Well, two full weeks later, and I have to say that I cannot believe how much has happened since the first days. I know all of my students' names, which is good, and I am still loving my school, where I live, my co-workers, etc. But I have come across many struggles in the first weeks, some of which still have my head spinning. I feel like I have covered a significant portion of the teaching-experience-gamut:
Last week, a student had an accident after I refused to let her go during a test, AND after I was informed that she had a bladder control problem. Her mother was not happy, but the principal defended me, saying that students are not allowed out of class unless they have a note explaining the situation. I have had 2 students steal things off my desk, I have sent 5 students to the office--1 of whom went 3 times. Two of the 5 were paddled, once in front of me, once within my hearing, and many parents promised me that the children would experience even more at home. The three-timer was paddled two of the times. I spent 15 minutes getting a tangled hairpiece off a little girl's head and sent a note home with another student explaining that I was the reason she was late for pick-up, all so that they could escape a paddling from their parents. I sent a child running to the office (I don't ever allow running from ANY student, not just my own) in order to prevent one little boy from wrongly getting the paddle; I had sent him with a written message to the principal, but he had misinterpreted the mission as one where he carried his own sentence, and had begun to fearfully confess all his perceived sins. I have come to both understand and hate the phrase that the principal or parent or teacher is "going to get" a student, but I have also sent students to the office with the full knowledge that a paddle was the likely consequence.
I have become an awkward combination of teaching qualities as a result. Students have sensed my dislike of corporal punishment, but they have also come to understand that I will not stop them from experiencing it if the situation warrants a trip to the office. A part of me has been hardened by the exposure, but I still am a softer presence than some of these children have ever experienced. I am not afraid to yell even though I hate it more than anything, and I have seen more elephant tears than any child should ever feel the need to create. Some of my children are so incredibly in need of affection that I have given up on maintaining any semblance of personal space: they determinedly steal my hugs, my hands, and my caresses. As my friends and roommates know, I have always clung to my personal space with iron resolve, but apparently even iron crumbles eventually. I have received more presents and love notes than I ever imagined possible; at the very beginning of school I had started to hang the cutesy drawings in my room as a reminder on bad days, but I abandoned the idea by the end of the week. I have no desire to vainly wallpaper my room with my students' mementos.
I struggle to penetrate the harsh reality of corporal punishment in schools; I have too many students who are afraid of no consequence except the paddle, and even that only temporarily. I can't control my frustration with the amount of hitting, kicking, and spitting that these children do to one another, and I resent the double standard of paddling a child for hitting another child. My roommate remarked last night that she wonders if anyone in the state education department has made the connection between Mississippi's consistent presence at the bottom of the nation's academic performance pile and the fact that our state is one of the last to still practice corporal punishment.
I personally notice a huge difference between my kids here and my kids in Houston, but I refuse to change my standards. Perhaps that is the essential problem: a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we only expect bottom barrel from these students, then that is what they will give us. I have pounded it into my students' heads that I will not settle for less than their best, and slowly they are beginning to show it. I have approached my principal, my TFA program director, and other teachers in my desperation to achieve better classroom management, and all of them remark that they are impressed with what I have already achieved thusfar with this truly challenging group. Some think it is good enough, but I know that these students are capable of more. I can't give up on them. I don't question the power of high standards.
I have a student who wouldn't complete any of my morning assignments because he could not read them. I get the feeling that other teachers have dismissed him as uncommitted to learning and a troublemaker, but I made him persist by sounding out letters in his reading. He is afraid to admit his weakness, so he would rather take the failing grade than tell me the truth that he does not understand. But yesterday during our silent reading block, he finally raised his hand to ask for help and he quickly sounded out the word without too much work from me. It would sound like something small to anyone else, but I saw then just how hard he might be willing to work. AND he wrote more for me yesterday than he ever has before...
After my first 12 days, I am now more mindful of the realities that I face here. A fairly large part of me comes home each night in despair, but I never was one to quickly cut my losses. I am doing the best that I can while also expecting the absolute best from my students. Even if my execution is flawed, I still have a little bit of faith in my expectations, which might help me to make up the difference. And when I look into my children's eyes, I cannot help but set aside my own personal struggles in order to wholeheartedly work to eradicate theirs.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Two Days of Teaching In...
...and it has been an adventure!! I spent the first three days of this week going through professional development...again. Monday we went to an inspirational talk at the high school with the entire district, which actually did turn out to be pretty inspirational. By then, I was so bogged down in the details of long-term plans and big goals and cleaning a classroom and, well, not freaking out about 27 faces staring up at me all day, that I was getting quite discouraged. I have always found it to be difficult to start something new and unfamiliar, but something about teaching little people for their first high-stakes testing year seems like a little more pressure than usual.
When I left the school Wednesday night, I felt fairly satisfied with my classroom. I had worked for six days to get it ready, throwing away an impossible amount of old materials (including a huge world map that had the Soviet Union on it...yeah) and probably over-thinking every organizational decision I ever made. But everyone who walked into my classroom was pretty impressed with the transformation and with the atmosphere I had created. But honestly, my classroom was a little pocket of preparedness within a school of chaotic disorder. All of the teachers who had been nowhere in sight for the entire summer and who had left promptly at 3:15 from professional development were suddenly cleaning out their classrooms and decorating for the new school year. The areas that had previously been havens of readiness had transformed into the same mess that still existed outside my classroom. Rather than getting closer and closer to looking like a real school, Oliver Elementary was a few steps away from being a garbage dump. I walked away at about 5pm, shaking my head and wondering if I would witness the effects of a miracle the next morning. A small part of me had my doubts.
But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when the school was in pristine condition first thing Thursday...as long as you didn't look out the side exit doors to the mounds and mounds and mounds of...yeah....
