Friday Festivities

One of my male students walked up to me on Friday and exclaimed, "All I know is that I'm a middle aged black woman; help me out!"

This exclamation, in context, made perfect sense. My class was playing the "Guess Who" game where you post the name of a famous person on your forehead and ask your peers yes and no questions to determine your identity. We were playing with all of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, and this particular student could not figure out that he was Helen Robinson until someone said that there was a song about him and began humming "Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson."

This was all a part of my goal to have as much fun teaching as humanly possible in my last few days of class. I intend to play games, read short stories and children's stories aloud, and do a little creative writing. I am fitting it all conveniently into the curriculum, which only goes to show that the classroom can be a fun place if you try. I am really looking forward to class this week, but I am looking forward to my own class next fall just a little bit more!!!

My First Job

My posts have been sparse lately because my priorities have temporarily shifted. As a soon to be college graduate, my main goal as of late has been securing a teaching position for next fall. I had been forewarned that this could be a long and tedious process and had thus prepared for the worse. I went to an out of state job fair in March, filled out countless online applications, and attended every seminar I could find on resumes, cover letters, and interview tips. In the month of March I sent job applications out everywhere I could. And I waited. The hardest part was the waiting.

Fortunately for me, the wait was not long. I got a call in the second week of March asking to set up an interview with a district recruiter I met at the out of state job fair. Things with her went well, and a week later, I got a call from a building principal asking to set up an interview. He asked if I could stop by his office the following Thursday or Friday, but the 1,550 mile drive was a little deterring. I asked if we could schedule instead for Monday when I would actually be in his state on my spring break with my college service organization. He said his school was also on spring break that week, but that he would be sure to be in his office long enough on Monday to complete an interview.

The interview went swimmingly. I could not have asked for a nicer interviewer or better interview questions. I answered with confidence everything asked of me, and by the time he asked the final question, 'Why do you want to be a teacher?', I was glowing. That was the easiest question of all. My first hint that the interview went well was when his questions were all asked, we kept chatting. I asked him a few questions, he asked me a few questions, and I stayed 20-30 minutes after my scheduled time slot. My second clue that the interview went well was when I got a call exactly one week later saying that I was the front-runner for the position, but they wanted to be sure that I would take it if it was offered. The next day I called back and said I would be thrilled to be a part of his school district. By Friday I had the job.

The school is perfect. It was my number one choice of schools at the job fair, and it was the first job I applied to. Had I turned it down and waited to hear from more of the schools I applied to, I don't think I could have found a better fit for me. The school is well over a thousand miles from home, but in my estimations it is worth the distance. This is my own little adventure. This is my opportunity to get out and live life and have fun doing it. This is a fresh page in a new chapter for me, and I couldn't be more thrilled.

So I apologize for slacking when it comes to updating my blog, but I've been a little busy landing my first teaching job.

(One of) My First Hard Days

Though I woke up this morning with the confidence that today would be a good day, and even got on the road a solid 15 minutes head of schedule to assure that I would be the first in line for the copy machine this morning, today did not turn out to be a good day. The moment my students arrived, their grumblings reminded me of the severe disappointment that I experienced on Friday while grading their first To Kill a Mockingbird reading quizzes. This trimester, in attempt to align with the new national standards, my school is trying something new. We are assigning literature to our students as homework while teaching them unrelated material in class and assessing them on their reading comprehension on a weekly basis. This differs significantly from the heavy discussion based classroom I am used to and the changes are not being warmly received. 

The first quiz was a wake up call. To me and the students. Of my 32 students first hour, 5 passed the quiz with higher than a 60%. This was simply a reading quiz that was meant to assess their higher level thinking skills as related to this novel. It had to compensate for days without discussion or even mention of the novel. As hard as this has been on me to give up my favorite aspect of the English classroom, it must be equally hard on my students. With this being one of the first grades on the books for the new trimester, many of my students are currently failing the class. They, and their parents, are freaking out.

