Lesson Out of Context

Two of my cohort mates and I planned and implemented a science lesson recently to a class we had only observed for one one-hour lesson prior to teaching. It was an experience of mixed emotions and thoughts. Our lesson didn't crash-and-burn, but it also didn't go as well as it could. A lot of our issues I feel sprang from the issue that we didn't know the classroom nor the kids well enough to anticipate the nuances of our lesson delivery to these students in particular. We had little to no relationship with these students, and we had very little context for how our lesson fit with the overall unit and how the students had been learning the material. Had I known what the lesson would end up like with these particular students, I would have planned it much differently.

I'm not writing this post to complain nor am I looking to sit here and think of every single thing I could have or should have done differently. I know that in my own future classroom, I will have context for my students and my lessons. I will be able to have more wiggle room for adjustments and follow-up lessons.

But, I am also thinking about two other related things. One is the importance of getting to know your students to create a leaning environment that will work for each individual and for the class as a whole. Teaching this lesson really drove home through an actual personal experience of how much of an impact knowing your students makes.

Another important thought sprung from this experience is the thought of substitute teaching. Many teachers substitute teach every day, and I may need to substitute teach sometime in the future. In this situation, you will most likely get lesson plans given to you for the day. But what about knowing students and implementing those lessons? What about the emergency substitute situation where you are thrown in not knowing the students and without detailed lesson plans? These are things I am realizing I need to start thinking about if I am going to be a successful and wanted substitute teacher anytime in the future.

Research Organization

In Steve Moline’s article, “Using Graphic Organizers to Write Information Texts,” he says that when children are presented with a research and report type of task, they need to have scaffolding for how to organize the information they find in their final product. The graphic organizers he suggests are helpful, but my cooperating teacher has developed another way to help students organize data in her class research projects that seems very straightforward and helpful for students.

The students in my class have recently started a president research project where each student has one president and must find information on the president to write a report from and give a presentation. To help students stay organized, my cooperating teacher gave each student three envelopes, one for each main topic. The envelopes have a list taped to the outside with the subtopics in order of how they should appear in the final write-up. As the students research, the students are supposed to have separate, labeled index card for each of the sub topics and keep them in the corresponding envelopes. Once the students have note cards with research completed for each subtopic, they can begin writing that section of the report. They pull out their cards and synthesize the information in the order listed on the envelope. This way, the students understand what order information should be presented in and get practice ordering their notes in a logical way.

Along with the research/note organization, my teacher also has mini lessons and examples of pieces of the final project. On one day, she provided examples of a poor introduction and a good introduction. On another day, she presented examples of a poor “early life” section and a good “early life” section. She will be doing the same thing for the other main sections as well as for the conclusion.

Although my cooperating teacher doesn’t have a drawn web or other visual organizer for the students, she does provide the structure through the envelopes and examples of well-organized reports through her mini lessons. Just thought it was a great way to scaffold students’ research.

Pendulum part 2

Near the end of last quarter, I wrote about my constant struggle to decide between teaching middle school math or an upper elementary classroom in Pendulum. At the time that I wrote that post, my heart pendulum had begun to swing more toward being a classroom teacher; however, I am once again beginning to swing back the other way.

In one of my classes, we are reading A Sustainable Start: A Realistic Look at the First Year of Teaching by John Spencer, and I am also reading with a group Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire by Rafe Esquith. Reading these two books side-by-side has been helping me decide what kind of teacher I want to be. Spencer has been talking about teaching sustainably in the sense of not getting burnt out as a teacher. One should teach not like a firework, flaming in brilliance for a moment, but like a campfire, burning steadily for a long time. Esquith has been giving me aspirations to be a great teacher, but he has also been giving me things that would transform my career into a firework rather than a campfire.

In the way the Spencer and Esquith books are in conversation about teaching, so too are my thoughts about who and how I want to teach. I have become worried that my wanting to be a classroom teacher is more for the firework reason than the campfire sustainability. If I were a classroom teacher, I would aspire to be Rafe Esquith doing incredible things and changing kids for the rest of their lives. I would want greatness and aspire to teach 5th graders everything they need to know about life. While aspiring to be this amazing of a teacher is just fine for some, I think I would burn out within the first couple years as suggested by Spencer.