In any case, the day started off in complete disarray, just as it should. I didn't expect to be entirely informed in the day's agenda, but a little more guidance may have been helpful. The school did not open until about 10 minutes before teachers were told to arrive at 7 (I was there at 6:30), which was a full 20 minutes AFTER the first students started arriving. For the next two hours, students trickled into the cafeteria with parents and family as we waited for the opening welcome from Principal Montgomery. At the end, each of the teachers got on the microphone to call his/her roll and line up the class of students. I was proud of myself in that I had asked SEVERAL teachers for name pronunciations beforehand so that I would not completely embarrass myself in front of hundreds and hundreds of people, and I managed to set an authoritative tone for my students. I gave explicit directions for lining up as I called names (something many of the veteran teachers failed to do, and more chaos ensued), and I lined them up outside my classroom, giving them even more stern directions, all while their parents looked on. Talk about an introduction to teaching! There is nothing more intimidating than instructing a child on behavior expectations in front of the child's family, trust me on that one.
Instead of switching the third grade classes at some point during the day--as I had wanted, I ended up keeping my homeroom all day. It took forever to set up the rules, the big goals, and just a small portion of the procedures I wanted in place, and I hate how long it is still taking me to get comfortable with names. But by the end, I think I had a very successful first day of school. The intervention specialist, who observed for the last half hour of the day, complimented me on winning the students' respect and setting a positive tone. Every veteran teacher who saw me that day praised me on what they felt was a solid start and offered continued support as I got even further into the school year. I will be the first and loudest to always acknowledge how WONDERFUL all of my fellow teachers are at Oliver. I have already heard horror stories from other schools in the district and in the Delta, but I am beyond blessed in the support and welcome that I have received.
But I digress. If you had asked me at 8pm on Thursday night, I would have told you that my first day failed to live up to my high expectations and I would have been discouraged by the start of this pivotal year. But that was BEFORE Friday happened, and BEFORE I met my other third grade class...
I started out day two with my same homeroom, and I worked hard to correct the flaws I had perceived from the day before. I wanted to make sure I did everything right, because I do NOT want to be in the worst-case-scenario videos they show at Institute. I wanted to be one of the success videos if I ended up in any video at all (not to say that this is an inevitability, just that it is a small nightmare I have occasionally...). After a couple hours, I was running out of activities and I was anxious to meet the other class. So Mrs. Johnson and I did our best to attempt our first class switch of the year. It wasn't a complete failure, even though my homeroom performed miserably in the "quickly and quietly cubby procedure" we had been practicing all morning. I did, however, catch Mrs. Johnson giving a warning to her homeroom students: "Now listen up boys and girls. Ms. Cook comes to us after teaching in Texas. They don't play down in Texas. Ms. Cook don't play, so you better be on your best behavior with her, cuz she will get you."
I could have kissed her for scaring her kids, and giving me the inadvertent confidence boost I needed to come out strong with the new batch. So let me tell you, my introduction to Mrs. Johnson's homeroom was pretty phenomenal. I don't mind admitting it, especially since Principal Montgomery got to observe the best of it, and especially since, well, the success did not last very long. This group of kids was much larger than mine--25 kids rather than the 19 I had taken for granted--and they are frightfully unused to structure. Sure, there were several, as usual, who hung on my every word and aimed to please me beyond all other earthly concerns, but I was honestly troubled and surprised by the lack of respect these kids showed for one another and for education in general. I have never seen such aggressive testosterone in an eight-year-old, nor such blatant apathy. I sit here now still reeling from the reality of the challenges that will greet me on Monday and that will continue to haunt our progress this year. Everyone has warned us of the obstacles, but I could help but hope with every fiber of my naivete that my class would be the exception. The truth I should have expected all along is a little difficult to handle.
But when I rightfully put the first two days into perspective, I have to say that I am THRILLED by what awaits me. When my homeroom came back for the last hour of the day, they greeted me with hugs, warmth, and excellent behavior. All I had to do to restore order was put my hand on the top of the "caught being good" bean jar. They dreaded the moment they would lose any of those beans. The other class, in contrast, had lost every single bean that they could have hoped to gain for weeks...
I have already learned some important lessons. The good kids in both classes remind me why I love teaching, and the bad kids remind me of why I have to keep trying. Every child deserves my absolute best each and every day, and every child to have a learning breakthrough. In my room, I have displayed my iceberg poster that craftily shows the amount of ice above water, and the enormous depths we never get to see and we often forget all about (sometimes with titanic consequences...haha...ok, bad joke). I told my students that they are all icebergs. They have gigantic potential that we have not yet gotten to see, but each day we are going to work hard to uncover it. Above the poster I hung the words, "Show your potential." This summer I got to see just how true this analogy is. My mission is to find the iceberg in even the most unwilling of students this year.
On my parent survey, I asked the students' families to tell me about their child's strengths, in whatever form that may take. I had some who commented on a student's warm personality or enthusiasm for learning. I had one who responded with a question mark. Even if it takes me all year, I will make sure that that parent knows EXACTLY how to answer that question.
When I left the school Wednesday night, I felt fairly satisfied with my classroom. I had worked for six days to get it ready, throwing away an impossible amount of old materials (including a huge world map that had the Soviet Union on it...yeah) and probably over-thinking every organizational decision I ever made. But everyone who walked into my classroom was pretty impressed with the transformation and with the atmosphere I had created. But honestly, my classroom was a little pocket of preparedness within a school of chaotic disorder. All of the teachers who had been nowhere in sight for the entire summer and who had left promptly at 3:15 from professional development were suddenly cleaning out their classrooms and decorating for the new school year. The areas that had previously been havens of readiness had transformed into the same mess that still existed outside my classroom. Rather than getting closer and closer to looking like a real school, Oliver Elementary was a few steps away from being a garbage dump. I walked away at about 5pm, shaking my head and wondering if I would witness the effects of a miracle the next morning. A small part of me had my doubts.
