instance she criticized one student for having doodles on her homework, or for putting the homework problems in rows instead of in collumns. Another thing that hs be driving me nuts is that there is no generic place where the keys to homework sheets we've done go. I assume this is because Mrs. Keener has been working with the same materials for many years, and she knows where she keeps them. However, when I am dong something like grading late work, and she has already put the key back, I have no idea whre to find it. I think a good play would be to have a binder where all of the keys for the worksheets done each term were kept. They would only be replaced to their fiile after that assignment was no longer going to be accepted as late. Be that the end of the week, the month or the term. I also think that in addition to graded work, I would choose to give students some sort of participation points for being present. Mrs. Keener sort of does this with the warm-up. Students get credit for simply having done the warm up, I like that, and would choose to do somethign similar. But students who are absent do not get marked down on the warm up. With participation points, it would reward those student who were in class every day, even if they didn't necessarily do well on their homework or tests. I have had classes that do this both in Middle/High school and in college and I think it is an effective way to help level the playing field as far as grades are concerned.
I am also not a huge fan of the way that the late policy works here at Briggs. It is something that has been agreed upon by all the sixth grade teachers. Management is the biggest issue with late work. How do you know when a student turned something in? I would perhaps get one of those old-school date stamps like libraries used to have, and when a student turns in some work, they would have to get it stamped, or they would recieve no credit. One day late would be one grade off, two days would be two grades, etc. Depending on the age, late work would either stop being accepted after a week or so (except in special circumstances, this policy would be for older students) or would recieve a maximum of half credit if it is later then a given date, but still be accepted (for 6th and maybe 7th graders, as the continue to try and make that transition from elementary to middle school). This isn't a perfect policy, I would have to do some polishing. If I were in a position to be teaching Pre-Calc or Calc, I don't think I would accept late work at all, except in the case of absence. But then again. I also don't like grading homework. I don't know if this would be functional with Middle School age students, unless it was perhaps with the advanced group, but I would like to assign homework questions, but not have them be turned in or required. That way students did homework if they needed to. The day homework was 'due' the students would have opportunity to ask questions, and then we would move on. Grades would be based upon participation points, tests, quizes, and projects. This was the way my favorite math classes have always functioned.

Between my Behavior Management class and the student teaching, I feel like I am starting to come up with a coherent personal policy/philosophy, which I suppose is the point.

Meetings and the Commencement of my unit planning!

2008-10-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

I am having a difficult time readjusting to a busy life in which many things are badgering for my attention. Currently my personal life, and my practicum are where I am most inclined to spend time and energy, and I'm finding it difficult to give focus to my class work, despite the fact that the class work is what had eminent deadlines. Along that strain, I left my notebook with my observation notes at school, which is making it a bit of a challenge to write a thoroughly thought through reflection for the week.

One thing that is fresh in my mind is the (two actually) meetings I had on Friday. I normally don't come into school on Fridays, and had come specially for a meeting about the new curriculum that I will be teaching from. It also so happens that there was an intervention type meeting for a student in my class who has been having trouble. I sat in on that and found it enlightening to say the least. I know that I personally find that I am most dreading ( about teaching) the interaction with parents. I'm afraid I won't gracefully put up with parents who think their children are God's gift to the entire world (not just them.) Or the parents who expect me, as a teacher of a class of thirty, to change my entire teaching style/structure/whatever in order to suit their student. However, the parents of this particular kid were great. Without getting angry or placing blame on the student, they acknowledged that he had issues and challanges. They made a point of saying that they didn't expect teachers to change the way they taught, but were seeing help from the school to make the transition from elementary school to high school a bit easier on their child. The meeting was really positive, there was praise for the student as well as discussion of his problems, and after discussion from/with all of his teachers, the counselor helped to create a specific plan for how improvement could be made. I was surprised (though I suppose I shouldn't be) how much behind the scenes decision making there can be. For instance this student has some interpersonal issues in some classes, but not in others. So he is creating a list of those students he wants to sit by, and can work well with, and those students he really doesn't want to sit near, so that the teachers can arrange him in a group situation in which he can be successful. I would never have thought of straight up asking the student who he wanted to sit with. That seems so... unfair. But if this student is able to work positively in that group, then that will allow the other students to work without the disruption he was previously causing.