If I were to go the route of being a middle school teacher, I think I would be more likely to create a sustainable career for myself yet still aspire to great things later. I can still be a great teacher without changing the world in my first year. I will be able to teach the subject I love, math, without trying to force myself to teach subjects I am not as comfortable with. Don't get me wrong, I am not swinging back toward teaching middle school math simply because it would be easier. I am swinging back toward teaching a subject I love, toward a sustainable start to my career, and the ability to be a great teacher without forcing myself to be what I'm not.

Starting a bit behind

It has been amazingly difficult for me to get back into the swing of things this quarter. Taking a full two week break from everything not on my personal want agenda made it almost impossible to light a fire under my butt to follow other agendas. I'm finally getting to the point where I can't ignore my school assignments and deadlines anymore if I want to be successful this quarter.

Having seen what this long break did to me this year, I'm wondering what long breaks will do to me once I have my own classroom. The breaks feel needed, but do the long breaks actually cause more stress on the tail end than what is relieved during the break? I think that many short breaks may be better for stress in this way than extra long breaks. I'm wondering how the school year could be altered to still have a couple longer breaks but still maintain connection to school and fluidity of productivity. Year-round school is starting to sound like a good idea to me, but how could it be seen as beneficial to all?

Pendulum

Many people ask me where I want to end up as a teacher and what grade I want to teach. Prior to starting my teaching certificate program, I would have said with confidence that it would be middle school math. However, I'm finding it more and more difficult to say with surety that this is where I will truly end up. Don't get me wrong; I am loving my intern placement at the middle school level. I only teach the subject that I'm most passionate about, I get to work with students who are starting to be able to have real conversations with an adult yet still have child-like wonder and silliness at times, and it seems to have more structure and control than the elementary environment. However, I am coming to discover things about my 5th grade placement that I have surprisingly come to love and want for my furtue career.

I have found that even though I originally picked middle school because I wanted to be able to have "real" conversations with my students, 5th graders are fully capable of having these kinds of conversations. In fact, they bring more to these conversations because they are just learning how to be a part of them and have not become jaded in the slightest by reality. They bring the element of fresh imagination to spice up conversations.

Other things that are starting to change my mind are the teaching of multiple subjects, being able to bring more fun into the classroom, having (slightly) more flexibility with curriculum, having deeper connections with your students because there are fewer of them, and having a connection with the students' parents. All of these things have begun the more drastic swinging of my mental pendulum toward upper elementary teaching, and I'm not sure where my preference will end up. Being only halfway through my program, there is a lot that could change my mind, and I could end up truly anywhere.

Third Day: Child Abuse

Since it was my third time taking a child abuse reporting course, there wasn't much content in today's class that I haven't seen.  However, it never ceases to surprise me how knowing the laws and signs and whatnot doesn't make many situations easier to determine whether there is an issue of child abuse or not. I plan to always err on the side of caution, but it's interesting how one case, of say not getting a child needed prescription glasses, can be completely different from another due to context, history, and even due to lens of observation. I know as a teacher I will always have support of my fellow teachers and administration to figure out what to make of situations, but from my experience I know it is still unnerving to always need to be watching for signs of child abuse regardless of support systems.

First Day: Initial Thoughts

We started out our class today creating a flowchart of important topics of health education. As our group started off, we initially thought of each topic and relationship linearly. We came to figure out fairly quickly that every topic and subtopic within health education is connected in an all encompassing way rather than branching linearly like we had initially thought to represent them. Physical Health cannot be completely separated from Emotional Health because things like physical exercise affects endorphin levels which directly affect ones happiness and energy levels for future exercise. One facet of health education cannot be separated without also talking about connections or effects each facet has on another. I think this will be an important idea to keep in mind for teaching topics in health.