But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when the school was in pristine condition first thing Thursday...as long as you didn't look out the side exit doors to the mounds and mounds and mounds of...yeah....
In any case, the day started off in complete disarray, just as it should. I didn't expect to be entirely informed in the day's agenda, but a little more guidance may have been helpful. The school did not open until about 10 minutes before teachers were told to arrive at 7 (I was there at 6:30), which was a full 20 minutes AFTER the first students started arriving. For the next two hours, students trickled into the cafeteria with parents and family as we waited for the opening welcome from Principal Montgomery. At the end, each of the teachers got on the microphone to call his/her roll and line up the class of students. I was proud of myself in that I had asked SEVERAL teachers for name pronunciations beforehand so that I would not completely embarrass myself in front of hundreds and hundreds of people, and I managed to set an authoritative tone for my students. I gave explicit directions for lining up as I called names (something many of the veteran teachers failed to do, and more chaos ensued), and I lined them up outside my classroom, giving them even more stern directions, all while their parents looked on. Talk about an introduction to teaching! There is nothing more intimidating than instructing a child on behavior expectations in front of the child's family, trust me on that one.
Instead of switching the third grade classes at some point during the day--as I had wanted, I ended up keeping my homeroom all day. It took forever to set up the rules, the big goals, and just a small portion of the procedures I wanted in place, and I hate how long it is still taking me to get comfortable with names. But by the end, I think I had a very successful first day of school. The intervention specialist, who observed for the last half hour of the day, complimented me on winning the students' respect and setting a positive tone. Every veteran teacher who saw me that day praised me on what they felt was a solid start and offered continued support as I got even further into the school year. I will be the first and loudest to always acknowledge how WONDERFUL all of my fellow teachers are at Oliver. I have already heard horror stories from other schools in the district and in the Delta, but I am beyond blessed in the support and welcome that I have received.
But I digress. If you had asked me at 8pm on Thursday night, I would have told you that my first day failed to live up to my high expectations and I would have been discouraged by the start of this pivotal year. But that was BEFORE Friday happened, and BEFORE I met my other third grade class...
I started out day two with my same homeroom, and I worked hard to correct the flaws I had perceived from the day before. I wanted to make sure I did everything right, because I do NOT want to be in the worst-case-scenario videos they show at Institute. I wanted to be one of the success videos if I ended up in any video at all (not to say that this is an inevitability, just that it is a small nightmare I have occasionally...). After a couple hours, I was running out of activities and I was anxious to meet the other class. So Mrs. Johnson and I did our best to attempt our first class switch of the year. It wasn't a complete failure, even though my homeroom performed miserably in the "quickly and quietly cubby procedure" we had been practicing all morning. I did, however, catch Mrs. Johnson giving a warning to her homeroom students: "Now listen up boys and girls. Ms. Cook comes to us after teaching in Texas. They don't play down in Texas. Ms. Cook don't play, so you better be on your best behavior with her, cuz she will get you."
I could have kissed her for scaring her kids, and giving me the inadvertent confidence boost I needed to come out strong with the new batch. So let me tell you, my introduction to Mrs. Johnson's homeroom was pretty phenomenal. I don't mind admitting it, especially since Principal Montgomery got to observe the best of it, and especially since, well, the success did not last very long. This group of kids was much larger than mine--25 kids rather than the 19 I had taken for granted--and they are frightfully unused to structure. Sure, there were several, as usual, who hung on my every word and aimed to please me beyond all other earthly concerns, but I was honestly troubled and surprised by the lack of respect these kids showed for one another and for education in general. I have never seen such aggressive testosterone in an eight-year-old, nor such blatant apathy. I sit here now still reeling from the reality of the challenges that will greet me on Monday and that will continue to haunt our progress this year. Everyone has warned us of the obstacles, but I could help but hope with every fiber of my naivete that my class would be the exception. The truth I should have expected all along is a little difficult to handle.
But when I rightfully put the first two days into perspective, I have to say that I am THRILLED by what awaits me. When my homeroom came back for the last hour of the day, they greeted me with hugs, warmth, and excellent behavior. All I had to do to restore order was put my hand on the top of the "caught being good" bean jar. They dreaded the moment they would lose any of those beans. The other class, in contrast, had lost every single bean that they could have hoped to gain for weeks...
I have already learned some important lessons. The good kids in both classes remind me why I love teaching, and the bad kids remind me of why I have to keep trying. Every child deserves my absolute best each and every day, and every child to have a learning breakthrough. In my room, I have displayed my iceberg poster that craftily shows the amount of ice above water, and the enormous depths we never get to see and we often forget all about (sometimes with titanic consequences...haha...ok, bad joke). I told my students that they are all icebergs. They have gigantic potential that we have not yet gotten to see, but each day we are going to work hard to uncover it. Above the poster I hung the words, "Show your potential." This summer I got to see just how true this analogy is. My mission is to find the iceberg in even the most unwilling of students this year.
On my parent survey, I asked the students' families to tell me about their child's strengths, in whatever form that may take. I had some who commented on a student's warm personality or enthusiasm for learning. I had one who responded with a question mark. Even if it takes me all year, I will make sure that that parent knows EXACTLY how to answer that question.
Moving to the Delta!
Hey all, this is my post from last week, which never actually made it to my blog. A new one yet to come! :)
Well, this is my LAST free weekend before school starts! I report for three days of training starting Monday, and then students arrive on Thursday! Within the span of just a few minutes, I go from extreme excitement to a near nervous breakdown as I contemplate what awaits me this week. I think part of the problem is that I have had a lot of time to think about the gravity of starting my first year of teaching; when I started Institute, I quite literally jumped right in. I never once had a moment to stop and completely comprehend what I was doing, so the transition didn't really exist. The mentality was, just do it. Don't take time to think about it!
