On-line Reflection #4: Letter to Me

Mercy,

I know that you are a bundle of nerves right now.  You are cramming in the last of your required English courses and starting pre-student teaching soon. This feels like an overwhelming time. You still have to take and pass your PRAXIS exams and your KPTP (which you have not even heard of yet).  Don’t freak.  Everything will be okay.  You are smart and dedicated; you will not crack under the pressure. You will pass those PRAXIS exams just fine (and don’t waste your money on that study book full of practice tests because it will simply collect dust on your bookshelf). You will pass your KPTP too (after a week of frantic typing and melt-downs). To soothe your fears, here is some helpful advice:

·       -  Don’t be so self-critical. [You have this terrible habit of agonizing over every little detail and telling yourself that you are a failure.  Stop that!  You really do know your stuff and you will never be perfect, but you will get a little better every day.]

·         -Follow your instincts; if your gut says “no”, don’t do it. [This will save you from making a blunder on your first day of pre-student teaching and on your first day of student teaching; let’s just say that English teachers are super territorial…]

·         -Know that you already have an advantage in your field thanks to the Co-op program. [Signing up for the program was one of the best decisions of your academic career.  It also gave you some valuable experience that will make you more marketable during your future job search.]

·         -Know that you are in a good school that has a good teacher education program. [WSU gets you into the classroom with students more than most schools and that is the best way to learn.]

·         -Realize that most of your stress is due to the fact that you are not yet a licensed teacher, so you have to play by someone else’s rules for now. [When you have your own classroom, you can generate your own routines and procedures without the hassle of someone else’s quirks.]

On top of these tips, recognize that you have a skill that can never be learned in a college class: the ability to connect with nearly any child that you encounter.  You see the good in people (even if you have to dig deep to find it) and you feel like every child can learn and succeed. It is this spirit that will make you a great special education teacher (a thought that you have been pushing away, embrace it). Don’t let doomsayers cause you to turn away from a path that suits you. 

You will experience many challenges, but you are resilient and you will push through them. Remember to plan carefully and not forget the details (like making copies days in advance). Also, be sure to stay on top of deadlines and planning.

Good luck and hang tough,

Your Older, Wiser Self

On-Line Reflection #3: SPED or Gen Ed???? ( & Reactions to Burke)

Lately, I have been considering a career in special education.  It’s a calling that I have had for a long time, but I have just recently begun to truly look into the prospect.  Back when I was a para, I worked with students who were severely behind in their reading skills.  Some of my students were special education students.  My memories from that time are great ones.  Working with students who struggle, have behavioral issues, or emotional disturbances is tough, but it made me so happy.  I loved helping my kids learn to strengthen their skills through strategies like meta-cognition and “flagging”.  The thought of working with students who have special learning needs gets me pumped; I would be happy to make it a life-long devotion.

                I shared my interest in special education with Ms. Harvey (my CT) who was very supportive.  She encouraged me to go and observe in some of the special education classes during periods when I am not teaching.  Thus far, I have been in two different special education classes and I have had an opportunity to speak in depth with some of the members of the SPED department at Triton H.S.  Many of the staff members say that they knew it was the right path for them. (They had the same internal pull that I feel.)  However, they do not try to glamorize SPED.  I have been thoroughly forewarned about the mountains of paperwork. (SPED teachers are required by law to keep detailed records for each of their students; these records are submitted to the district and state with strict deadlines.)  SPED teachers do not have prep/plan periods because those times are often booked with IEP meetings and other obligations.  And then there is the issue of the educational requirements. I could be hired as a first year SPED teacher with just a BA. However, I would be hired on a waiver and I would be required to pursue my MA immediately.  A MA costs about $15,000 and will take approximately three years to complete. -- It’s a lot to take in, but I still feel drawn to a career in special education.  Could I get some commentary from my fellow student teachers? I have weighed this decision heavily and would like to know what y’all think of Ms. Spears teaching special education.

