KATE Conference: Thoughts and Contemplations

I attended the KATE conference this week, an annual get-together where English teachers from all over the state gather to share different teaching strategies and communicate valuable thoughts on curriculum. This was my first year ever going and I think that the conference was a wonderful aspect within my professional development.  I got to talk to several experienced English teachers and I gained several new ideas for my future classroom. However, I also learned the value of gritting my teeth into a forced smile as I listened to the toxic words that spilled from the mouths of teachers. Snarky comments about the ideas that other educators were presenting in their sessions and rude commentary over the presence of unlicensed education majors like myself: 
"This will NEVER work.  How completely UNREALISTIC..."
"This is stupid, a complete pie-in-the-sky idea.  I mean... really?!?"
"How about giving handouts to those of us who ACTUALLY teach?"
I remember Dr. M telling us that this conference was a great opportunity to network with other teachers from various districts. She encouraged us to tell people that we are pre-student teachers set to graduate in May... I happily did so because I am proud to be a part of my school's education program and I am excited about the career that I have CHOSEN to pursue. -- I quickly realized that my PST status made me somehow less worthy in the eyes of some of the seasoned/tenured/well-established educators....  I actually had one woman who I sat next to in a session, completely blow me off as soon as she figured out that I am a TEC. She literally turned her body [shoulders,head, and torso] AWAY from me.  When she passed papers to me, she waved them in my general direction without turning towards me and kept her eyes glued to the left of her. I was sitting to her immediate right. I felt like an outsider and I think that she set the tone for my general experience. There was nothing wrong with the conference itself:  I found it to be very enriching. I was just saddened by how cold and distant some educators are.  Aren't we all a part of the same team? Our skills and levels of experience certainly vary, but we are all a part of the same overall mission.  Or are we?  I wish that I could see how some of these people teach WITHOUT them realizing that they have an audience.  I wish that I could be a fly on the wall of their classroom to witness their instructional strategies.  Are they only teaching to the 70% who "get it" without a need for additional scaffolding, leaving the 30% to flounder in a land of confusion? Are they genuinely involved or are they dispassionate? Do they love to teach or are they just rolling through a daily grind? I WANT to know these things!  I want to get inside their minds, their classrooms, their souls... so that I can take a look from the inside and maybe understand who they really are.  You know, sometimes... I just want to run through the corridors of schools across the nation, thrust open the classroom doors, and scream and scream and SCREAM until I permeate the apathy and find the passion that has been lost beneath the bureaucracy.  CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!?! Or am I just screaming alone and to no one in particular? I know that there is life out there, I see it in you: the other PSTs who learn and teach and struggle and blog along-side me.  Please, let us be the new blood that will keep education alive because (to borrow a simile from T.S. Eliot) sometimes I feel that the realm of education is "like a patient etherized upon a table." A scary thought, but an honest one.

Forgive me for this "soap-box" post. I just had to unleash the thoughts that were banging against the inside of my skull, persistent in their desire to be shared. It is not like me to take on such a somber tone, but sometimes tough feelings mess with my happy mojo.  Gotta unleash these frustrations so they don't poison me.

On a lighter note, I am having a great semester! I have finally begun to connect more with the sophomores at Redken and my unit has gone well!  I have been able to teach them for the past month! My experiences have been akin to a roller-coaster with ups and downs and crazy loops, exhilarating.  This semester has enabled me to learn a great deal about lesson planning, time management, and classroom management.  Things were a little rocky at first, but I have found a deeper sense of confidence in my abilities as an educator. I may have found my "brighter day".

On-line Reflection #3: On the Road to a "Brighter Day"

So much is happening at Redken!  The biggest thing is that I start teaching tomorrow. * Woot! * I will be teaching six chapters from S.E. Hinton’s novel Rumble Fish. [If the name S.E. Hinton sounds familiar, it’s because she also wrote The Outsiders.]  The novel is about teenage street gangs in the 1960’s.  The major themes of the novel include: isolation, poverty, and violence.  I must say that it’s a fabulous read. Hinton is a very clear writer who does not use a great deal of ornamentation; she is short, sweet, and to the point.

            Although I am very excited about teaching Rumble Fish, I did have some brief moments of turbulence while creating my lesson plans.  The issue with Rumble Fish is that it’s actually a novella because it is only 135 pages in length.  One would assume that it would be easier to teach a shorter piece of reading, but I feel that shorter pieces are harder in terms of generating learning activities.  After a great deal of thought and consideration, along with some suggestions from my CT, I was able to create instruction for six 90 minute class periods.  I included the graphic organizers  (fold-ables) that my CT had already implemented and added critical reading questions for each chapter, three writing prompts, a written prediction, a written reading response, and a Bio-poem for Rusty-James [the main character].  My CT approved my lessons and I already have all of my handouts prepped and ready to go!

            Through the course of my preparation, I also discovered that one absolutely must be FLEXIBLE in the world of education. One must be ready to relocate scheduled activities or sometimes eliminate activities so that there is time to do a more important task.  I experienced this need for flexibility TODAY.  My CT told me that I needed to add 30 to 45 minutes of LEXACON time to my lesson for Thursday (tomorrow).  In order to make this happen, I had to eliminate two writing prompts and move my students’ Writing Workshop (for a previous technical writing assignment) to another class period. It was a simple tweak to two separate days and I made it work.  This experience taught me how important it is to be ready for adjustment.  LEXACON [the special reading intervention software that my sophomores are piloting to help improve their reading scores] is far more important than a brief writing prompt.  That ability to analyze activity value and make adjustments on the fly was a huge strength that I was pleased to discover that I possess.

           

            As a way to gently ease me into my role as the teacher, my CT had me teach the students for a class period and write a quiz over chapters one through four of Rumble Fish.  Leading the reading and discussion for the day went very well.  The quiz that I wrote did not go as well.  Most of my students scored in the C, D, and F range.  I chose to make the quiz in a short answer format because I wanted to have a firm grasp on what my students KNOW and REMEMBER from the text.  I was upset by the fact that most of my students could not recall some of the most basic aspects of the text.  I know that this lack of recall was due to a lack of reading.  This particular class has a great deal of absences so many of the students are behind in their reading.  I sympathize with this obstacle, but only up until a certain point.  Redken has a specified part of every school day that is set aside for students to study and catch up on missed assignments.  Students have the opportunity to go to their English class and catch up on their Rumble Fish reading; I am also positive that my CT would allow her students to take a copy of the novel home over the weekend if they needed to.  Thus, my frustrations are at the lack of initiative that I see in some of my students.

            In an attempt at a second chance, I allowed my students to make corrections to their quizzes for half credit.  Meaning that if they missed 10 points, they can earn back 5. This gave them an opportunity to increase their scores by an ENTIRE letter grade.  I had a hand-full of students who utilized the twenty minutes that I gave them to make their corrections.  I even told them that I would HELP them find the page number that the answer to each question was on…. And I STILL only had a few takers. I was really angry. The quiz was worth 32 points and could have helped their grade in the class.  I simply don’t understand the lack of interest in academic progress.

            I can sympathize with other PSTs [such as Mr. Burge] who are facing a similar struggle.  How do I reach my students?  How do I get them excited or at least interested in learning? I agonize over these questions and I keep rolling because I know that even though I have not found the answers yet, I will come to a successful conclusion some day.

“If you can make it through the night, there’s a better day.”

- Tupac