But since I have returned from Houston, the start of the school year has been playing a major role in my musings. Sure, I had to find a house and move in, and I got to enjoy a wonderful visit from my parents, but ultimately I was always in the community where I would be teaching. There was no separation of being in a different state or a different town. Everything I have done has somehow been in preparation for school. I think I feel excitement whenever I manage to recover my Institute mentality of, just get up there and teach. Don't over-think it. Well, I can safely say now that I am exhausted from weeks of over-thinking it!
I suppose I used the term "free weekend" pretty lightly: my major goal this weekend is to figure out just how I am going to teach for an entire school year. I am literally swimming in resources: my students will receive 4 textbooks and 7 workbooks for language arts ALONE. I have a textbook and workbook for social studies as well. I also found my predecessor's lesson plans from the disaster zone that is my new classroom, and I have a copy of the pacing guide from Jackson Public Schools. I haven't a clue where to start, and TFA has deeply ingrained in me the urgency of teaching. There is no time to waste while I try to figure out what I am going to do; I need to hit the ground running. If I mess up, there won't be any penalty for me, but it will have HUGE consequences for my students. The pressure from TFA and the school principal is intense, but I also suspect, given my well-established modus operandi, that much of this pressure is self-inflicted.
Even though that realization doesn't make me feel any better, I do take a modicum of comfort in the idea that one particular personality trait might finally come into good use. My high school guidance counselor once responded to a recommendation question that my greatest weakness was the fact that I held others to impossibly high standards, since I held those same high standards for myself. Essentially, I expect as much out of others as I do out of myself, which meant people would often disappoint me. Now, however, I can hold my students to the same high standards I have for myself, and I can use those expectations to drive my students to success. After all, how many times have I heard that sometimes all it takes is someone to hold students accountable and to believe that they can achieve so much more for themselves than what they have previously settled for? I hope I can use my high standards in a positive way this year, if nothing else.
At this point, I have spent three days working on my classroom. It would be an understatement to say my room has been a challenging near-disaster--the teacher before me retired after 30-some years of teaching, and so she left nearly EVERYTHING from those 30 years. That equates to a lot of great resources, and an overwhelming amount of pure junk. The custodians were appalled at just how much came out of that room, and how much is STILL coming out of that room. But I am excited at how much I have managed to do with the space with a little creativity and a huge garbage bin. Though I am not quite finished, I have really managed to make the classroom my own, and I can't wait to fill it with students!
Probably enough for now; I have to lesson plan! This is the most stressful part, but once established, the days can progress smoothly. So wish me lots of luck, and feel free to send words of encouragement/advice/commiseration my way! :)
Well, this is my LAST free weekend before school starts! I report for three days of training starting Monday, and then students arrive on Thursday! Within the span of just a few minutes, I go from extreme excitement to a near nervous breakdown as I contemplate what awaits me this week. I think part of the problem is that I have had a lot of time to think about the gravity of starting my first year of teaching; when I started Institute, I quite literally jumped right in. I never once had a moment to stop and completely comprehend what I was doing, so the transition didn't really exist. The mentality was, just do it. Don't take time to think about it!
But since I have returned from Houston, the start of the school year has been playing a major role in my musings. Sure, I had to find a house and move in, and I got to enjoy a wonderful visit from my parents, but ultimately I was always in the community where I would be teaching. There was no separation of being in a different state or a different town. Everything I have done has somehow been in preparation for school. I think I feel excitement whenever I manage to recover my Institute mentality of, just get up there and teach. Don't over-think it. Well, I can safely say now that I am exhausted from weeks of over-thinking it!
I suppose I used the term "free weekend" pretty lightly: my major goal this weekend is to figure out just how I am going to teach for an entire school year. I am literally swimming in resources: my students will receive 4 textbooks and 7 workbooks for language arts ALONE. I have a textbook and workbook for social studies as well. I also found my predecessor's lesson plans from the disaster zone that is my new classroom, and I have a copy of the pacing guide from Jackson Public Schools. I haven't a clue where to start, and TFA has deeply ingrained in me the urgency of teaching. There is no time to waste while I try to figure out what I am going to do; I need to hit the ground running. If I mess up, there won't be any penalty for me, but it will have HUGE consequences for my students. The pressure from TFA and the school principal is intense, but I also suspect, given my well-established modus operandi, that much of this pressure is self-inflicted.
Even though that realization doesn't make me feel any better, I do take a modicum of comfort in the idea that one particular personality trait might finally come into good use. My high school guidance counselor once responded to a recommendation question that my greatest weakness was the fact that I held others to impossibly high standards, since I held those same high standards for myself. Essentially, I expect as much out of others as I do out of myself, which meant people would often disappoint me. Now, however, I can hold my students to the same high standards I have for myself, and I can use those expectations to drive my students to success. After all, how many times have I heard that sometimes all it takes is someone to hold students accountable and to believe that they can achieve so much more for themselves than what they have previously settled for? I hope I can use my high standards in a positive way this year, if nothing else.
At this point, I have spent three days working on my classroom. It would be an understatement to say my room has been a challenging near-disaster--the teacher before me retired after 30-some years of teaching, and so she left nearly EVERYTHING from those 30 years. That equates to a lot of great resources, and an overwhelming amount of pure junk. The custodians were appalled at just how much came out of that room, and how much is STILL coming out of that room. But I am excited at how much I have managed to do with the space with a little creativity and a huge garbage bin. Though I am not quite finished, I have really managed to make the classroom my own, and I can't wait to fill it with students!
