Social Studies is different.

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


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

Stepping back into music, a bit.

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

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

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

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

Reflection: School Improvement Project

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

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

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

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

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