The complaints, both justified and unjustified, were mentally exhausting. I did everything within my power to console them, however, and constructed for them a success strategy. Everyone who did not pass this quiz is required to do a reading guide for the next set of chapters to be tested. If they pass, then they are welcome to discontinue the use of the reading guide, but they may find it helpful for their future success. If they fail a later quiz, the reading guide will be reinstated. This will be true for the rest of the students for the rest of the year. I also showed them an example of a quiz turned in by one of their peers that was done tremendously well. His name was not on it and in no way was he identified, but he set the example for my expectations for the rest of the class. As a last measure, I asked my students to anonymously respond to the following questions:

How much of the book did you read?

How accurate was this quiz in assessing how much and how well you read the book?

Their responses were not surprising. Of my 32 students first hour, 7 claimed to have read every word of every page assigned. That means the other 25 used a combination of laziness and sparknotes to fail the quiz. 5th hour did marginally better. It was a rough day. Students were upset. I was fried.

I had a heart to heart with my students and told them that I did not intend to alter the quizzes. We were going to work harder to raise up to the high bar rather than lower it to met our sub-par standards. This, I think, was the right approach, even if they don't see it yet. Hopefully, one day they will.

My First Field Trip

After weeks of work and pleading, our efforts finally paid off to take our remedial English students on a field trip to see The Hunger Games movie which we had just finished reading in class. The book was used to teach reading comprehension, vocabulary, and literature appreciation. It was the first book many of our students read cover to cover, and our biggest struggle was keeping them from ruining the end of the book for those whose reading pace was slower than theirs. The students completed large projects to wrap up the unit, and their reward for completing two C or better projects was the movie. All but two students from both classes completed the assignment, a record for this class.

We took a bus from the school to the theater, and the concession stand was opened early just for us because we had a special 9:00am opening day showing of the film for just our students. They sat scattered around the whole theater and constantly critiqued the movie's variances from the book. In the end, the student's loved our outing and their 3 hours away from school on a Friday, and in memory, we decided to take a group photo. After we took several shots of the students, one yelled out, "The student teachers, get the student teachers in the picture!" which was followed by a chorus of "yeah" and "get in here!"

My co-student teacher and I joined with huge smiles. This class has become so important to us, and for them to make us feel included in their group was really touching. It was the highlight of my week.

Teaming

Today I started team-teaching a unit for a remedial English class with a special education student teacher. We are teaching To Kill a Mockingbird which I have taught for the third time now in two months, but somehow it hasn't gotten old yet, especially because this time around is so different. Because this is a special class, it has its own curriculum, and my co-teacher and I have a lot of freedom. We are taking our sweet time making our way through the unit, and we're spending a considerable amount of time reading aloud. Our objective is to convey to our students the severity of the social issues taking place at the time and helping them realize to some extent the remnants of the racist sentiments tainting the modern world. Making the lessons from nearly a century ago relevant to our young audience may be a challenge, but it is a challenge I am up for as long as I have a partner by my side. I am very excited to sharing my newbie experience with this fellow student teacher, and I look forward to what we can learn together and from each other!

New Trimester

Today was the start of a new trimester with dozens of new faces. As my time is coming to an end at my student teaching placement, the education of these students is really just getting underway. A student told me today how hard it is having student teachers in class because the students get to know them and trust them, and then they up and leave. If the students feel the sudden detachment, I can only imagine how I will feel when I have to say my final goodbyes. I have already arranged to stay at least three extra days with my students, but I am afraid this will not suffice. I am busily applying to jobs right now so that, with any luck, after the start of my next school year I will be seeing many faces over and over and over again. I can only hope that I find a school that fits me as well as where I am now.

Extra Credit

Never have so many students inquired about their grades than at the end of the trimester. Something clicked in their brains this week as we were studying for our final exams and everyone suddenly became keenly interested in their GPA. I think mothers had something to do with it. I had students with Ds and low Cs asking for extra credit. I even had a mother of a student email asking for extra credit on her son's behalf! My answer must be a determined, "No!" Extra credit is for exemplary work that in some way stands out from everyone else's in a positive way! If the only exemplary aspect of your work is your astounding lack of effort, I am not going to be so moved as to offer you extra credit to make up for your laziness. You need to be conscious of the credit your are receiving, or not receiving, as the trimester unfolds, and you need to put a little effort in sometime before the last week of the trimester.You must earn your grades, and if you are earning a D or an E, than that is what you are going to get. I am not rewarding your last minute attempts to compensate for your poor work ethic. I honestly believe that I am being entirely fair in letting you, my students, live with the grades you earned. I am in the business of rearing adults and in respect of that I am going to treat you as such. If you want an A or a B, earn it, and I will be happy to deliver.

Student Presentations

This week is the end of the trimester for the students at my current placement, and as a special end of trimester treat, I assigned a fun project to my students. I asked that they brainstorm lists of things that they are good at and things they like to do, and from that list I asked them choose one skill to demonstrate in front of the class. I made this a formal assignment by requiring a visual and an outline of the five-step process that they would be demonstrating.

Topics included how to make paper air-planes, how to make grilled quesadillas, how to write a song, and how to play defensive linebacker in football. Anyone who brought in food for the class as part of their presentation got extra credit, so today alone we all got grilled cheese, rosemary bread, and a cupcake. Based on these results, I think that I will require my students of any age every year to do demonstration speeches! This is definitely an assignment worth 'stealing' from my CT!

No Voice

A strange pity fell across the room this week when a coughing fit incapacitated my voice in the middle of a classroom discussion. I rushed to get my water bottle, having realized that a cold was setting in and trying my best to be prepared, but it was not enough. Momentarily, my voice was gone. And no student made a peep. Several glanced sideways at each other, wondering what to do, but no one made a definitive movement or spoke. I croaked out an apologized, and my students just stared, dumbfounded. A teacher with no voice is no teacher at all! They didn't know how to react! They shifted uncomfortably as I gulped down water and tried to dislodge the frog that had settled in my throat. After 90 seconds of discomfort for all involved, I managed a squeaky sentence that slowly evened out into a hoarse echo of what my voice was minutes before. This would have to do.

Never before had I been so captivating to my students. My sudden lack of voice was obviously the most astounding thing to happen in our classroom that morning, or likely that week. I was slowly able to get the class back on track with my weaker voice, but my whispered tones worked wonders for behavior management! With all of my students straining to hear me, they were forced to be quiet and focus. Moral of this story: take the good with the bad and make the best of what you've got!

Snow Day!

So, yesterday was our second snow day of the season, and I have not felt so much like a kid than when I got the text that school was canceled. And on a Friday for a three day weekend!! I immediately began brainstorm what amazing things I would do with my time and at the top of the list was sleeping in, heading to the gym, and catching up on some missed TV shows. It wasn't much after that, however, when I was reminded that I am a grown up after all. I spent a majority of my free day writing unit plans, and I could not have been more thrilled. When you spend your free time willingly doing work that you enjoy, that has got to be a sign that you are doing something right. I felt accomplished, and I cannot imagine a snow day better spent.

T-shirt and Jeans

I have never felt so comfortable in the classroom as I did today in my t-shirt and jeans. Like most schools, my school implements a Jean Friday policy for its staff. I usually try to pair my jeans with a cardigan or nice sweater, but today all of the freshmen teachers were asked to wear t-shirts to support an upcoming event. I was leery. I rarely wear t-shirts to begin with and wearing one in front of my students I feared would make me look more like a student than ever. I only have four years on some of these kids and my khakis and pencil skirts are usually my definitive mark as an adult. Today, however, I rocked the t-shirt and jeans and loved it. I do not know if the t-shirt and jeans made me feel comfortable or if I am finally comfortable enough in myself to be comfortable in a t-shirt and jeans, but today I felt good. Students responded well to my relaxed look, and I would go so far as to say my look made them more relaxed around me. Whatever it was, I liked it, and I look forward to all of the jean days to come in my future!

Valentine's Day Dilema

A student of mine came into my classroom this morning and shared with me his Valentine's Day woes from the day before.

"I left her gift in my locker!" he complained, "I can't believe I did that!"

"What did you get her?" I asked politely, afraid that he might have found a melted chocolatey mess in his locker this morning.

"Well, it was like this necklace, and it had rubies in it, and it was really pretty and cost me $235, but it was totally worth it, and we've been dating for 5 months, so I don't think she's going anywhere."

Keep in mind that these are 14 year olds! Let me repeat, after 5 months he already realizes she's not going anywhere? What kind of naive 9th grade fantasy is this? It took every ounce of strength I had not to openly laugh in this young man's face. Now, I am no cynic of love (and no romantic either), but I would bet every penny to my name that they are not together three months from now.

I did not mean to mock; this boy was very upset that he could not deliver his girlfriend's gift, and in an attempt to redirect the conversation I asked him what she got him.

He replied, "Nothing. She doesn't really like giving or receiving gifts."

Oh, so a ruby necklace worth your entire savings to date was your best option? For an eighth grader who doesn't like gifts??

I hope you got as much of a kick out of this as I did.

Happy V-Day!

Tears

Seeing the step-father of one of my failing students cry in myclassroom after school is one of the hardest things I have yet to see during my student teaching experience. His son is failing due to sheer lack of effort, and it is breaking his heart. He said that he is at wits end with this boy and that he can think of nothing to do to help him see the gravity of his poor decisions. As an educator, I feel obliged to help my students find success, but when they do not accept my help or the help of the supportive parents they have at their side, their situation becomes nearly helpless. The step-father fears that there is something larger going on in his son's life that is distracting him from his work, but he is not showing any outwardly signs at home or in my classroom of any changing or atypical behavior. He is failing now, and as the end of the trimester inches closer the likelihood of his passing is growing ever slimmer. I want to help, but how can you help someone unwilling to accept it? All I can do is offer and hope someone takes me up on it. The step-father's tears nearly brought me to tears because he so passionately wants success for his son, but is it increasingly out of reach and there is little I can do this late in the game to make up for the son's three month lack of effort. I can only hope that the heart to heart we had today changes his attitude about school, and he gives himself the opportunity to be successful.

Always an Explanation

I was not naive enough to believe that I had left all of the heartbreaking stories behind in my last school district, but I did not expect the variety of stories that my new school has to offer. There is a student in one of my classes that struggled to cope with my integration into the classroom. At first I took his insults, disturbances, and disrespect personally until I learned that he lives with a solitary parent who puts her habit before her children and that he has been fending for himself for years seeing time and time again how incompetent people can be at their roles in life. The adult figure that serves as his role model is a constant disappointment to him, and he assumes that her lack of effort and affection on his behalf is what is to be expected of adults as the rule, not as the exception. Despite his negative attitude, I have showed him nothing but kindness, and though I am sure that I am not the first educator to try this approach, his teacher told me today that since my arrival he has been on his best behavior all year. Alright! I'll take it! If what I am seeing is his best behavior then I know we have work to do, but I also know that he is ready to put in the effort to improve, and I am willing to meet him exactly where he is. I am again reminded that there is always an explanation; all you have to do is listen for it.

Raging Hormones

When an English assignments brings an otherwise healthy, normal fifteen year old boy to tears, there can be but one explanation: raging hormones. No amount of consoling, comforting, or reassurance could convince my student fifth hour today that he was fully capable of completing the task assigned. We are reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and my students were asked to write a short essay summarizing the discussion had by Tom Robinson's jury during their four hour deliberation from the point of view of one of the jurors. I thought this would offer them an interesting point of view from which to examine the text, especially since we had spent the class period before delving into the Jim Crow laws that plagued the American South. I felt my students were well prepared for the assignment and that a chance to experiment with creative writing would be met with titillation not tears. Raging hormones got the best of my class today, but from here on out I will try not to be taken off guard by the tears or the drama that dictate the teenage existence. I will not let raging hormones reign!

Life Symbol

This week I assigned a project to my ninth grade students to design and explain a symbol that represents their lives. Their images ranged from butterflies to tennis shoes to basketballs, but it was the explanations of their drawings that were the most illuminating. One student, a male, drew a college logo as his symbol, but went on to explain that he used to root for another team because it was the school his father went to, but has since switched alliances because he no longer has any contact with his dad. Though I don't know the circumstance of the estrangement, this was a reminder that students come from such diverse circumstances and that their school lives are but a percentage of their life experiences.

Another student compared herself to a book, saying, like a book, a person can be misjudged by the cover and overlooked by peers when the cover isn't what they want. I thought this was particularly insightful of the student, and enlightening for me as I am continuing to get to know the now 85 students under my supervision. Each of these students has experiences outside of the classroom that greatly influence their lives inside of it, and the more I know about their whole person, the better I can serve them as their teacher. Building relationships with students is a never ending process that I look forward to undertaking over the course of my career.

Ten

When well seasoned professors who spent decades working in the education field as teachers and administrators consider your teaching a 'ten,' you know you are doing something right. I was fortunate enough to have this exact experience this week, and I could not be more grateful for the tutelage I am receiving at my new school that has so well prepared me for my future as an educator. The right mentor can make all of the difference in the world, and I am lucky to have someone I highly admire offering me encouragement and constructive criticism of my teaching. I feel like I am finally flourishing. Not only have I gotten into the groove of teaching, I really found that I have found my niche in high school English. In a perfect world, this is what I will be teaching (and being paid to do it) in seven short months!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have been so busy actually teaching these last three weeks that I have hardly had the time to blog about it! I have officially taken over two classes a day, and starting tomorrow I am taking a larger role in a third. You learn so much more by doing than watching, and as such I have been overloaded with new knowledge and experiences.

Behavior management is hardly an issue in my new school, though my last class of the day could tone their attitudes down a notch or two. It is nearly impossible to quiet them, try as I might. Today we were doing a fun activity based on the key issues discussed in 'To Kill a Mockingbird', and they wouldn't quiet down long enough to listen to each other's opinions. I nearly went hoarse trying to get their attention. What finally worked holding the fact that I can make lesson plans fun or un-fun and that I could start hours of silent work time tomorrow if they can't handle interactive activities. They shut up quick. I hate to threaten my students, but sometimes that's just what works.

Anywho, things are really going swell. I am enjoying my students, the lesson planning, the grading (mostly) and all else that goes into education. Thank goodness.

If you're not enjoying it, it's probably not right for you, so I am lucky to be doing something I love.

Hard Thing

Do you know what's hard? Making grammar fun for high school freshmen. I must admit, I am not good at it yet, but that doesn't mean that I am not going to try for their sake and for mine.

For instance, today we had an epic sentence typing competition (simple sentence, compound, etc.). I thought the kids might get into it, but they did so much more than that. They got excited; they got frustrated; they got competitive.

I handed five groups a handful of independent and dependent clauses, commas, and conjunctions on brightly colored flashcards. It was their responsibility to put them in order for sentences I fed them. And, there was extra credit at risk.

Something I said or did made them get into it. It was a madhouse. They were loud and rowdy and more agitated by grammar than I have ever seen them. It was not the most structured lesson planning I've done, but something about it seemed to work. At least they got worked up!

Anyway, tomorrow they have their test on this stuff, so I will be able to see exactly what they learned and what they didn't. I am wishing them luck. 

New School

After a long hiatus, I have finally returned to the classroom with much renewed vitality. Since Tuesday, when I started at my new placement as a student teacher, I have been teaching. My new CT has already relinquished the reigns to me for two of her four classes, which is more than I could ask for. I am working with freshman English part A and B and loving every moment of it.

The students have a small town charm with a big town attitude and a dose of teenage angst and arrogance. The combination is at times endearing, surprising, or downright humorous. If you need to know something, ask a freshman because, conveniently, they know everything. I do not mean this negatively, but rather brutally honestly because more often than not these students make me laugh out loud or, sometimes, privately in my head. I am enjoying working with this population, and I believe that we will be able have some fun in class over the course of my semester.

On top of having great classes, I am working with a tremendous CT. She loves her job which makes all the difference in the world when it comes to attitude. She comes in every day loving what she gets to do, and her positive energy is infectious. Working beside her will be a delight, and learning from her will be rewarding. Overall, I cannot imagine a better placement for myself! Thank the lucky stars that sometimes life just works out.