After that meeting, we had out curriculum meeting and I got my first taste of the headache that teachers have to go through to match their curriculum up. We have a new set of 'focal points' that we have to hit, in a certain order. And a district mandated schedule for how long should be spent on each focal point, and what your advanced and lower group should be doing, and when you should be working with both groups together etc. It was such a headache. Not only that, but the text book we are using doesn't match up with the state standards. Things are grouped differently, there are sub-chapters on things we don't need to cover. It was mind-boggling, and I can't say enough how grateful I am to have these two veteran teacher to work with on writing my unit plan. I especially appreciate how both of these teachers (Mrs. Keener, and Mr. Smith) treat me as a peer, a peer with less experience, but they don't talk down to me, or try and cut me out of things. They go out of their way to include me in all relevant conversations so that I get a true experience.We have a real pedagogical challenge in that our classes are heterogeneous, but we are expected to teach differentiated lessons to the high and low students. So there will be student swapping and team teaching, it will be really important that we stay at the same speed as we move through the chapters. Part of the focal point plan is that each subject is learned to mastery, so I am going to have to be creative to find ways to continue to work on multiplying and dividing fractions without boring the students (or myself!) After an hour or so, and a long phone call to the principal, we started to get things hammered out. I now know that I will be teaching a unit on converting between fractions and decimals, and then multiplying and dividing decimals. I will start my unit on Monday October 27th, and we plan for it to be four weeks long.

Curriculum

2008-10-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

I've finally gotten the book that I will be teaching out of. It is called Math Connects, by Glencoe. We are piloting the curriculum so this is a 2009 book, and the curriculum hasn't been used before. There is so much material included with the kit. In addition to the central text book and teacher editions of said text book there are two levels of horozontally alligned books designed to fulfil the needs of students who are below level in their achievement and to suppliment the regular book with investigative lessons and activities. In addition to the three sets of books, there are four cds that have software and documents on them. Each section of the book (eg. 3-4) has 6 different work sheets that are on the cds. These can be printed out and used as homework, extra credit or however you want to. They are differentated so that some worksheets are suited for below average students, some for special needs, some for English Language Learners (ELL) and some for students who are above average. A few of the worksheets are even available in Spanish. It's a great opportunity for differentiation for homework to. Some of the 6th grade teachers have expessed concern over the fact that their classes are heterogeneus as far as math levels are concerned. Without a lot of extra effort we can catagorize students based on pre-assesment and assign different homework for different students so that the advanced students are still challanged, but the struggling students still can get the extra help.

The one big drawback that I've noticed with this curriculum so far is that hte book is not arranged the same way that the Oregon State Standards are (the now core points). In the state standards, fractions and decimals are ordered based on operation. As part of standard 6.0, the students should learn to add and subtract both fractions and decimals. Then during 6.1 they learn to multiply and divide both fractions and decimals. The books organized by catagory. One chapter on performing operations on decimals, followed by a chapter on converting between fractions and decimals, and then there is a chapter on perfoming operations on fractions. While this drawback creates a little more work for techers, and means that teachers must coordinate more in order to keep several classes in the same place, it is not a huge hurdle to jump over.

This is of course my preliminary impression, I have yet to begin my untit planning since Mrs. Keener and I need to me with Mr. Smith, the other 6th grade math teacher, and plan out which chapters we are doing in which order.

One of my student's projects

2008-10-06T16:58:00.000-07:00

I was totally impressed by this kid's science project. I was impressed with a few others too (especially a couple from some of the boys who are really quiet or often off task in class). But this student's video was really clever and funny. The assignment was to present their [abstract] 'vision' of science. I would love to share lots of student's work, but since this guy put his video on youtube.com, I feel ok linking to it. This is the same student that asked me the question about evolution.

Some teacher humor

2008-09-30T17:34:00.001-07:00

From my Behavior and Classroom Management class:

Long busy day

2008-09-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of my classes, and I anticipated a bit more stress then usual. Today was particularly unique, however, because Mrs. Keener was unexpectedly sick. She came in long enough to leave a lesson for me and the sub, but that was it. She was gone by the time I got there at 9:30. I also didn't realize that she was not in the building until the sub walked in, five minutes before the kids arrived. I figured she was at a meeting, or off in another part of the bulding taking care of something. When the sub suggested that I teach the lesson, since I probably under stood the math better then he did, I readily consented, but I didn't even get to fully read the lesson plan before it was time to start! Talk about teaching on the fly. I made up a warm-up off the top of my head, with a little input from students as to what they wanted to practice, and set about teaching the lesson on using rectangular arrays to factor. Fortunately this is something which I am pretty familiar with, so the lesson was no problem. Although I originally made the mistake of handing out the square 'chips' before I went over the worksheet, so a lot of kids lost out on the instruction because they were playing with the manipulatives. I did that differently when I taught it in the afternoon. Kids also were having a hard time interpreting the analysis questions on the back (heck, some of those questions were complicated for me!) so I am concerned that they will be unable to complete it by tomorrow. I think I did pretty well with the teaching considering the total lack of preperation. The kids like me and respect me, and follow my directions pretty well. Being at a middle school, I am clearly 'one of them' to the kids. They don't identify with me as a young person, they identify with me as an adult, although I'm sure they recognize that I am younger then Mrs. Keener. Especially some of the more 'problematic' boys seem to have taken to me. I'm not sure what it is about that. If it's the fact that I take the time to give them some appropriate attention, if it's that I laugh at their jokes (when it's the appropriate time and the jokes are good) or what. But three boys in particular who give Mrs. Keener (and their other core teacher) a lot of trouble, behave pretty well for me, though they do need reminding from time to time. Perhaps I'm just new and exciting? One particularly good lesson for today is that I need to pay more attention to time when I am teaching. I accidently spent nearly half of math on the warm-up, and the science lesson took way longer then Mrs. Keener had indicated it should have. Although when the sub taught science, in the afternoon, it took them the same amount of time it took me.

