Random Thoughts

Last week at lunch I overheard some of my students talking during lunch.  They were in the classroom to take advantage of the time to complete work and get help when they need it.  Of course, as middle schoolers, they were talking the whole time and may have only gotten about two words written.  Instead, they were talking about many things that children these ages talk about – facebook and who like who.  I laughed to myself as I heard the students go on and on about who posted a picture of who and how they were tagged.  I was thinking that these students seemed too young to have a facebook page and the statement, “I was tagged as Snow White, but I think I look more like Tinkerbell, “ only confirmed this.

Another thing that was brought up during this lunch conversation was the going rate to pay someone to do your homework.  Apparently, for $20 you can get your homework done for you.  This is definitely something that teachers need to be aware of.

Later on during the day, one student came up to me and said, “I stayed up until 1 in the morning last night.”  I asked him why and he told me it was because he was texting.  I was not too surprised, yet surprised at the same time.  As I learned in the Spring, children in this age group need to have more sleep because they are growing at such a rapid rate.  The increase in technology, and accessibility by children this age, may be interfering with students being able to get enough sleep that will keep them functioning in school.  Yet another thing that teachers need to be aware of.

After class that day, my dyad teacher began talking about random factors that are affect the teacher’s ability to ensure that all students succeed – most of which are out of the teacher’s control.  This conversation evolved from important changes in a child’s home life, like moving in with grandparents from their parents’ house because their parents couldn’t handle taking care of them anymore, to the child suffering the loss of a loved one, especially a parent.  In thinking about it, I started to wonder about how I would handle this and being a caring teacher that the students can come to for support.  Then, the kicker, something that had never crossed my mind – the loss of a student.  How will I deal with this as a teacher?  As much as I hope that I will never experience this, I know that is a real possibility and should prepare myself accordingly (as much as that is humanly possible).

Random classroom ideas:

I was at a craft bazar earlier in the quarter and saw that some people had created magnets out of scrabble pieces.  I really liked this idea, especially for the classroom, so people could play with letters and create words.  At the time I was not willing to pay $2 per magnet, but thought I could easily make these magnets myself.  Instead, I headed to a thrift shop and bought 2 scrabble games for $2, giving me almost 200 letters, then went to a craft store to buy a 10 foot long roll of magnets for $3.  With a little hot glue and these materials, I should have almost 200 magnets for about $5 and a couple hours of work.  I’m excited about getting everything made.

School and Curriculum Concerns

This quarter has been interesting.  The content and the lessons have been great, but we experienced something that has a tremendous impact on students’ learning – school schedule conflicts.  It seems like it is a rare occurrence when students have a full week of school without interruptions, like assemblies, early release, or modified schedules.  This has troubled me because it seems to affect their learning and their learning potential.  With all of the interruptions, how can teachers fulfill the requirements of the curriculum?  As it is, teachers are working against the clock to teach all of the material that the district is mandating. Then, and most importantly, the students are forgetting information and do not have the adequate exposure to material before it’s being tested on, so they are end up either not succeeding to their full potential, or failing all together.  In a day when teachers are evaluated upon test scores and achievement, schools need to consider the impact of scheduling assemblies and the like.  Can a teacher adequately teach or can the student learn in just 35 minutes?  I would think not.

Another problem that I’ve had is the lack of textbooks or text material supplied to students for the units they are learning.  Students have been relying on worksheets and teacher instruction to learn, but what about the students that need to read information in order to process it?  What about the students that miss a day of instruction?  They simply aren’t able to access the lesson.  Sure, the students can go online and watch a video tutorial, but does that replace the textbook?  Is the district overlooking this need when supplying curriculum material?  When I was a student, I always knew where I could find help, information, or explanations, and that was in my textbook.

I’ve had mixed feelings about the integration of students with special needs in the general classroom.  Yes, I see the benefits of doing this, but I am now seeing many drawbacks.  Especially in my dyad placement, we have many students that need special accommodations, but as a teacher with only a 45 or 50 minute class period, can you accommodate all of these students while also fulfilling the needs of the rest of the class?  There are certain students that need one-on-one teaching, but I don’t see that they will necessarily be receiving this when there is only 1 teacher.  I understand that the students are also supposed to be receiving assistance from the special ed teacher, but there’s another resources that the students are not receiving.  If the students continue on to this path, their grade level will increase, but their learning level may not be increasing at the same rate, and they may not be able to fill the difference gap.  Then, there’s the case of MSP, because the students are tested at actual grade level, not developmental grade level.  This is unfortunate for those students academically, but also personally, since their confidence may be squashed because they are constantly receiving failing grades or test scores.

There is one student in particular that worries me.  He is a very good kid that tries hard in math, and works much better when I work with him one-on-one.  By the end of these lessons, he leaves with confidence and a smile on his face.  On the last unit test, he received a failing grade, but I was so proud of him for getting as many correct as he did.  He was so close to getting half of his test correct, something that he was not doing before.  Unfortunately, this is not seen by administration.  Then, when the student is in the general classroom, he seems more disengaged.  So, he really needs the individualized attention in order to succeed, but it is rarely provided.  This story will stick with me as I become a teacher and thinking about how I can differentiate instruction and activities, and manage my time, so I can work with the students that need this individualized help and instruction.

Literacy Blog 5

I’m a bit late with this posting, but better late than never.

Part of the week’s readings dealt with writing conferences with students.  One of the suggestions that Routman makes in Writing Essentials was about whole class conferences.  My automatic reaction to this reading was mixed.  While I can see the benefit of conducting whole class writing conferences, I automatically was hesitant because we have read so many articles about keeping grades and student progress anonymous.  Would conducting these kinds of conferences be complying with that idea?  I have a hard time thinking so. 

Personally, I have felt pressure and shame with my own writing after hearing others’ writing, but that was in high school more than elementary school.  One of my peers, in particular, was a very good writer and after hearing her read her writing, or while peer editing her work, I felt that my work was not as good and could never measure up.  Then, I would wonder if my writing ability and work was worse than my peers overall.  In this case, I pushed myself to be a better writer, but still felt anxiety with writing, of which I still hold today.  I still compare my writing with that student, years later, thinking if it would ever sound as good as hers.

Considering this experience, would having whole class or peer conferences cause students anxiety with writing, a concept that we’ve been learning how to overcome through our teaching practices?  On the opposite side, will implementing these forms of conferences push students to work harder?  It seems like a fine balance for the teacher and will take a lot of preparation by the teacher in building a safe community within the classroom (as we’ve been learning about for the past two quarters).

Another reading, in Fox’s Word Identification Strategies, talks about working on literacy with ELL students.  This is another subject that I’ve been thinking a lot about because it is one that I know I will face in a near future.  I know that it will be up to the teacher to provide many ELL students with the opportunity to learn English, since many of them will only have English exposure at school (it seems like many students speak their native language with their families when they are at home).  Phonemic awareness is key to helping students because their pronunciation of words may be different, therefore making it hard to sound out words.

Many languages, especially the romantic languages, have similar words between languages and with English.  For example, the months in French are very similar to the months in English, so building off the commonalities will help students’ progress.  In regards to reading, finding books that can relate to students’ lives or incorporate both languages may help the student engage in the book and learn a little bit more.  Though I had mix reviews of Gary Soto’s My Little Car during my book review, the book was good at incorporating Spanish words into the mainly English book.

This class has made me think of literacy in a whole different way.  I’ve mainly been exposed to older students, so I had not really thought about how I would teach the basic literacy skills, though I will most likely find myself needing to teach these skills to students of higher grades.  Even if I end up teaching middle school math, I will run across literacy issues when it comes to reading or writing story problems, no matter whether the student is in the general population, a student with an IEP or 504, or an ELL student.