Blog 6 - Pfew!

The other week when we had conferences, my dyad teacher told me about one of our students that told his parents that he wanted to drop out of school because it was too hard for him.  He is a 6^th grader.  I was shocked to find out about his dislike for and struggles in school because he never asks questions, for help, and seems to do fairly well on homework and assessments.  This issue makes me think of ways to reach out to all students, to make them succeed, but how can you realistically do this with 150+ students that you see each day?  When they don’t ask for help or raise their concerns with you?  As I’m noticing, especially in middle school, this is idealistic and there are not enough hours in the day to help 150 students with every question they may have.  How do we get a system into place to help all students succeed?  Time will help me discover potential solutions, but until then I feel like my only option is to wing it and just do what I can.

In a recent week, we had a substitute teacher in our dyad placement that was beyond terrible at his job.  The substitute teacher that didn’t introduce himself, didn’t want to be there, had students pass out the unit tests, and didn’t model anything.  He was essentially a babysitter, but not a good one.  During the last period of the day, the teacher was packed up and walked out the door behind the students, even though there still were two students in the classroom.  A conflict between these students had risen and we did not have the substitute there to handle it.  Instead, I had to step in and help resolve this situation to the best of my abilities, but wasn’t confident in how to handle the specific issue.  Instead of disciplining the students at that moment, because I didn’t know the school’s protocol, I took note of the issue and told the students that I would tell the regular teacher about it in the morning and she would help me handle it.  The next morning the teacher was furious with the sub because of his lack of leadership (and essentially doing his job) and she helped me resolve the conflict in the appropriate manner.  This experience made me realize how possessive I will be with “my” classes and how I will have a hard time trusting the substitute doing a good job in teaching my class as per the plan.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I will be doing once I graduate with my Teaching Certificate.  I know that it’s over six months in the future, but I can’t help to think about what my next step will be.  Will I be able to find a job in Washington?  I’ve been preparing myself for not finding a job in Washington, so I’m trying to figure out some backup plans.  First, I thought about teaching abroad, but after doing some research I discovered that most of the programs in the countries that I would want to live and teach require at least two years of experience.  Since discovering that, I have kind of brushed that idea aside.  My next idea was joining Teach for America after becoming inspired by a TV show that featured TFA teachers.  I’ve been doing some research since then and think the opportunity would be wonderful, but still have plenty of questions about it.  What would I do if I could not live where they wanted to send me?  Would I be able to be away from home for the two year commitment that is required from me?  I took some of my research to YouTube, but most of those videos were created from TFA, so I needed to see some unbiased opinions.  After seeing these “I’m changing the world and love it” type of videos, I ran across some videos from Learning Matters that follows 7 Teach For America teachers in New Orleans:

This video is made by many people that support education, so is this the true view of TFA or is it an extreme example?  Would I have a similar experience or would I have the “I changed the world” feeling like the other videos? For example, this video is a promotional video by TFA:

Then, if figuring this out wasn’t hard enough, my parents offered to let me live in their house in Eastern Washington if I couldn’t get a job in Western Washington and I could work over there.  This just opens up another slew of questions that I have about my future.  Sheesh!  Good thing I have at least 7 months to figure this all out!

This week I went to A Christmas Story preview and during the preview one of the musical producers was talking about Jean Shepherd.  Stories said that he would just go on the radio and make up these fictional stories as he thought of them.  As he talked about it, I thought that this idea may be a good one to use in the classroom, in a creative writing unit.  There are many websites that provide audio clips of Jean Shepperd’s broadcasts, so I could find some examples and play them for the class (like the one below).  Playing these broadcasts of the radio shows would give students an example of made up stories that were narrated in first person.  Afterwards, the students will have the opportunity to create a similar narrative fictional story.  I think this would be beneficial and fun for kids, especially because they enjoyed the two truths and a fib.
Jean Shepherd Toy Bedbugs