Mrs. Keener has told me, and other teachers have confirmed this, that one of my strongest traits as a pre-service teacher is my confidence. Someone asks me if I can do something, and my response is nearly always "sure, no problem". I hope that this confidence I have doesn't balloon into over-confidence though. I would hate to get in over my head.

I had one other really interesting interaction today. We were working in groups on math and one boy came up to me with two questions. He's a kid who is pretty quiet and is often sort of zoning out. His first question had to do with the requirements for a science project that is due on Wednesday. The second question totally took me by surprise. He asked, " If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" A very analytical question from a person who I hadn't given enough credit! ( Not to mention compleatly off topic, and having nothing to do with anything we were doing in class, science or otherwise). I took a second, and told him about a story I'd heard about butterflys changing their spots to match thier environment when a factory producing lots of ash was built in their habitat, while the butterflys of the same speciies that didn't live near the factory didn't develop spots. I don't remember where i heard this anecdote, but it's always stuck with me. So, I explained, perhaps the monkeys that are still monkeys didn't have something making an evolution necessary. I wish I'd come up with something better, evolution isn't something I am terribly familiar with. My knoweldge steming a little from Freshman biology, and a little from the book Sophie's World, where they touch on it from a philosophical point of view.

All in all a full day. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store. We are going to 'sky camp' on Thursday to do some team building. Sounds exciting!

My first 'lesson' and a comparison of two boys

2008-09-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

"Don't use a shotgun when you can use a beebee gun"
-Dennis Gray, my VP on discipline. A piece of advice he was given when he was a student teacher. And sound advice I think it is, too.

On September 16th I had my first opportunity to lead something in front of students. It was a warm up, a logic problem. They had signs to indicate who they were, and using the given clues we were supposed to figure out who was sitting where. It went pretty well considering I barely had time to read the problem before I had to lead it in front of the class. It was pretty simple but there was lots of extra information, so I got a little confused. I mostly led discussion having everyone work together to solve the problem. I hope that was ok. I didn't think the kids would know how to tackle it without guidence. They had fun, had great suggestions (the ones who were participating). I tried to call on a variety of students, without putting anyone on the spot too much. I choose some of the quieter lower achieving students to be the models up in front of the class. they found it particularly silly when I was refering to who was 'married' to who according to the problem. It so happened that one really little guy was 'married' to a girl who was much more mature then him (and attractive as well, with heavy makeup). Everyone thought that was very funny, but it was a good natured laugh, not cruel or mocking. The biggest problem I have with the way that I led the warm up was near the end, a student didn't want to follow directions and I chose to confront him about it, and nearly entered into a power struggle, I realized what I was doing and was trying to figure out some way to divert the conversation, when Mrs. Keener chimed in with new directions. Obvilously I could have had some planning and preperation time, but I thought it went well, all things considered.

I noticed another example of the strange way that sixth graders act. There are two boys in particular that epitmize stereotypes that would typically be the brunt of teasing and bullying. One boy is very social and intelligent, but he is extremely small, his face is somewhat oddly shaped, his voice is very high pitched, and he behaves in a way that is often easy to laugh at. His handwritting is attrocious but he puts effort into compleating his assigments, and he's signed up for the football team. The second boy is overweight, socially awkward, and often smells a little bad. He is not articulate, his jokes don't always make sense, and some times what he says in general doesn't make sense. He wants to be friends with people, but is as of yet unable to make positive connections with other students, or teacher for that matter. Despite the first boy being easy to pick on, and feminine and everything the other students go out of their way to include him, be nice to him, joke with him and even protect him. Whereas the second boy is slowly being ostracized. I have yet to witness any outright teasing, bullying or anything, but it is easy to gauge the students attitudes towards him, and they are not benevolent. It seems to me the key difference between these two students are their social skills. While the first boy is limited in physical ways, he has adequate social skills to fit in, the second boy may not be as physically limited as the first, but his lack of social competancy sends his peers a message that he is not someone they want to be friends with. I don't know about either of their backgrouds, if they have 504s or IEPs, but it is particularly important that the second boy recieves some sort of help or training or something to help him to interact socially in a constructive manner.

