Online Reflection #2 - Polishing the Stones

Polishing the Stones

Welcome back, my fellow future English educators! Today I'd like to begin by returning to the "castle analogy" of my previous entry.

Imagine that an ideal location for our mighty castle-to-be has been found. However the quality of the materials for the castle are not quite up to snuff. The great stones that will be used to build the castle are dusty and the surface is easily scratched. The renowned architect has studied up on how to properly polish the stones to bring out their intended luster and strength. Yet learning the theory and putting that theory into practice are horses of a different color. The architect attempts to put what he or she has learned to good use, but their skill in repair is not quite there yet.

This represents how I feel about pre-student teaching. I have learned the theories of how to become an effective teacher: from classes, observations in the field, and from texts. Yet when it is time to put those skills into practice, I feel as though I fall short. However it is mainly in one area. One of my favorite texts is The First Days of School, which I continually refer to, and succinctly sums up these factors: "Successful teachers are innovative planners, exceptional classroom managers, adept critical thinkers, and competent problem solvers." (Wong, 2011) 

Innovative planning? I think I do that rather well, if I do say so myself. I try to plan lessons around what the students are interested in. I touched upon this in my first post, with a quote from Mr. Bomer, and the Wongs agree that this is a critical factor not to be dismissed: "Finding out about students is important in an effectively run classroom." (Wong, 2011) I got the chance to teach a short two-day mini-lesson over persuasive techniques, and for the examples I had to think about what would interest the students. I knew that there was a fashion club that a few belonged to. I knew that several of them were interested in video games (again, see post #1!) I knew that over half the class had phones with music on them - and just about everyone likes music. Therefore I made my examples over fashion, video games, and music. They grasped the concepts very quickly and were able to perform to my (high) expectations in both learning and recalling what they learned/reviewing the information the next day. Later on in the unit I got to see their persuasive projects that they presented to the class, and was very pleased.

Yet I digress - let us skip to the third and fourth points.Being an adept critical thinker and a competent problem solver are skills that would probably not be able to be developed solely during an educational instruction curriculum - I am lucky to have parents, teachers, colleagues, and friends throughout my entire life who pushed me and encouraged me to develop these skills. I consider myself to be skilled in these areas, but that isn't quite enough. I can have all the skills in the world but it doesn't matter if I freeze up when it's action time. Which brings me to the last point.

The innovative planning, adept critical thinking, and competent problem solving skills are akin to the architect's skills of knowing how to make a shape plausible, where to build for maximum efficiency and stability, etc. They can be learned! - but it takes a great deal of time and practice to allow them to come to maturity. The final part of the puzzle is the problem area - my classroom management. And this is one of - if not THE - most important areas of being an effective teacher! This is incredibly important - there are ten chapters devoted to this in the Wong text! Unfortunately I do not feel like I am meeting my own expectations or others' in this regard. When it comes time to discipline students I sort of "freeze up." This is embarrassing to admit but it is the truth, and the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

I mentioned in my previous reflection about how my CT chooses her battles wisely. I have had a chance to observe some other classes of hers - the non-honors classes - and she is more selective with these students. Guys will punch each other in class (without malice, laughing with each other, just trying to nonchalantly be macho for the girls - it's almost sweet in a perverse, low-brow-humor sort of way) and that would not fly in the honors class. I think that I am using these instances as an excuse to myself to avoid having to discipline students. I'll tell myself "Oh, they're not being that loud" or "Well, they're talking about homework" - I'll make excuses for them that in turn allow me to not have to confront them. This is something I need to absolutely work on, and recently it reached a fever pitch.

(The following paragraphs do not list names and the situations has been slightly altered, to protect identities): The students had a test and I was patrolling the classroom, keeping a watch for wandering eyes. One of the guys I noticed was looking at a fellow student's paper - I admit he was very surreptitious about it, only moving his eyes instead of his neck or body. The first time I noticed it I thought to myself "Well, maybe he's just looking somewhere other than his paper and thinking really hard. Sometimes I do that." A few minutes later when I turned around from watching one part of the class I noticed his eyes flicker back once again. I thought to myself "Ok I think he might be trying to cheat, if I see him do it again, I'll have to say something to him about keeping his eyes on his own paper." Then several minutes later I noticed this same student doing the same thing. I steeled myself to go up and quietly whisper "Please keep your eyes on your own paper." But...