Probably enough for now; I have to lesson plan! This is the most stressful part, but once established, the days can progress smoothly. So wish me lots of luck, and feel free to send words of encouragement/advice/commiseration my way! :)
Friday, July 3, 2009
Week 4...and I have a job!!
This week has truly been an adventure on many levels! Apparently this was the week for my kids to test ALL of the boundaries that we had established, and I cannot say that I was successful in preserving all of them. I am not sure what was going on with my kids this week, but they were restless, sometimes belligerent, and a couple times downright disrespectful. One even called me evil. I think she is from a pretty volatile environment, so that one does not ultimately surprise me. One of my fellow teachers unintentionally started a trend of giving this student the attention she desperately seeks, and so now the student acts out at every available opportunity. Punishing her does not work, since she doesn't care what form the attention takes, and I doubt calling home would have any positive effect. Another student just decided he didn't want to be there anymore, and because of his similar attention-seeking behavior, I took the approach to warn him sternly, and ignore him to the best of my ability. It worked for a while, but by the time the next teacher came in, his bad mood escalated to throwing a pencil at her. Incredible, huh?
So if nothing else, this week was a wonderful lesson in how to address larger misbehavior issues. I think I needed to experience that before I get to my region; now I know what it looks like, and even if I am not entirely sure how I could possibly address it, I at least have some strategies!
Which brings me to my great news! I now officially have a job! I know that to many, including myself, it seemed like I already had a job and I am doing this Institute thing in preparation for the fall. But I soon came to realize that while TFA was going to do its best to make sure I had a placement, a lot of the hiring depended on the actual school districts. Up until Tuesday/Wednesday, the Mississippi state legislature was in a stalemate about passing the budget, which meant that the state funding for public schools was similarly in limbo. Until the school districts could be guaranteed their funding, many were on a hiring freeze, which meant that about 90 of the TFA corps members who had been promised a job were not yet employed. I was one of those 90. Even though TFA swore that the budget difficulty would be resolved and we would all be placed very shortly thereafter, some of us still had our doubts. While I was not worried, I was quickly getting impatient. My parents were scheduling vacation so that they could bring down the rest of my stuff, and I needed to be able to tell them where I would be living. I hated the thought that come July 17, I would still have nowhere to go, and my parents would have taken the vacation for nothing. I didn't care for that complication.
BUT, all of those concerns are resolved!! As of yesterday afternoon, I have been placed to teach 3rd grade language arts and social studies at Oliver Elementary in Clarksdale, Mississippi! The school is a magnet school for performing arts, which will be an interesting combination. I will teach two 2-hour blocks of language arts in the morning, and then two 1-hour blocks of social studies in the afternoon. I am kind of excited about this, because that means fewer lesson plans and (hopefully!) a better balance of teaching and personal life! I have been told, on the flipside, classroom management will be more difficult to establish, but I hope it will not be too different than what I experienced this summer. I had the kids for 2 hours each day, 1 hour I shared with the other two teachers and 1 hour was completely mine. And that wasn't too bad. Besides, the classroom will be my own, so they will be in MY space, which might make a difference. :) In celebration, I went to a local Dollar Tree and splurged on some classroom supplies. I say splurged kind of flippantly, though: 30 bucks gets you a TON of stuff at a dollar store! :) Doing just that much has me absolutely thrilled about my classroom!
Institute will soon be over; this coming week is the last of it! I will have three actual teaching days, one day of testing, and then one day of celebrations. It is going to be awesome. I am teaching science for the final week, and just to show you the personal growth I have experienced---I am really excited about it! I am teaching about natural resources for two days and then one day on the planets! It's going to be wonderful! I think my lesson plans are fun and engaging, and these are things that the kids will love to learn...much better than the scientific method, that's for sure!
So, reflecting on the summer so far, you could say that it started extremely rough; I wasn't sure I wanted or could do this, but now, I have gained some confidence and lots of enthusiasm. I can't wait to see what this next step will bring, and even though I know it will be hugely challenging (I mean, look at this past week!), I also know that it will be deeply rewarding. And that is all I can ask for.
So if nothing else, this week was a wonderful lesson in how to address larger misbehavior issues. I think I needed to experience that before I get to my region; now I know what it looks like, and even if I am not entirely sure how I could possibly address it, I at least have some strategies!
Which brings me to my great news! I now officially have a job! I know that to many, including myself, it seemed like I already had a job and I am doing this Institute thing in preparation for the fall. But I soon came to realize that while TFA was going to do its best to make sure I had a placement, a lot of the hiring depended on the actual school districts. Up until Tuesday/Wednesday, the Mississippi state legislature was in a stalemate about passing the budget, which meant that the state funding for public schools was similarly in limbo. Until the school districts could be guaranteed their funding, many were on a hiring freeze, which meant that about 90 of the TFA corps members who had been promised a job were not yet employed. I was one of those 90. Even though TFA swore that the budget difficulty would be resolved and we would all be placed very shortly thereafter, some of us still had our doubts. While I was not worried, I was quickly getting impatient. My parents were scheduling vacation so that they could bring down the rest of my stuff, and I needed to be able to tell them where I would be living. I hated the thought that come July 17, I would still have nowhere to go, and my parents would have taken the vacation for nothing. I didn't care for that complication.
BUT, all of those concerns are resolved!! As of yesterday afternoon, I have been placed to teach 3rd grade language arts and social studies at Oliver Elementary in Clarksdale, Mississippi! The school is a magnet school for performing arts, which will be an interesting combination. I will teach two 2-hour blocks of language arts in the morning, and then two 1-hour blocks of social studies in the afternoon. I am kind of excited about this, because that means fewer lesson plans and (hopefully!) a better balance of teaching and personal life! I have been told, on the flipside, classroom management will be more difficult to establish, but I hope it will not be too different than what I experienced this summer. I had the kids for 2 hours each day, 1 hour I shared with the other two teachers and 1 hour was completely mine. And that wasn't too bad. Besides, the classroom will be my own, so they will be in MY space, which might make a difference. :) In celebration, I went to a local Dollar Tree and splurged on some classroom supplies. I say splurged kind of flippantly, though: 30 bucks gets you a TON of stuff at a dollar store! :) Doing just that much has me absolutely thrilled about my classroom!