Reflection on Community and Inclusion

I have come to understand some of the true meanings of community and inclusion throughout this quarter and particularly through reflecting upon these readings within the last week. Christenson (2007) and Lyman (2001) both taught me that sometimes the toughest topics are the most useful to creating and strengthening a classroom community. They also gave me quite a bit to reflect upon and contemplate ways I may be able to use death, violence, or other challenging topics to advance education rather than try to keep them hidden. Sapon-Shevin (2001) brought about a fuller reflection upon all-level student integration within the classroom, and how it could bring about positive environments and change in educational settings. Finally, Harris (2001) and Beaton (2001) opened my eyes to the toll traditional discipline takes on classroom communities and feelings of inclusion. I know that I still have much to continue to think about and reflect upon, but I am glad I read these articles to give me a foundation for my thoughts as I move forward.

Teaching Metaphor

Teaching is a jigsaw puzzle.

The parents, the principal, the volunteers, the superintendent, the curriculum, the other teachers, and the community; these are the exterior pieces. The ones who help frame and hold the puzzle together.

Each student is an interior piece in the puzzle with its own unique picture and shape. Each piece has its own unique interaction/fit within the puzzle that can be replace by no other piece, yet its fit may change with wear and time.

The teacher is the puzzle master, trying to figure out where each piece goes, how each piece interacts with the others, and how the pieces fit together to make a beautiful picture.

The entire picture/finished puzzle is a collaborative, functioning classroom. The pieces are interacting in their optimal capacity. Each child is learning and growing through the help of one another. The teacher can see the whole picture, see how the pieces fit together, and adjust the pieces if the picture or optimal fit needs amending or adjusting.

The puzzle is incomplete without any one of the pieces and will never be complete without a competent puzzle master.

Be Prepared

Just as the teachers of the Oklahoma tornado demonstrated, the lives of children are safely entrusted in to the hands of teachers every single day. If parents are entrusting the lives of their children to teachers, why can’t teachers be entrusted with making the decisions regarding curriculum and how they will teach? If teachers have already fully committed to making these students productive adults, why would they sabotage their own ability to teach with shotty curriculum and teaching methods? The community and nation needs to trust in the emotional connection and entrust the curriculum to the teachers just as they entrust us with the lives of the children.

How can we ensure that each teacher is prepared for this kind of responsibility? In Monday’s class, we were talking about creating a uniform, nation-wide standard for teaching certification. Rather than basing teaching performance on standardized tests after the fact, why not ensure that every teacher is fully competent and prepared to teach to a high standard before they even get to the classroom? We should funnel the money spent on standardized testing in to teacher education and enrichment. What better way to make sure teachers are up to par than actually making sure they have the tools and the education to be up to par? After they become teachers, we could have inspecting programs rather than testing; trained professionals who come into classrooms to observe and give feedback to the teacher about their ability and curriculum. Why can’t we focus on what the teacher is actually doing rather than on test scores that may of may not accurately represent what students are learning and are capable of learning? It’s time to change from unemotional paper interaction and assessment to a more appropriate, human interaction way for teachers to be held accountable and for students to be assessed.

Relevant Education

In Seth Godin's Stop Stealing Dreams, he talks a great deal about the purpose of schooling and the shifting need of how students should be taught and what they are learning. Schools were introduced to create obedient workers that needed trivia facts memorized. Godin says "memorizing large amounts of information was essential. In a world where access to data was always limited, the ability to remember what you were taught, without fresh access to all the data, was a critical success factor." One can see the importance of school providing a means of memorizing information for workers of that time and age. 

 

However, our society and technology has made endless memorization almost unnecessary in many circumstances, and has started valuing creativity and independence over knowing facts and obedience. Yet school form and instruction remain the same with increasing pressures in assessment of things other than creativity and in ways that do not comply with the ways most students function or apply what they know. "Workers aren’t really what we need more of, but schools remain focused on yesterday’s needs," Godin elaborates.