                With my personal contemplations set aside, let’s move on to some more academic territory.  During my recent reading of Jim Burke’s “Teaching English Language Arts in a ‘Flat’ World”, I began thinking about what it really means to be a Language Arts teacher.  We don’t just teach Language Arts; we teach important life skills. English class is about more than reading and analyzing literature.  It’s about more than research papers and projects.  English class is a safe, low-stakes model of the larger society that exists beyond our classrooms. The expectations that we have within our classrooms are similar to the expectations that our students will find in the adult world:  show up on time and prepared; manage your time carefully; complete all duties thoroughly and correctly; meet deadlines; communicate in a civil manner with peers; process and constructively use criticism; follow the designated rules/procedures.  The entire purpose of the American public school system is not to simply teach reading, math, history, etc.  The purpose is to train our children to be functional and contributing members of society. 

                This reality is terrifying.  We are responsible for the future of our nation.  Talk about some serious pressure!  I don’t know about you, but I do NOT want to screw up. Thankfully, Burke clearly outlines the “new literacy skills” that our students will need in order to survive and thrive in twenty-first century.  These skills include: media literacy skills, thinking/problem-solving skills, and interpersonal skills/self-directional skills.  Every one of these skills is necessary for success in our society, regardless of the professions that our students pursue; whether they work at NASA or Dog N Shake, they will need these skills. 

                According to Burke, there are many ways to encourage the growth and development of these skills within the English classroom.  Some ideas that he gave me that I plan to take into my future classroom:

-          Switching up the seating chart every three to four weeks so that students we have to mingle with new people instead of becoming comfortable with a small group of familiar peers

-          Establishing a threaded discussion board on-line to encourage students to compile their thoughts and pose their own questions and response to one another

-          Having students read about the same topic using a variety of genres and multiple points of view so that they can begin to truly develop their own concept of the topic.

-          Having students use programs like PhotoStory to tell stories instead of merely  presenting facts

-          Teach students strategies for organizing and completing work

-          Have students work under strict time constraints so that they can get use to finishing work in a timely manner/meeting deadlines efficiently

I felt that many of the things that Burke suggested were very practical and easy to integrate into the classroom.

I would like to know some of the ideas that you have for teaching these new literacy skills.  What are some related activities/procedures that you plan to use within your own classroom?

On-line Reflection #2: It's Official -- I am a Push-over!

Now that I am entering my second month at Triton, I have lots of exciting news to report! The first is that I definitely enjoy being a part of the Triton community; the second is that I have begun to teach my freshmen Macbeth!!!

The Macbeth unit is going very well.  We just concluded day three of the unit and my freshmen appear to be enjoying it. I had originally been concerned by the apprehension that my students had regarding Shakespearean English.  I heard the same concern repeated in many variations from my students: “The language is so hard; I am afraid that I will be confused and not understand what I read.” Ms. Harvey [my CT] had already taken some steps to help the students feel more comfortable with the language by having them take notes over common words and their meanings; unfortunately, many of the students did not revisit these notes after their initial writing so many of the freshmen horrendously BOMBED the Shakespeare Language test that occurred last week.  I think that, for some, it just made their anxiety more tangible. – Thankfully, these fears appear to be dissipating as we get deeper into the text. All of my classes are more than half-way through Act I and they appear to be doing very well at grasping the content.  All of my students [with the exception of one] have been reading the text when called upon.  No, they do not read every word flawlessly, but they put forth so much effort that they make me smile every day.  My students are participating and they are interacting with the text in a positive way!

My only concerns about Macbeth are:

-          Reading is taking a bit longer than I had originally planned. Ms. Harvey and I know that we must get through the entire play and the final exam by Spring Break [mid-March] for the sake of the students.  It would be cruel to leave them dangling for a week and then expect them to return with the text still fresh in their minds.  I have had to adjust my pacing to accommodate the extra time that reading requires. [Please note that part of the problem is that the students are not able to take the play home so I cannot assign extra reading over the weekends.]

-          I will not be able to do many activities alongside the reading.  The fact that reading is taking so much time [students must literally read ALL of the play during class] has caused me to have to cut out many of the enrichment activities that I had originally planned. There will be days when all students will do is read Macbeth as a class and answer the questions on their study-guides. I want so badly to do more with the students so that they can better apply the text to their own lives, but I only have twelve class periods allotted for this unit [those twelve days must include the reading of the play, act quizzes throughout, a review, and a final exam]. Sometimes you have to sacrifice activities due to time constraints.  Thankfully, I have pulled out the most meaningful activities and plan to go forward with those so that my students do not miss out.