Institute will soon be over; this coming week is the last of it! I will have three actual teaching days, one day of testing, and then one day of celebrations. It is going to be awesome. I am teaching science for the final week, and just to show you the personal growth I have experienced---I am really excited about it! I am teaching about natural resources for two days and then one day on the planets! It's going to be wonderful! I think my lesson plans are fun and engaging, and these are things that the kids will love to learn...much better than the scientific method, that's for sure!
So, reflecting on the summer so far, you could say that it started extremely rough; I wasn't sure I wanted or could do this, but now, I have gained some confidence and lots of enthusiasm. I can't wait to see what this next step will bring, and even though I know it will be hugely challenging (I mean, look at this past week!), I also know that it will be deeply rewarding. And that is all I can ask for.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Over Halfway!!
I have survived yet another week of teaching boot camp! I must say that this time last week and up until Wednesday, I was not very sure I was going to make it. I had trouble accepting the fact that my students did not achieve mastery (80%) on our objectives in science the first week, which really discouraged me for this past week of math. I felt like I had failed them, and my biggest fear was that I would continue to fail them despite all of my efforts.
The first three days were rough. While I don't think my lessons were as bad as the week before, I still felt like my students were struggling to grasp what I was teaching. We were trying to learn how to distinguish between the metric and customary systems of mass and liquid volume, which was in addition to learning the same systems for length the week before. I struggled to make it concrete for them and to apply it to their own lives so that they could be invested in it. And they struggled to understand why we would use centimeters instead of grams when measuring mass, or how 2 cups can equal a pint, even though they had watched me literally show them how they are equal.
But in the end, I realized that I cannot expect this information to make sense to a 3rd grader after hearing about it for only 45 minutes. In a regular classroom, my resources would be better and my time allotment would be more generous. As it is now, we are just all in this together, trying to make some sort of improvement, and we are all working very hard to achieve that growth. And I think they will walk away from this experience having learned quite a bit, even if they do not meet TFA's rigorous standards.
On Tuesday, we had yet another bad day in terms of respecting one another. At lunch, we had a whole group of girls who were talking about another girl right in front of her. She came to me and told me about it. I struggled with what I should do, since I personally had not witnessed the problem. I spent the rest of the lunch hovering over that group and probably making them a touch nervous, but this obviously wasn't enough for the girl who was the subject of their bullying. I tried to tell her the limits of my power without choosing sides and tried to console her. I told her that I knew exactly what she was going through, since I had been on the receiving end once or twice when I was her age, but that I had gotten over it and been stronger as a result. I have no idea if I did it correctly. I had tried to keep in mind what I would have wanted to hear if I had been in her place. In any case, I decided that the next day, I would bring the fear of God to my 3rd graders. I had tried being nice and fostering a feel-good atmosphere the week before, but I needed something stronger.
So on Wednesday, I pulled out a tone of voice I have never used before, and I am not lying when I say that it was a tone that was scary even to me. I told them that any sign of disrespect to fellow students or to the teachers would be met with the harshest of penalties, that we would not tolerate students who harmed the learning environment, and that they would write and sign our new classroom respect promise, which would be displayed in our room. The promise ended in true TFA fashion: "I will respect everyone in this classroom. We learn together. We grow together. We get smart together." The scared looks around the room and the subsequent good behavior seem to show that my talk worked. Let's hope I don't have to use that tone too often in my career as a teacher. No one wants to witness that one again!
So as you might be able to tell, my classroom management, though not perfect, is wickedly good. My faculty advisor (Houston ISD Teacher of the Year Melanie Leavens) was pretty impressed with my ability to run workstations efficiently and quietly, and I personally was impressed with my ability to get my students to line up after recess within 5 seconds. Not even kidding. So while I struggle a little bit to make my lessons creative and hands-on, you can bet my kids are on their best behavior! I think part of that is just luck, though; I have a truly awesome group of kids. I will miss them terribly after Institute is over.
This coming week, I am teaching reading and writing, which should be interesting! These are personally my two favorite things, but we shall see how that translates to the classroom.
The first three days were rough. While I don't think my lessons were as bad as the week before, I still felt like my students were struggling to grasp what I was teaching. We were trying to learn how to distinguish between the metric and customary systems of mass and liquid volume, which was in addition to learning the same systems for length the week before. I struggled to make it concrete for them and to apply it to their own lives so that they could be invested in it. And they struggled to understand why we would use centimeters instead of grams when measuring mass, or how 2 cups can equal a pint, even though they had watched me literally show them how they are equal.
But in the end, I realized that I cannot expect this information to make sense to a 3rd grader after hearing about it for only 45 minutes. In a regular classroom, my resources would be better and my time allotment would be more generous. As it is now, we are just all in this together, trying to make some sort of improvement, and we are all working very hard to achieve that growth. And I think they will walk away from this experience having learned quite a bit, even if they do not meet TFA's rigorous standards.
On Tuesday, we had yet another bad day in terms of respecting one another. At lunch, we had a whole group of girls who were talking about another girl right in front of her. She came to me and told me about it. I struggled with what I should do, since I personally had not witnessed the problem. I spent the rest of the lunch hovering over that group and probably making them a touch nervous, but this obviously wasn't enough for the girl who was the subject of their bullying. I tried to tell her the limits of my power without choosing sides and tried to console her. I told her that I knew exactly what she was going through, since I had been on the receiving end once or twice when I was her age, but that I had gotten over it and been stronger as a result. I have no idea if I did it correctly. I had tried to keep in mind what I would have wanted to hear if I had been in her place. In any case, I decided that the next day, I would bring the fear of God to my 3rd graders. I had tried being nice and fostering a feel-good atmosphere the week before, but I needed something stronger.