 

So, in this new world where data is no longer limited and you can find endless information on your smart phone just as fast as you can take it out of your pocket, why are were still spending school instruction hours memorizing facts rather than learning how to navigate the issues of today's world in a meaningful way?

The Equality of Public Schools

Reading Fire in the Ashes was an incredibly heart wrenching and thought provoking experience. Although we were only assigned a couple chapters to read for a class, I found myself flipping through many other the other chapters. In the discussion following the story chapters, I came across a long but all-encompassing thought that Kozol was trying to convey with most of the stories within the book. The thought is as follows:

"The point I need to emphasize again is that all these children had unusual advantages. Someone intervened in every case, and with dramatic consequences...it is not that we should celebrate exceptionality of opportunity but that the public schools themselves in neighborhoods of widespread destitution ought to have the rich resources, small classes, and well prepared and well-rewarded teachers that would enable us to give to every child the feast of learning that is now available to the children of the poor only on the basis of a careful selectivity or by catching the attention of ...another grown-up whom they meet by chance. Charity and chance and narrow selectivity are not the way to educate the children of a genuine democracy" (Kozol, 2012, p. 303-304)

This issue of Public Schools not being created equal and poor students not having nearly as many opportunities as wealthy students has bothered me quite a bit. It's quite irritating that people want to live in a better world, but they only want to provide privilege for their own kids. How does ensuring your child's school has laptops while ignoring the fact another doesn't have textbooks help build a strong country? It doesn't. It creates dropouts and ignorance within communities and states.We should be equalizing opportunities and finances for all public schools and ensuring high quality teachers are everywhere. Hold teachers accountable for their classrooms and their commitment to every child; only allow highly trained and qualified individuals to become teachers.

To make this country better, everyone needs to be educated. Education allows people to create a better life for themselves, their families, and their country. If we are to become stronger, the people need to be stronger and able to support this great democracy. Without equal education for all, this country will slowly crumble beneath the growing weight of ignorance and poverty.

The road is long

The road is long; particularly my road to teaching. My road has been relatively short compared to many others in my newly acquainted teaching certificate program, but I feel as though my road to teaching was longer than it needed to be. If I may begin to elaborate....

In junior high and high school, I toyed with many career options for myself, one of the forerunners being teaching. Being a math teacher seemed like a great choice for me in that I loved math, my favorite teachers were my math teachers, and I had a knack for teaching/tutoring others in the subject of math. 

So why did I go to college with my eyes set on a dual degree in architecture and construction management? 

First off, my beloved math teachers seemed to think I shouldn't go in to teaching. Not because I wouldn't have made a good teacher, but because teaching wasn't something they would have recommend to many, if anyone at all. Similarly, my mother, who is also a teacher, discouraged this career path because of the extremely poor monetary compensation of the profession.

Secondly, and somewhat connected to the first reason, was this societal notion that teaching was somehow not a high ranking or intellectual career. When I read this notion presented by William Ayers in To Teach (2010) just the other day was when I finally made the connection to this concept and how it had actually affected my career path. My math teachers didn't want me to teach because they thought it "beneath" my "skill and intelligence level" as Ayers says on page 18 of his book. Furthermore, I felt this pressure as well in my personal competitiveness with my sister who had chosen to pursue civil engineering. I wanted to show the world I was a smart, intellectual person by choosing a challenging and rewarding profession.

I reasoned that I like art as well as math, and the combination, therefore, would be architecture. Architecture would get me further in life and more praise than other careers I had 'previously considered.' 

So, after wading through prerequisites for the program, battling for admission to the architecture department, challenging myself with topics I pretended to be fully invested in, adding the intense dual degree in construction management, and avoiding the computer programs needed to succeed in the profession, I realized that the construction industry was far from what I wanted for my life.

I talked with my mother about my unhappiness and my regret for not going for teaching, and she relented saying that I should do what makes me happy; she finally gave me her explicit blessing to pursue teaching.

I finished my dual degree, researched certification programs, completed general knowledge prerequisites, was accepted to a program, and am currently in my first month of instruction.

Let's see where the road takes me now.