Lessons of Interest: Freetime & Stuck

2008-09-21T18:46:00.000-07:00

While it is very important to me not to treat middle school kids as 'children', belittling their intelligence and competence, it is easy to forget how chidlish they can be, and how different the expectations are from elementary school to middle school. Mrs. Keener has a fascinating lesson she teaches on free time. When I first heard that she was teaching a free time lesson I thought it was a little silly, but after seeing what she did, it's definitely something I will integrate into my curriculum if I ever teach sixth graders (and perhaps seventh graders too depending on the circumstances).

She led them in a discussion of options for free time, guiding their brainstorm to create a pre-existing list. First she made a list of questions a students needs to ask themselves.
-Do I have other work to do?
-How much time do I have?
-What are my choices? (based on time, teacher instruction etc.)
-What do I NEED to do?
-What do I WANT to do?

She then guided them in making a list of choices, divided into needs and wants. Choices include: do other work, read, draw, look at planner, organize your binder, play games (Rush hour, brain quest), go to the library (check out a book, take a reading counts quiz), re-do work with low scores, read the walls, look at a text book, work on freetime sheets (cross words and mazes provided by Mrs. Keener), daydream, do extra credit, use basic facts flash cards.

After covering all of this, Mrs. Keener handed out a work sheet that students would finsh at different times (typical 'read all the directions' sheet, which tells you not to fill she sheet out), and then they actually practiced what they should be doing for free time. This lesson has been reinforced more or less constantly the following few days by reminders and more opportunities for practice. I have no doubt that within a few weeks, with the possible exception of some of the more problematic student, all of them should know exactly what they should do and when they should do, and take it upon themselves to make that happen.

Another surprising, but really useful lesson was her 'Stuck' lesson. It was a similar format as the freetime lesson, guided brainstorm to fill out a pre-existing list. This list was designed to help students to find other options when they do not immediatly know the answer or method to solve a problem besides waving their hand in the air trying to get the teacher's attention. Her list:
1) Think about it!
2) Read the directions (again)
3) Look at an example
4) Ask a neighbor (if appropriate)
5) Ask the teacher [last resort]

She then discussed which options you can do by yourself, and whic needed other people to do things. The icing on the cake was a little roleplaying she did where she pretended to be 'Greta the Guest Teacher'. She handed a worksheet out to the kids, and pretended that she didn't know any math and didn't want to answer questions. The only way that she (or I) would concede to help anyone is if all four people at a group raised their hands, indicating that the resources of everyone had been exhausted and everyone was stumped. Only one group ended up raising their hands, and they faked it in order to 'practice'.

One interesting thing I noticed, totally unrelated to these lessons. A girl came up to me complaining that the boys always palyd rush hour during break, and complained asking why the girls could never play. That seemed odd to me. The boys playing didn't prevent any girls from playing. Many of the boys chose to go straight back to rush hour when break started, whereas most of the girls chose to do other things first. What did she expect me to do about it? Say no boys aloud? Or was she simply looking for empathy from a fellow female. I have overheard several sexist remarks so far, and not just from students. I overheard a teacher commenting on some people chatting in their class, and accused them of sounding like a bunch of girls in the hallway.

Falling into a routine

2008-09-17T21:24:00.001-07:00

After the first few days I spent less time doing formal observations and more time falling into a role in the day to day culture of the classroom. I arrive near the end of Mrs. Keener's prep and grade papers and help brainstorm and prepare for class. I observe and answer questions, offereing help during the core period and flex. Eating lunch with Mrs. Keener and the other sixth grade teachers is always a pleasure, and then after lunch I work on my school improvement project and observe the pm group.

The school improvement project is going remarkably well and I'm having a great time working on it. Since the kids arrived Melissa and I haven't had much time to work on it together, but as of Monday this week the base for the big time line is up. We finished the small ones right when school was starting and I assume the kids are starting to use those by now. I've nearly put in my 30 hours for the SIP already and we are nearly done with the time line so it looks like the work has been well laid out. It was really fun to do the research for the dates, and a GREAT refresher of my World History. Useful I'm sure for whenever I get around to attempting the Social Studies Praxis test. Melissa and I anticipate finishing the timeline either at the end of this week or early next week, which is great because then we are done with the SIP for fall!