I couldn't do it. I froze. I imagined a scenario of him exploding in anger at accusing him. I imagined demands of proof. I imagined my CT chastising me for saying something before I was absolutely sure. I imagined his friends defending him and claiming that his body never moved. I am ashamed that I instead went to the CT and whispered that I saw his eyes wandering multiple times. She went and talked to him about it, and then talked to me about it. She told me that I am, for all intents and purposes when I am in a placement, a teacher, I have authority and need to exercise it or students will walk all over me. My stomach seemed to fall into my feet as my face burned with shame. She told me that I should have immediately, the first time I noticed something, let him know if I see his eyes wandering again that it would be an automatic zero. (Let it be known that my CT was not mean or cruel - she was kind about the whole thing and tried to encourage me. But at that moment a filet mignon of compliments would have tasted like an old shoe.)

I feel optimistic about my classroom management skills when I envision my very own classroom - establishing my expectations and no-nonsense attitude from Day 1. Wong states that "What you do in the first days of school to affect your students will determine your success the rest of the year." (Wong 2011) I feel like my attempts to pick my battles and let things slide have snowballed and now I can't seem to get myself to suddenly discipline students that I've been soft towards. But how important is it to nip cheating in the bud? Absolutely critical! It wasn't all completely horrible, though. After the incident, a few other guys who were done with their test were whispering to each other. I went over and asked them to please be quiet. They did so, but when I walked away, I heard the whispering begin anew. I circled back around and asked them once more to be quiet because I don't want to have to punish them. They were! Another set of students were whispering towards the end of the class period, and I was able to control that by making eye contact with one of them and giving him a tilted-head-raised-eyebrows "Come on, man. Don't make me come over there" sort of look. (This goes back to the idea of using the mildest intervention possible, after all.)

So when it comes to minor infractions I feel as though I am able to usually deal with those. I usually put my finger to my lips and go "Shhh..." I don't have a problem with answering questions and engaging the students. But major things like seeing a student (seemingly) attempt to cheat... that's something I'm going to have to really how to deal with - in reality, not in theory. I'm trying to think of how I can improve in this area. I don't want to become an ogre that suddenly says to myself "Self, I'm not going to let anything slide anymore. No more Mr. Nice Guy." But I feel like I am being Mr. Nice Guy too much of the time. I'm trying to find that middle ground, and when the ground gets too high I panic and can't face it. I'm going to try and mentally focus on my CT telling me that I am a teacher and I have authority, and the successes I have had with classroom management. I am afraid of failure and that is holding me back from wanting to try when I feel the stakes are higher than I am comfortable with. However I am feeling optimistic after getting this all off my chest. This blog is pretty therapeutic! 

My fellow teachers, I implore you to share your struggles or triumphs of classroom management with me. I need all the help I can get. Those stones aren't going to polish themselves, no matter how much I wait or wish for it.

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." - Henry Ford

Resources

          Wong, Harry K., and Rosemary T. Wong. The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher. 7th ed. Mountainview, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications, 2011. Print.

Online Reflection #1 - A Castle With No Foundation

A Castle With No Foundation

To begin with, I'd like to present to you, my audience of future educators, a situation.

Imagine that there once lived an architect. This architect was of great renown and his or her skills were recognized far and wide. So great were the architect's credentials that some member of royalty commissioned him or her to build a great castle. The architect has the techniques, knowledge, and equipment to turn the monarch's dream into reality, but the soil is very soft and hardly a suitable location for a thatched-roof cottage, let alone a mighty bastion. In this situation the one thing that prevents the architect from succeeding is a lack of proper foundation.