So on Wednesday, I pulled out a tone of voice I have never used before, and I am not lying when I say that it was a tone that was scary even to me. I told them that any sign of disrespect to fellow students or to the teachers would be met with the harshest of penalties, that we would not tolerate students who harmed the learning environment, and that they would write and sign our new classroom respect promise, which would be displayed in our room. The promise ended in true TFA fashion: "I will respect everyone in this classroom. We learn together. We grow together. We get smart together." The scared looks around the room and the subsequent good behavior seem to show that my talk worked. Let's hope I don't have to use that tone too often in my career as a teacher. No one wants to witness that one again!
So as you might be able to tell, my classroom management, though not perfect, is wickedly good. My faculty advisor (Houston ISD Teacher of the Year Melanie Leavens) was pretty impressed with my ability to run workstations efficiently and quietly, and I personally was impressed with my ability to get my students to line up after recess within 5 seconds. Not even kidding. So while I struggle a little bit to make my lessons creative and hands-on, you can bet my kids are on their best behavior! I think part of that is just luck, though; I have a truly awesome group of kids. I will miss them terribly after Institute is over.
This coming week, I am teaching reading and writing, which should be interesting! These are personally my two favorite things, but we shall see how that translates to the classroom.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Week Two!
I have made it to the other side of week two of Institute! Houston is still blazing hot and the buildings are still freezing, but at least this week I met my kids! I started my teaching career with 3rd grade science, which is kind of ironic, given my persistent discomfort with the subject. All it took for me to have horrifying flashbacks to years of struggling with science concepts was to attempt to teach the scientific method to 8-year-olds! But I can happily say that I managed to pull through, and the students hopefully learned a few things along the way.
I started the week by giving the students a diagnostic test, which we will use to track their growth while they are in our inexperienced hands. My students did horribly on the test, which immediately made me frantic about the challenges we would all face together as a class, but I also realized that meant that we had plenty of room for improvement. With that in mind, I entered class on Tuesday completely unprepared for the dynamics of a science class that happens to fall after lunch and before dismissal. In other words, the students had checked out intellectually for the day way before they came to me. So the first two days of the week were a complete struggle in classroom management. The kids were restless, energetic in the wrong way, and dying to socialize--in both the positive and negative aspects. They wanted to talk with some and to bully others. We had several issues with bickering back and forth, and then it escalated into a shocking incident for a third grade classroom: one of the students left a nasty note that read "F*** you" in the locker of another student. NOT going to happen in my classroom!
I went home and spent a great deal of time that night reflecting on how best to handle the situation the next morning. I can't really say that I stressed about it, because I knew what had to happen and I had a general idea of how I would say it, but I could not predict how this serious talk would be received. To my surprise, the community circle was all it took to bring my kids back into line. By the end of the week, all I had to do was say a name, look in the direction of the behavior chart, and that child would quietly get up to give himself his own punishment (in this case, a card on the behavior chart, which was connected to other penalties). Unbelieveable, right?
Aside from classroom management, I do not feel that I made significant gains with my class. I was quitely literally a fish out of water for the entire time I was teaching the scientific method. I had no idea how to make it interesting or applicable to third graders, who are too young to understand the concept in its necessary entirety. I spent all week thinking back to my third grade experience and tried to remember how I had learned the scientific method, but all I could remember was that I had learned the steps and then the information got increasingly complicated with every passing year. I certainly did not remember making my own questions, hypotheses, identifying materials for the experiment, analyzing data, or making conclusions! I think those objectives (which TFA supplied) are far more fifth grade concepts than third, but we did our best to grasp the information, and I think my kids will walk away with at least a little more than they came to me with.
This coming week, I am teaching math, which will be a welcome change. We will be focusing on the customary and metric systems of mass and liquid volume, which has plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning.
I feel obligated to say, in case you were wondering, that I have no life outside of TFA; I was thinking the other day that when I am done, people back home will ask me, how was Houston? Did you like it? But I will have no response for you at all, other than, well, the skyline from my window was pretty cool. So I warn you now: if you have a burning desire to learn about Houston, I would recommend that you google it! :)
I started the week by giving the students a diagnostic test, which we will use to track their growth while they are in our inexperienced hands. My students did horribly on the test, which immediately made me frantic about the challenges we would all face together as a class, but I also realized that meant that we had plenty of room for improvement. With that in mind, I entered class on Tuesday completely unprepared for the dynamics of a science class that happens to fall after lunch and before dismissal. In other words, the students had checked out intellectually for the day way before they came to me. So the first two days of the week were a complete struggle in classroom management. The kids were restless, energetic in the wrong way, and dying to socialize--in both the positive and negative aspects. They wanted to talk with some and to bully others. We had several issues with bickering back and forth, and then it escalated into a shocking incident for a third grade classroom: one of the students left a nasty note that read "F*** you" in the locker of another student. NOT going to happen in my classroom!
I went home and spent a great deal of time that night reflecting on how best to handle the situation the next morning. I can't really say that I stressed about it, because I knew what had to happen and I had a general idea of how I would say it, but I could not predict how this serious talk would be received. To my surprise, the community circle was all it took to bring my kids back into line. By the end of the week, all I had to do was say a name, look in the direction of the behavior chart, and that child would quietly get up to give himself his own punishment (in this case, a card on the behavior chart, which was connected to other penalties). Unbelieveable, right?