As I have been teaching, I have discovered my greatest flaw as an educator: I am a HUGE softie!  As a result, discipline is not my strong suit. I immediately address obvious discipline problems [e.g., verbal confrontations, bullying, rude commentary, etc.], but I tend to ignore or not even notice the small, predictable problems [like side-conversations].  It’s a weakness that I really need to work on.  Sometimes, I think that I am soft because I do not want to be the bad guy.  Students encounter lots of belligerent teachers and I do not want to be like that… However, the more that I teach, the more that I realize that enforcing expectations does NOT make me cruel… If anything, it makes me kind because I care enough to address bad behavior so that students can come to realize what is acceptable and what is not.  Turning a blind eye does not do my students a favor; apathy is a cancer to our children because it enables them to continue poor conduct without realizing that their behavior will not be accepted by respectable adult society.  Although, I am coming to terms with my need to be firm within the classroom, I would like some advice from my fellow student teachers.  What can I do to eliminate side-conversations and outbursts?  How can I be firm, fair, and friendly?

ST Online Relection #1: My Internship Thus Far!

I am student teaching at Triton High School [a pseudonym to protect precious identities] with Ms. Harvey [yet another pseudonym].  Triton is a 6-D high school that is full of life and energy.  Past observation courses brought me into Triton and I was elated to hear that I would be back as a student teacher. There is just something about Triton that makes it feel like home.

Ms. Harvey has been teaching at Triton for about fifteen years and she has been in the profession for twenty-one years!   She is an eccentric individual who is very passionate about her work.  Her warm and caring personality put me right at ease and her blunt nature eliminates any concerns that I might have had about faulty communication.

My first day at my placement was January 3^rd which was a district in-service day.  Ms. Harvey and I felt that it would be best for me to begin coming on the very first day of the semester so that my presence would be less jarring for students.  That first in-service day enabled me to get reacquainted with the building and I was able to begin professional networking  by meeting many of the faculty. 

The second day of my placement had me jittery with excitement.  I was going to meet my students!  Triton ran an unusual schedule that day.  The school usually has block scheduling where each class is eighty minutes in length.  However, in light of the beginning of the spring semester, all eight classes were squeezed into the same day so that the students would be able to get acquainted (or re-acquainted) with all of their teachers. Needless to say, it was a little mind blowing to meet the 100+ students that I will be working with, but I set to work immediately learning their names and memorizing their faces. Now that I am working on week four at my placement, I have succeeded in learning the names of all my students!!!

I work with all four grade levels. Ms.Harvey and I have three Honors English 1 classes [freshmen], two English 3 classes [juniors], and one Creative Writing class [a mixture of sophomores, juniors, and seniors].  With this variety, there is a lot going on!

-Our freshmen are currently at the beginning of their Shakespeare unit. They just completed a large research project over Shakespeare and Elizabethan England, and are now working on understanding the language and style of Shakespeare.  Soon, they will begin to read sonnets and then they will transition into Macbeth.  Ms. Harvey wants us to team teach Macbeth.  She will lead the reading and I will lead the activities and assessments.

- Our juniors are currently working their way through a poetry unit.  Thus far, they have explored the writings of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. Next, they will begin their research project over a famous American poet which will include a literary analysis of that poet’s work. Once the research project is completed, the junior academies will begin.  These academies are designed to help prepare the students for the upcoming state reading assessment. [Mind you, this is a very simplified explanation that is meant to maintain the privacy of the school.] Once the academies are through [they will last for about four weeks], I will teach the juniors a two to three day lesson over The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. This poem is usually taught in Honors English 3, but Ms. Harvey agreed to let me teach the poem to our juniors.  I am very excited about this upcoming lesson because I feel that the poem is something that my students will be able to find meaningful and highly scholastic.