A barely-propped up analogy filled with holes? Sure, but the underlying message is pertinent (and to be truthful, I mostly figured this imagery would stick in your heads a bit more!) As an educator, you're not going to be able to teach your students unless you have some kind of foundation to build on. Think back to "that" class in high school. The one you hated. What was wrong with it - was the teacher rude, or did they only lecture? Perhaps they had such poor classroom management you couldn't hear yourself think, or maybe they had a seemingly personal vendetta against you. Whatever the reason, chances are that if that was eliminated from the equation... would that class have been better? Surely the answer is yes. How much better? Merely tolerable? Would you have perhaps enjoyed it? At the very least you would have learned more in that environment. As an individual who is going through the wringer of being legally prepared to teach, I find it hard to imagine that a licensed teacher flat-out cannot be an effective teacher - I believe they simply don't know how. (Again, the analogy is flawed, there isn't magical architect knowledge that will harden the ground as far as I know - forgive me.) If they knew what the problem was, truly admitted their current shortcomings and didn't let ego or stubbornness get in the way, I think any real educator would be able to clear that hurdle and reach the vast majority of students.

This brings me to a quality I observe in my CT that I admire. She has strong classroom management skills, but does not wield her powers for evil. (Think of "that" teacher - maybe they were too strict?) 

If a student is talking... 

in a whisper... 

extremely quietly... 

with someone right next to them... 

about the assignment at hand... 

for only a few seconds... 

she lets it slide. This makes me think of The First Days of School by Harry Wong - an excellent book that I held onto after my initial "So You Want to be a Teacher" course for which it was required, I highly recommend it - in which he states that "an effective teacher always uses the mildest form of intervention possible." (Wong, 2011) I have found this to be true and I was quite surprised with just how mild you can be and it still having an effect - I suppose the key is to nip any undesirable behavior in the bud. For instance when a couple students were whispering to each other while my CT was talking, I softly cleared my throat and looked at them over my glasses - they stopped talking almost immediately! I almost fell out of my seat. My CT uses a technique where if the class is being too loud, she will suddenly fall silent and wait for them to be follow suit - the number of seconds they take to quiet down is the number of seconds she keeps them after class. This is quite effective because they stop after about 5 seconds - about 3 seconds in, half the kids have realized what is happening and have stopped talking, while one of the remaining quarters tells the other still-talking quarter to shut up. Additionally she is very flexible in regards to students' participation in class which I think is great - I am all about flexibility as a teacher. It makes me smile when she indulges a silly answer for a few seconds before getting right back on track, or elaborates on a theoretically-sound-yet-poorly-presented idea to help a student save face. I can tell that she is very aware of embarrassment being the kryptonite of teenagers.

Going back to the idea of flexibility in teaching, Randy Bomer takes that flexibility that I mentioned and elaborates upon that idea rather succinctly on page 25 of his textbook, Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms: 

          "To teach an adolescent or adult, one best begins by finding ways of showing him respect, by bringing him into the relationship as a whole, strong, worthy person. In a literacy classroom like an English class, one way to do that is by receiving students' existing literacies-- beginning the conversation with extended and explicit acknowledgement that most of the things we're going to learn in this class are just expansions on things they already do all the time because they want to. The existence of high-level literate behavior in their lives is, for most students, not something they will already be aware of, or even willing to agree about. So the teacher's job is to convince them of what they are already doing." (Bomer, 2011)

At the start of this chapter, a picture is painted of a youth who almost unknowingly is encountering high level literature almost constantly - through message boards on the internet, instructions for vehicle repair, playing online video games where text is used to communicate, even social media. Although Mr. Bomer thinks that "homies" is spelled "homeys" and that Halo is an MMORPG, this actually serves to prove his point - he does not need to know nuances of what they like, as long as he knows what they like and show them that it utilizes their literacy skills! I encountered this pretty early on - I mentioned it in my opening goals post - that I have something in common with many of the students, playing a certain popular video game. I have not gotten a chance to, but I am very eager to be able to tie this in to my teaching. For instance I could, a'la Mr. Bomer, touch on how they use text to communicate in-game and to look up information about the game. I could mention how using proper grammar and spelling in-game will garner respect, while inaccuracies elicit mockery and rejection. I could go over how writing a forum post that will get the attention of the community and generate a strong argument for your position is an ordeal in and of itself that utilizes the elements of crafting a persuasive argument. This is actually something I am planning on doing - for an upcoming lesson I'll be teaching, I'm going to have all my examples be from video games, music, fashion, or family. The point is that they encounter literature ALL the time and don't even really realize it. So what's the point of that, you ask? Lean a little closer. I'm going to whisper a secret to you.

