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.

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