-In Creative Writing, students are developing their skills as writers.  Thus far, students have written personal poetry, object narratives, short stories, and character templates. It’s a very interesting class that I love to be a part of.  I will not be teaching this class, but I do assist students with their writing by offering constructive commentary.

My current goals are to get focused and begin formatting formal lesson plans.  I already have tons of ideas and lots of notes scrawled in my notebook. It’s time to start bringing those visions to life. 

And the KPTP makes me feel a little queasy, but I am going to tackle that mountain one task at a time.

On-line #4: What's Happening at Redken?

I will apologize in advance for the lack of order within this post.  My neurons are firing at warp speed. There. Is. Just. So. MUCH. To. Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! *collective breath*

Alright, let me just start by saying that I like Redken. They have this saying around the school: "Once a Redken, always a Redken."  I would have to agree with this school spirit motto. Although I have only experienced one semester at Redken, I know that I will carry a piece of the school inside of me for the rest of my life. The staff is full of loving people and the students are wonderful, creative individuals. I feel that my experiences with the Redken family have been a crucial part of my professional development and have intensified my passion for teaching.

My CT has been a source of support and constructive feedback. Mrs. Annette [this is NOT her real name] initially scared me a bit.  No, she is not a mean lady.  She is just very experienced and very professional which can very intimidating for an untried PST like myself.   I quickly realized that Mrs. Annette is a very caring instructor who always has the best interests of her students at heart.  Mrs. Annette is NOT one of "those teachers"; you know, the ones who show up about five minutes before the school day begins and jet out of the parking-lot at the end of the day like they're training to be the next Nascar champion. Mrs. Annette takes a great deal of pride in her role as a professional educator. She devotes a sizable amount of time to preparing meaningful lessons for her students and she regularly attends school athletic events and other extracurricular functions as a means of supporting the interests and efforts of her students. Her level of devotion is something that I respect and strive for within my own career.

My semester with Mrs. Annette has shown me a great deal about who I am as a teacher.  I have come to see my strengths and my weaknesses.  My strengths are that I am patient, determined, energetic, creative, and passionate.  My weaknesses are that I am still very inexperienced with classroom management, effective time management, lesson planning, and giving clear instructions.  Mrs. Annette assures me that these weaknesses are normal for where I am in my program; she says that time and experience will help me to improve in my trouble areas. I think that she is correct.  I have already seen a great deal of personal growth since August [the start of the fall semester] and I know that I will continue to develop my teaching skills in the months and years to follow.

In terms of the teaching that I have done this semester: I am finishing my last lesson tomorrow!  Mrs. Annette gave me the opportunity to teach a month's worth of lessons to her sophomores. I taught the vast majority of their novel [Rumble Fish] with the behind-the-scenes support of Mrs. Annette.  As a whole, my part of the unit went well.  There were several hiccups along the way [mostly minor classroom management problems], but the overall experience was good. Mrs. Annette told me that she feels that I have done a good job teaching the sophomores and that they [the students] know that I care about them and want them to learn.  I appreciated that positive feedback because I was having days where I would beat myself up over all the things that I should have done better. -- Tomorrow is the final exam over the novel.  I wrote it myself, from scratch.  It features twenty-five multiple choice questions, a short answer section, a quote section, a section on character descriptions, and three different essay prompts [students only have to write over one prompt of their choosing]. As I was writing the test, I was amazed by how LONG it took!  I seriously spent about three and a half HOURS writing the final exam.  I was very careful in my test composition.  I wanted to make sure that the questions were clear and effective.  It was this painstaking attention to detail and format that caused the test writing to take so long.  However, I must say: the product reflects the time and effort put into it.  Mrs. Annette thought that it was very well contrived [with the exception of some typos and tense error].  I spent an additional hour on the Jeopardy PowerPoint that was used as their test review and another thirty minutes on finding graphic organizers to aid in their review. -- Have you been keeping track?  That was FIVE HOURS of time spent planning two days worth of instruction.  If you do the math on that, it breaks down down to two and a half hours of planning for EACH 90 minute class period or 1.7 minutes of prep time for EACH minute of classroom instruction. And some people mock teaching as an "easy profession"...   Clearly, they lack basic math skills and common sense.

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