Aside from classroom management, I do not feel that I made significant gains with my class. I was quitely literally a fish out of water for the entire time I was teaching the scientific method. I had no idea how to make it interesting or applicable to third graders, who are too young to understand the concept in its necessary entirety. I spent all week thinking back to my third grade experience and tried to remember how I had learned the scientific method, but all I could remember was that I had learned the steps and then the information got increasingly complicated with every passing year. I certainly did not remember making my own questions, hypotheses, identifying materials for the experiment, analyzing data, or making conclusions! I think those objectives (which TFA supplied) are far more fifth grade concepts than third, but we did our best to grasp the information, and I think my kids will walk away with at least a little more than they came to me with.
This coming week, I am teaching math, which will be a welcome change. We will be focusing on the customary and metric systems of mass and liquid volume, which has plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning.
I feel obligated to say, in case you were wondering, that I have no life outside of TFA; I was thinking the other day that when I am done, people back home will ask me, how was Houston? Did you like it? But I will have no response for you at all, other than, well, the skyline from my window was pretty cool. So I warn you now: if you have a burning desire to learn about Houston, I would recommend that you google it! :)
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Newest Adventure: Teach for America!
The last I used this blog, I was finishing my semester abroad in Germany in July 2007. A great many developments have affected the course of my life since then, but since my readers are very familiar with them, I will not articulate them here. And besides, that is too much self-reflection to do on a sunny Saturday. So, enjoy my latest update in my Teach for America (hereafter TFA) adventures!
I arrived in the Delta during a freakish cold snap, which definitely gives the casual observer the wrong impression of what Delta summers are really like. I experienced a couple days of long and wordy indoctrination sessions and interviewed with two elementary principals. I suppose it was important to acquaint the new corps members with the TFA vision and to create a unity of purpose, but a lot of it was just eye roll-worthy (which I did, internally, on many, many occasions). It did help, however, that I got to meet my fellow newbies, who are generally incredibly nice, brilliant, and fun. We may number almost 300, but the sense of community is immediately apparent. This will be one of my favorite aspects, I can already tell.
I made it to Houston Sunday evening amidst a whirlwind of chaos as 832 TFA corps members from the Delta, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Rio Grande Valley, and Hawaii regions scrambled to get themselves moved into Moody Towers at the University of Houston. We started bright and early Monday morning, and I spent the week getting the biggest crash course of my life in the world of teaching theory and practice. Some of it was helpful, some intimidating, and some, sad to say, made what skills I thought I already intuitively possessed seem inadequate and misinformed--even though I am not convinced that this should be the case. TFA prides itself on building teachers from the ground up (using the slogan, "teachers are made, not born"), which has been a source of discomfort for the few education majors among us. But hopefully, when I get into the classroom for the first time on Monday, the pieces will finally settled into their appropriate places.
I work with two other corps members to teach a 3rd grade summer school class at Wainwright Elementary in Houston, and I will be starting out teaching science! This is hugely intimidating to me, since science was never my strongest subject--in fact, my weakest by far--but I am doing my best to just roll with it. My objective is to teach the scientific method and to lead a class experiment! This has two possible outcomes, as far as I can see: 1.) make me the coolest and favorite teacher of the three, or 2.) make my first week into out-of-control chaos. Since I am well-aware of these possibilities, I am planning very, very, VERY carefully. :)
I have met many great people, and I am having a pretty good time. If I could change one thing, though, I would like to get a bit more sleep... But I do have to say, 5am every morning feels too early no matter how much sleep I managed to get! Anyway, I will try to send an email update/blog post every weekend during Institute to keep you all informed of my progress. Wish me luck, and have a great weekend!!
I arrived in the Delta during a freakish cold snap, which definitely gives the casual observer the wrong impression of what Delta summers are really like. I experienced a couple days of long and wordy indoctrination sessions and interviewed with two elementary principals. I suppose it was important to acquaint the new corps members with the TFA vision and to create a unity of purpose, but a lot of it was just eye roll-worthy (which I did, internally, on many, many occasions). It did help, however, that I got to meet my fellow newbies, who are generally incredibly nice, brilliant, and fun. We may number almost 300, but the sense of community is immediately apparent. This will be one of my favorite aspects, I can already tell.
I made it to Houston Sunday evening amidst a whirlwind of chaos as 832 TFA corps members from the Delta, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, Rio Grande Valley, and Hawaii regions scrambled to get themselves moved into Moody Towers at the University of Houston. We started bright and early Monday morning, and I spent the week getting the biggest crash course of my life in the world of teaching theory and practice. Some of it was helpful, some intimidating, and some, sad to say, made what skills I thought I already intuitively possessed seem inadequate and misinformed--even though I am not convinced that this should be the case. TFA prides itself on building teachers from the ground up (using the slogan, "teachers are made, not born"), which has been a source of discomfort for the few education majors among us. But hopefully, when I get into the classroom for the first time on Monday, the pieces will finally settled into their appropriate places.
I work with two other corps members to teach a 3rd grade summer school class at Wainwright Elementary in Houston, and I will be starting out teaching science! This is hugely intimidating to me, since science was never my strongest subject--in fact, my weakest by far--but I am doing my best to just roll with it. My objective is to teach the scientific method and to lead a class experiment! This has two possible outcomes, as far as I can see: 1.) make me the coolest and favorite teacher of the three, or 2.) make my first week into out-of-control chaos. Since I am well-aware of these possibilities, I am planning very, very, VERY carefully. :)
I have met many great people, and I am having a pretty good time. If I could change one thing, though, I would like to get a bit more sleep... But I do have to say, 5am every morning feels too early no matter how much sleep I managed to get! Anyway, I will try to send an email update/blog post every weekend during Institute to keep you all informed of my progress. Wish me luck, and have a great weekend!!
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