Some other observations and reflections I've come up with over the past week or two:

Mrs. Keener has a very specific way she wants kids to do their notes, she has them fold the paper in half and take notes in columns. I don't know if i like that much dication as to how they make their notes. On the one hand, sixth graders don't necessarily have the study skills to make organized notes themselves, but I know that I would be annoyed if I was forced to take notes in a skinny column like that. At first when I heard her say this I thought it was sort of ridiculous, but after grading a set of their warm up, and seeing their handwritting and organization skills, I think that having some level of structure for note taking is a must, columns or no columns.

I had the pleasure of observing a sub on September 11th. Mr. DelMarter is a retired teacher who was subbing for Mr. Smith (6th grade math/science). He began class sitting in a chair at the front of the room talking about himself and his family. He had the kids absolutely mezmerised! He told them about his grand kids, and their names, and then would ask how many grandkids he had, to test if they were paying attention. He's been teaching for 45 years, which is amazing.
He pulled out a tootsie roll pop while he was talking and slipped in a comment about how he gives hundreds of them out. Now the kids are really paying attention because they want to know how they can get a lollipop. As he's telling his stories he looks right at one student, and speaks as if he's telling the story only to him, occassionaly he chaged his focus. He totally impressed kids by having memorized several of their names right off the bat, and making little jokes about them. His whole lesson revolved around the tootsie roll pops. He told them they could eat them in class, if they made sure to take the paper off first. He voice is low and rich, and he speaks very slowly. He tells the kids that if they Vice Principle comes in, they have to hide the lollipops, and the signal is a single snap. Then they must stick their hands under their arms, crossing them, thus hiding the lollipop in the arm pit. They practice. He reminds them they must refrain from drooling. Two snaps means they must wave their lollipops in the air, in hopes of capturing germs from a sneeze so that they may stay home from school. Three snaps means they trade with their neighbor, four snaps means that one lucky kid passes around his sucker so that all the kids can get a taste. As he lays out these ridiculous instructions the kids giggle, but are totally engaged and consumed by watching Mr. DelMarter. I was pretty engaged myself and couldn't help but smile and enjoy the show. His style thrives on individual attention, and a superb storytelling skill. He tells about how forty years ago the neighborhood was different. I don't know how he did it, or what he did but his ability to control and engage those students was magical. They only barely got to doing any math, but he has those students undivided attention and respect. Later in the day he came into Mrs. Keeners room briefly to say hi. Mrs. Keeners kids are relativly well behaved, but she has a fairly active and somewhat chaotic classroom when direct instruction isn't going on. Lunch had just finished and kids were all over the place. Mr.DelMarter started talking and all that changed. They paid attention. They told the students how lucky they were to have Mrs. Keener and that they needed to show her proper respect. He sent Mrs. Keener out of the room and within seconds has all the students silent sitting quietly in their desks with their hands folded, and when Mrs. Keener returned they chimed "Good morning Mrs. Keener, how are you today?" And then the spell was broken as Mr. DelMarter left the room and returned the class to Mrs. Keener. As I said, I don't know how he did it, maybe it's magic ;-D

One thing I've begun to notice about Mrs. Keener's style is that she is very relaxed and allows a lot of leeway in her classroom. There is lots of discussion in which it is acceptable to call out and make off topic comments. So far it hasn't been a problem and Mrs. Keener is excellent at reining things in when they start to get out of hand, though I don't know if I could do it so well. One concern is that I notice that when the class is having a discussion of this nature there are usually several kids who chose to check out and aren't participating, but are rather just staring off into space.

I have more I could type, but these entries don't need to be novels. Look soon for an entry on a Free Time lesson. Such a thing had never occured to me, but I think is an awesome idea for Middle School aged kids.

Day 2

2008-09-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

I observed a fourth teacher on the second day of school. Mrs. VanMoorlehem. She teaches seventh grade math and science, although today there wasn't much curriculum and more get to know you. I only observed a small amount of her lesson, I came in when she was giving instruction. They were interviewing each other, and she was going over the interview sheet and went through each and every question on the sheet and discussed the question in detail, giving examples of what you might put. She even made a point of defining a hobby verses a pastime. Perhaps she knew that these students needed extra direction but it seemed like it was a lot more time spent on direction then needed to be. I thought it was really interesting that when she was listing examples of what people might want for a career she listed only blue collar jobs, does that reflect her perception of the school's demographic? I don't actually know what Briggs socio-economic demographic is, although I know that they don't have a large percentage of kids on free/reduced lunch. One of her practices that I did like was that she asked for confirmation from the kids that they got was she was saying, rather then assuming that they understood. She also made a point of addressing what the noices level should be. Then the kids paired up and began interviewing. She has the kids divided into groups of four, and each student has a number. She used those numbers to have different groups of kids do different things as far as preparing for the activity, one group collected text books while the other got the worksheets for the group. The time they spent interviewing was really interesting to watch the kids interactions. Who was really chatty, while others were more quiet. I overheard one (really) little girl going on about how Luke Perry was her favorite actor because he is SUCH a hottie!

Unfortunately I didn't get to see how she ended class because I had to return to Mrs. Keener's class. The sixth and seventh graders are on different schedules, so my class began before hers ended.

First Day of School x 3

2008-09-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

I found out that I don't HAVE to do a weekly reflection for September Experience, which is why I haven't posted in two weeks.

However, I have taken copious amounts of notes, learned a ton, and be totally confirmed in my experience that education is the right field for me.

The first day of school with kids (not the day when only sixth graders came) I got to watch three (very) different teachers do the 'first day of school' thing, it was really interesting.

First I observed Mrs. Newson. She is a seventh grade Language Arts/Social Studies teacher. She had 35 kids in her classroom, it was full to the brim. She began class by having a handwriting sheet on their desks for them to work on the moment they came in. I loved the result this produced because for the most part each student was on task and relativly quiet from the begining so she could deal with issues that came up and get a handle on who exactly was in her class. I'm assuming that hse was familiar with most of the kids, those who were not transfers or new to the area that is. I really appreciated that she made a point of telling the kids why they are working on the handwriting page. Apparantly the seventh grade teachers have all decided that all writing (at least for tte first term) will be in cursive; she went on to explain the teachers' reasoning for making that decision. I always hope to be able to explain to my students why they are doing something (at my own discretion that is, I don't want to feel as if I need to explain myself), I am the type of person who is more likely to put time in effort into something that I understand why I am doing, and I imagine that some of my students will probably be the same way. While they were working on their worksheet, Mrs. Newson chatted on about required supplies, she took attendence ( making sure she had a name for each student that they prefered to be called), and gave some background on herself: how long she'd been teaching at Briggs, her family, hobbies etc.. At first I thought this was sort of funny, to share personal information like that with the whole class, but I think, as part of her particular style, she wants to seem like a real down to earth person to her students that has strenths, faults and outside lives, just like they do, and by talking about herself a little bit she can present herself to her students as more then just 'teacher', but as an actual person. For instance, she talked about hte new commitment the school has to healthy eating and readily admitted that she was not the best person to look to as an example. Next she spent a long time covering the new schedule for the school, which the kids had a really hard time understanding, I don't know if maybe Mrs. Newson didn't really understand it herself, if the kids were still half brain-dead from summer break, or if it really is that complicated, but they were just not getting it and needed a lot of one on one help to figure out where they needed to go and when. While she was working on that with them I did notice one technique of hers that I really liked. She gave very clear and percise directions. Instead of just saying "we're moving on to blahblahblah", she would say "put away your blah, and get out your blahblah" so that the kids were less likely to get distracted by wanting to continue to work on the previous project. For the second half of the period she used a note taking style she called 'Cornell Notes' (which is basically a t-chart) to help them organize her expectations for her classroom. I really liked how she talked about how her class isn't just about learning about history, or reading books, but about learning skills that will help them to be sucessful high school and college students. She said "This is your job, just like your parents have jobs, and coming to school is my job, and your pay check is your report card". It is a great way to encourage a mind set of personal responsibility for the students. The grades are directly a result of the work that they put it. I don't know if it would connect for all students, but definintely for some of them. Another saying she had that I liked was "we aren't here to love each other, we're here to work together". Too true, not only about school but about life in general. There will always be people you don't like as much, or who bug you or frustrate you, but it's your job to play nice and get along with them as best you can.