This is how you get them to stop saying "Who cares about this stuff?" or "When am I going to actually use this in my daily life?" - show them they already are! This is how you make a reluctant student passionate about reading and writing!

Or so I hope, anyway. That's my thinking behind my philosophies of education. I'm not interesting in kids being able to impress armchair snobs by rattling off a list of Shakespeare plays they read but didn't understand. I'm interested in kids coming to class and soaking up the information because they know it will be useful to them. 

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

"If you believe literacy skills will be useful to you in life, they will be."

Resources

 

          Wong, Harry K., and Rosemary T. Wong. The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher. 7th ed. Mountainview, CA: Harry K. Wong Publications, 2011. Print.

          Bomer, R. (2011). 2 Appreciating Existing Literacies. In Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Exceeding Expectations

Alright folks, let's get right down to it. The first blog post. Or I should say, the first "real" blog post.

As I am now in my Core III (Pre-Student Teaching) I am nearing towards having a classroom of students under my tutelage at an alarming rate. The times I have spent in Freddie Mercury Middle School for my Core I and Jim Morrison High School for my Core II were both good, but overall inferior (so far) to my experience at Neil Peart High School. The students are very bright and my CT is professional and kind. I have set some goals for myself this semester in order to grow as an educator.

1. Learn every student's name / learn effective methods for this

This may seem very trivial but learning names is critical to being able to establish a connection with a student. In my Core I and Core II I was only able to truly learn the names of a few students as I spent more time observing than doing that much. My CT has a seating chart with every student's name and face so that is very helpful - next time I get a chance I want to ask if she did anything special to learn their names or if it just comes with time.

2. Establish rapport with students

This was probably by biggest concern but oddly enough I was pleased to find this went off without a hitch. I found some common ground with some of the students over a certain video game - there is actually a club at the school for this game. Indeed, the day after I introduced myself (and announced I played the aforementioned game) I found myself engaged in conversation by the students about it. Obviously my end goal is not to chit-chat about games all day with students but I feel this made me seem much more approachable - a real fellow human being with a life and hobbies beyond the classroom and academia.

3. Show connections between classroom content and daily life to illustrate importance

This is one of my core philosophies of teaching. I was pleased to find that my CT does a good job of this. For example, she had an amusing "good vs. bad" examples ("Goofus & Gallant", anyone?) of various documents - résumés, job applications, stuff like that. It helps to show them that the skills they learn in class really are applied in the "real world." I would like to take it a step further make it even more approachable and relatable - it's what my favorite high school teacher did and my classmates and I ate it up. (For instance instead of résumés I could showcase instead friend requests on Facebook, one with impeccable grammar and one with atrocious conventions - or, keeping in a similar vein, messages from other players in an online game who want to team up.)

4. Projection / "Teacher Voice"

Pretty self-explanatory. I always think I'm being loud, but according to feedback from others - and yes, admittedly from reviewing my own videos of myself teaching lessons - I'm really not. I feel like I am yelling when I am told to be louder when I am "already being loud." That is something I need to get used to. I anticipate this to be a fairly small hurdle though, since my CT seems very on-board to have me participating as much as possible.

My expectations for this year aren't anything fancy or lofty but I think they are realistic and important. I hope that later on this semester I'll look back on this first blog post and realize that I exceeded my own expectations.

Hello World! This is a test of my first blog post.

Undoubtedly this will become a cornucopia of cognitive commiseration.

Please join me. Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage!