Highlight of the Day

Today I began grading my sixth grade students' website projects on volunteering. Each was required to do at least one hour of service this month, and I was impressed by the results. I was so encouraged to read student after student explaining why volunteering is so important to their community and how they intend to continue to do service for others. That is my best wish for my career, that I can inspire students from inside the classroom to make a difference outside of it.

Final Observations

I survived all three of my observations this week! Not unscathed. Not without tears. Not without a significant amount of personal reflection. But, I survived, and I learned something along the way. Teaching is not easy. There is not a magic formula for it that satisfies every observer. There is not a singular means to success or failure. In fact, what someone may praise, someone else may harshly criticize. This I learned first hand.

Observation #1- The Principal

She sat in my class for an hour and left before I concluded my lesson and never issued me feedback. It is hard to correlate two very busy schedules and after three days we have not found a time to meet for reflection. I did hear through the grapevine that she had a lot of points for improvement. At first I heard that she disliked my classroom management (a continuous point of contention for me), but then I heard that she was satisfied with my performance, seeing as I am new at this whole gig, but that she thought I was wasting my time spending five days on the Arab Spring. If that is the case, I can of course defend myself both with Michigan's state standard for seventh grade that requires them to take an in-depth look at a contemporary issue and by explaining the relevance of the major revolution that is bringing democracy to the Arab world. Though criticism is hard to hear, it does give me an opportunity for improvement.

Observation #2- Content Professor

Though I feared this observation the most, it honestly made me realize the progress I have made this year. My list of things to work on is not necessarily getting shorter, but the severity of the issues I am having in the classroom is certainly diminishing. This is the only observation I was required to write a reflection on, and in the end it is the observation I learned the most from. I was also video taped (which is nerve wracking) but it is actually interesting to see yourself as the students see you and to realize how you come across from their perspective.

Observation #3- College of Ed Professor

This was my final observation of the semester, and I have to say that I ended it on a high note. I was reassured that I am well prepared for my student teaching experience part I and that there are no glaring issues with my performance as an educator. He even said that there were no unusual issues with my behavior management. He said that it could improve, but that it was normal for me to still be struggling with classroom management at this point. He had mostly positive feedback for me so I was reassured that I have chosen a good career path.


Though it is nerve wracking, and though I am my harshest critic, there is a lot to be learned from others who observe you in the field. I still take what they say about my performance personally, but that is the best motivator for me to continue to work to improve. I am hard on myself because I want nothing short of the best, and I expect nothing short of the best from myself. Students deserve it.

Observations

I can think of nothing more anxiety provoking than an observation of my teaching. The very intention of the authority figure in the room is to judge and criticize you. You must sweat in front of the 30+ kids in the classroom for an hour while that person sitting in the back scribbles furious notes down on their paper, scowling. They are always scowling. Are they scowling for effect or to disguise how they really feel? I don't know, but they are always scowling. Are they scowling at you? At the kids? At an event that occurred prior to their arrival that has tainted their whole day?? How can you know? All you see is a frown sitting there, judging you, waiting for their opportunity to reveal their observations, the good, the bad, and the ugly, regarding every detail of your lesson, your style, your speech, your examples, your teaching, your demeanor, and your perceived ability as a teacher. It is downright torturous.

I have three observations in a row this week. I thank you in advance for any positive energy you can send my way from approximately 8:40-9:33 for the next three days.

Relevance

I have recently completed writing my official Teaching Philosophy paper for one of my final College of Ed classes and have discovered that my whole philosophy revolves around the concept of relevance. Relevant skills. Relevant knowledge. Relevant tasks.

With the Arab Spring, the unit I am teaching my seventh graders now, relevance is easy. It is a world-changing event taking place on the other side of the globe as we speak, but making it relatable is more of a challenge.

Oddly enough, it was easier to make our study of Mesopotamia relatable because my focus of the unit was on the similarities and differences between the social structures of today and ancient times. Relevance was challenging, however, with this topic.

Relevance and relatability should go hand in hand, I think. Students should be able to relate to what is relevant to their lives. To hold true to my own teaching philosophy, I should strive for both, and hopefully my students now and far in the future will benefit from the effort.

Can boring be better?

The unit I planned for my students was stuffed with activities. We played games, watched videos, and looked at pictures. They designed timelines, wrote skits and comic strips, and compared ancient and modern social hierarchies. We did not read the text book or watch documentaries. We did not do worksheets, or drill vocab, and I did not lecture. I thought it was all fun and games. And it was. They were learning, but they were not piecing together all of the activities that I had planned. They could take any of them out of context and discuss them in detail, but they could not figure out how this whole unit tied together, except that it was all about this old place called Mesopotamia. On Friday, I had one student, then two, three, four....etc. asking to have something to read to piece the whole thing together.

What?! Students asking for something academic to read? So, I obliged, and I was impressed when they stayed focused on the article about ancient Mesopotamia I found for them for twenty whole minutes.

I read a section, then took volunteers, and I had eight or so students volunteer to read aloud to the class. Was it boring? Maybe a little. But did it help them make the connections they weren't able to in class? Yes.

I assumed that the students would be able to piece together the concepts I had laid out for them, but I was mistaken. Maybe in high school they would be able to understand what I was getting after, but not in middle school. One of my biggest struggles is figuring out what a seventh grade mind is capable of, but I realize now that above all else, they know themselves. They know all about themselves. They even know what they don't know.

I was glad they asked for a reading that tied together the loose ends of my unit, because without them asking for it, I would have never realized that boring could be better (when used in moderation).

Unit Midpoint

Anyone who assumes that teachers must get bored doing the same thing hour after hour, year after year has obviously never taught. I spent hours crafting each lesson plan and activity for my students, and they never go as planned. A student in one hour will ask an awe-inspiring question that demands a well thought out answer, and students in another class will create semi-relevant tangents that put you 10 minutes off your plan. Still in other cases activities will take twice, or even three times as long as anticipated, and the same activity may take no time at all in your next class. I have taught now for 6.5 days and I have already experienced each of these scenarios.

Students are masters at getting teachers off task. I am naive enough to assume that all students are interested in learning and that is why they are asking me semi-relevant questions that get me to blather on for 5 or 10 minutes. I make the mistake of addressing every question every student has thinking about the old teaching adage that if one person asks a question, most likely someone else has the same one. I am here to tell you that this is not always the case. It takes a special student with a certain level of cockiness to ask you to repeat all of the directions you just gave because they were not listening. This has happened to me. Twice.

From all of this, I am learning. I am learning that I need to be more patient. Not every issue that has come up over the course of this unit has been due to student error. Most of it is my error actually, which is hard to admit. I just keep reminding myself that flexibility and patience are key and this whole newbie gig is perfect practice for those virtues.

Like a saying reads that I recently came across, "Keep calm, and pretend this is in the lesson plan."

Imperfections

Nothing is perfect. Some days go as planned, some don't, but the expectation that any of them would be perfect is simply unrealistic. The world is an imperfect place, so it can be assumed that a room full of hormonal thirteen year olds with a teacher trying out her first lesson plans is also bound to be imperfect. As a perfectionist, sometimes this is hard to comprehend, but making this realization just might keep me sane. All I can do is learn from today and apply it tomorrow and not set my sights on the impossibility of perfection.

My First Unit

I started teaching my first unit today on the Middle East, and surprise surprise, we only got through 1 of the 3 things I intended. My CT insisted that was normal and I should expect no less. Now, I have a pretty ambitious unit plan, and I am expecting those kids to learn a lot, but at this pace, my 13 day unit plan will take 2 months! I have to strategize.

Here is my plan:

Set time limits on activities
Give explicit directions to avoid unnecessary questions
Ask students to hold questions unless they are for the good of the group
Improve my classroom management skills to eliminate time wasted on classroom discipline

Here is not my plan:

Give in
Let the students waste my time
Allow the foolish questions to continue

Piece of advice. I have often heard it said that there is no such thing as a stupid question. I have discovered from personal experience that this is simply not true. I heard many of them today uttered from the sly mouths of my seventh graders as a ploy to waste my time.

No longer!

We may not get through everything every time, but I will subject them to the majority of my unit plan because I planned in specifically with them in mind, and they will learn! I insist upon it.

I have said it and I will say it again; I will not give up on them. Together, we can get through this!

My First Test

On Friday of this week I assigned my students my first test. It was half matching and half short answer and despite their grumbles and complaints about being assigned a test on a Friday, they did very well. I was pleased with the creativity and obvious thought put into their short answers. I even let them cross off one of the short answer questions they didn't want me to grade, and most of them did, but I read their answers anyway and was impressed. Most of my kids knew their stuff! Now, there was a healthy curve with 2 Ds, 5 Cs, 11 Bs, 8 As and 2 100%s, but that is the sign of a good test. A good test lets students show what they know and what they don't know. From this experience I learned that despite kids complaints about laboring over paper and pencil for an assessment, it is always better to get them thinking rather than letting them mindlessly attempt a multiple-guess test or try their luck at true or false questions. Now, it took me 1.5 hours to grade those tests and write detailed comments to each student, but in my mind, it was 1.5 hours well spent. Hopefully it is an appreciated effort.

Highlight of the Day

So the following conversation took place between me and one of my sixth grade students, Max, today at the end of the hour.

"Hey, can I come in during lunch today?"

"Why?"

"I feel really behind on my notebook work."

"We started today. You're not behind. You can't be behind yet."

"Oh. Well, can I come in to get ahead for tomorrow?"

"Nope, you'll have class time to do that. I don't want you to get bored in class because you're ahead of everyone else."

"Hmm. Can I come in then to talk to you about a project I am thinking about?"

"You can do that before or after school or during class. You don't have to stay in during your lunch for that kind of thing."

"Oh, well, then tomorrow? Can I come in tomorrow?"

"Why? Why do you think you have to come into class during your lunch?"

"I dunno. I just want to."

"Oh, okay. Well, we'll see about that tomorrow then."

Some kids are just too sweet for their own good :)