Next I observed in Mrs. Keener (my own teacher)'s class. Her class is sixth grade math and science, and already I noticed a difference between teh sixth in seventh grade in that Mrs. Keener took a lot more time to make sure expectations and behavior norms were clear. Since the sixths graders had alreay had a lot of time to go over the schedule the day before, they didn't have to spend as much time on that. When the kids came into the room there was an 'about me' and a word search on their desk for them to get started on right away. After everyone was there and she had taken role, Mrs. Keener began to cover some of the basics, using quiet voices, what and when it is appropriate to have a snack (only nutritious snacks, and only at the begining of the period), and she also gave instruction on how to behave during passing times and break times. Most of this was her giving direct instruction to the students. She also talked about the tiger awards and other school traditions/ruels etc. One thing that I notices was she immediatly set the precedent that students do not get up and hand her work when they have finished it. They stay in their seat and wait for instruction. Reflecting back on the last two weeks, students have followed that precedent nearly to a letter. You really have to set expectations early, because I bet if students had been allowed to do that the first day, she would have had a harder time getting them to change that behavior several days later. One thing Mrs. Keener did that I would choose not to do, is when she asked for questions, she allowed students to make statements. This would bother me to no end. Something I learned helping in my mom's (K/1) classroom was that when the teacher asks if there are any questions, it is appropriate for the teacher to stop a student who wants to tell a story, or make a statement, and say "I'm sure that's a great story you have there, but we are taking questions right now, do you have a question?" I'm certainly not going to let 6th graders get away with something my mom doesn't let 6 year olds do. Mrs. Keener also made a point of introducing herself and talking about her time at Briggs, and her family a little bit (she wisely left out the part about being recently divorced). She also made a point of inquiring about those that had older siblings who had had her in the past. I'm not sure if this was simply for her own information (many of the teachers seem to put a lot of stock in the way that siblings have behaved, they expect similar behavior from younger siblings as they got from older ones. No one knows better then I that this is not necessarily the case!) or if she had a purpose for the kids in it too. She finished the math/science part of the class with going over the 'give me five' attention getting system (raise your hand and say give me five and the children do likewise, turn and look at you and stop talking). Transitioning to flex was a little awkward because it was the first day, but in flex she talked about what the class is, since many of them will never have had a flex class before, discussing proticols for lunch, and instruction on how to leave the room responsibly. I am so surprised at some of the things that sixth graders seem to need instruction on, I had forgotten how small and childlike some of them are.

After lunch I observed Mr. Ray (incidently the older brother of a friend of mine, small world). He had the same students that Mrs. Keener had had earlier in the day. He teaches Language Arts/Social Studies. Mrs. Newson and Mrs. Keener had relativly similar styles, were fairly close in age, and seem pretty similar perosnality-wise as well. Mr. Ray is a huge contrast. First of all he is only in his early thirties and has been teaching for 10 or fewer years. Secondly when I and the students entered the classroom The White Stripes were playing over the stereo. His classroom is decorated with superheroes (mostly Batman and Spider Man) and Star Wars paraphanelia. He has instructions for the kids up on the overhead. "Find your seat- Make a list of things you can learn about 6th grade and Mr. Ray by looking around the room". This was particularly clever because in addition to his superhero and other more personal stuff, he also had room expectations, lit and social studies posters and other things of actual school importance. They spent some time discussing that and then he took roll call. He then gave a 'tour of the room'. He was carrying around this yard stick and smacking things on the bulleten boards, pointing out where different things would be posted, where in the room was off limits, what different things were used for etc. He seems like an easy going jokester type of guy, but I was also impressed with how he chose to deal with a disruptive student. "Do you want to take this outside to discuss it because you are disrupting my class right now". Totally calm in his tone of voice, he cleanly passed the responsibility and choice to the student, therby avoiding any potential confrontation in front of the class (risking humiliation of the student) or power struggle (risking humiliation of the teacher). And the kid said no, and stopped disrupting. He went over his expectations which were pretty typical, but one thing he said, which is something I have wanted to embed in my expectations when I have my own classroom is "show cooperation and respect for all; no competition, everyone can get As". Personally I was a huge fan of his subtle references to the Prime Directeve and other culture things.. not that many of the students necessarily picked up on it. I also really liked that he maintains a classroom library where students can check out books. I don't know if that is a Briggs thing, or something he does, but I think that is awesome. He also broke his yard stick over his head, which I think was a schtick to get the kids attention. I think it worked, though I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's kind of a gimick, but maybe sixth graders go for that sort of gimmick. I guess maybe I'm into being a bit more genuine? The last thing, which I also liked and think could totally be applied to math was an info card, he has them write abit about the summer reading experiences, what do they like to read etc. and finally had them answer they question "why read?" Which is deceptivly deep and philosophical should a student decide to take it in that direction.

So as I said an enlightening, contrasting and exhausting first day. I think this is an exhausting enough blog as well, so I will pick up with the second day of school and the rest of the week later.

Week One Reflection

2008-08-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

So this week was certainly a bit of a roller coaster. I started out the week feeling really excited about going to my school and starting to meet the staff, however registration was definitely a tedious task. (Although talking with the other staff, the organization was much more efficient then it has been in years past). I admit it left me feeling a bit discouraged and very disoriented.

Tuesday was also really draining. It was the district wide in-service day, and although I did enjoy the superintendent's speech, it was also really long. To follow sitting and listening to an hour and a half long speech, with sitting and listening to four hours of presentations and classes was a bit much for me, and I struggled to keep my eyes open after lunch. As much as I like and learn from direct lecture instruction, perhaps even I have a limit on how much of that I can take. My mom (a K/1 teacher) told me that in-service days are notorious for being boring though, so I didn't loose hope.

Wednesday morning was a slow start for me, however the activities of the morning totally turned my attitude around. We broke into groups and played different team building games in order to break the ice and get ourselves thinking 'outside the box' and cooperatively. The activities included a tinker-toy building contest, land skiis, jump roping, crossing a 'raging river' with only 5 stones, and (my favorite) a Frisbee throwing contest. My team didn't place very well, but it was a lot of fun, and made me feel much more included and welcome then I would have otherwise. I got to spend time with the other teachers in a situation where we were all on equal footing, we were all 'just people'.

I am fortunate enough to have been given a task for my School Improvement Project already. Melissa ( a fellow UO student teacher) and I are working for the 7th grade social studies team creating a time line project for them to make in the second week of classes. Time allowing we will also create a time line to put on the bulletin board, and 'foldables' for each unit they will cover. It's a type of project that is right up my alley, as well as a good review of my world history. I'm excited to create something that can potentially be used for years to come at this school.

The new schedule that Briggs is launching seems really innovative, but it also produces a lot of new challenges. When the staff was going over it, it was really interesting for those of us not a direct part of the staff to sit back and watch the tension and aggression move through the faculty. There are definitely some people who are not comfortable or happy about the changes. However, they all seem really committed to the idea of the new schedule as a whole, even if the kinks haven't been worked out yet, so on top of the negative and confused feelings was a joviality and optimism that they would be able to persevere (and prove all the naysayers wrong). There is a really great feeling of team and cooperation in this staff! They are also really relaxed and joke and tease a lot (mostly in a nice and fun way).

Today was particularly exciting because I finally got assigned my cooperating teacher, Lisa Keener. I got to know her, and spent some time helping her organize. I'm really excited about working with her because they are piloting a new book and new curriculum, which is something that student teachers don't normally get to do. She also seems really fun, and I think we'll mesh together well. I previously thought I was going to be with a teacher who was also the athletic director, and he seemed like a great guy, but I think I'll have more in common with Lisa. Already, just by going through her old curriculum and re-organizing it to match up with the new book, I am getting ideas for my own lessons.

I am very excited to start working with the kids this next week and see how things go.

Welcome to Briggs Middle School

2008-08-28T08:12:00.001-07:00

I am beginning my first Practicum experience, at Briggs Middle School. It is a feeder school for Thurston High, in Springfield, although it's located very centrally in Springfield. So far this seems like a fantastic place to work. The superintendent, Nancy Golden, seems really innovative and forward thinking. The other teachers love her, she received a standing ovation upon entering the stage, as well as one after her (hour and a half long) speech. She really seems all about the kids, and is as negative about new standardized testing requirements as any self-respecting teacher. She also seems to really support the arts as part of education.

My principal also seems pretty awesome, Brooke Wagner. She is also all about trying new stuff, and getting new ideas. In fact, Briggs is spearheading an experimental bell schedule (all on their lonesome) that allows each teacher 90 minutes of prep time every day. Half of it is spent working with their teams, which are divided up by grade level and focus, to make sure that everyone is working together and on the same page about students, curriculum and school wide events. The other half is personal prep time in the classroom.

I still don't know for sure who my cooperating teacher will be, although everyone seems to think I'll be with Brandon Parks. Nothing has been made specific yet, so we student teachers (there are four of us at Briggs) are able to observe a wide variety of people, and start on our School Improvement Project.

Laura Scruggs, who is one of my favorite people I've met (she complimented my purple hair), has a project for three of us to work on for our SIPs. It is developing a foldable time line with dates from every unit that the 7th grade World History class will cover. And then, if we finish that, creating examples of foldable projects for each individual unit, to use as examples and grading keys.

As you can see, there is a lot going on for me, right now, I just have Briggs to worry about. By the end of the month, I'll add classes: Behavior Management, Methods of teaching Social Studies, and Methods of Teaching Math.

A New Begining

2008-07-07T11:13:00.001-07:00

Blog for class? An opportunity to publish more thoughtful writing then the dribble I usually post perhaps.

A potential tool for my eventual class?

Will anyone actually read or find this?

So many questions.

I'm not sure what I would use a blog for in a math class. I can see how useful it would be in a social studies, or language arts class. Any ideas interwebs?