It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this blog, and in that time a lot has happened. I hope to be able to describe my experiences as accurately as possible, without time corroding my memories too much. During these past two weeks have seen my lowest of lows and highest of highs, and I still love what I do enough to wake up every morning and go to school, so I think I have hit the jackpot with my degree/career choice.
Monday, February 1st
Because the FCAT Writes Upon Request (WUR) is coming up in one week, Radcliffe and I have decided to quit doing what we’re doing and start focusing on writing skills—a crash course to help them to do well on the WUR. But today was the last day in the mini-unit I planned (concerning comparing and contrasting), so I led the classes quickly through the culminating aspect of that unit. Both first and second period finished the posters with enough time to spare. Fourth/fifth period got most of the assignment finished, but had to be cut short because every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we go to the computer lab so they can work on a (very archaic and non-helpful) program called Readers Workshop. Sixth period decided again today to continue testing my classroom management skills with their relentless talking and off-task behavior and didn’t get anything done. Instead, I assigned what we didn’t complete in class as homework. They groaned, I smiled. Soon they will learn. Or maybe I will. I swear, by the time my internship is over, I will have an arsenal of strategies to keep classes in check. I knew that going to Fairview would challenge my classroom management strategies, but I was unprepared with how hard it might be. I mistake I will never make again. Never, ever, take middle school children for granted.
Tuesday, February 2nd
One week until WUR. Even though they have heard this date countless times, the students are still surprised when I tell them that they will be participating in WUR in one week. Today we worked on elaborating simple sentences into descriptive sentences. However, due to an extreme interest in participating (we used the Promethean board today), none of the classes ever got past the bell work—which is okay, considering they did an unbelievably good job with their elaboration. The trick is getting this skill to stick, and not letting it be a one day deal. We’ll see how much they remember when they do more writing tomorrow. There weren’t too many problems today, but I did notice a large number of students not participating because only one student could be at the board at a time, and it is impossible for every student to be up there in one class period. I will have to remedy this when we use the Promethean board in the future. Constant harassment and conditioning will eventually get all of the students to start on their Bell Ringer immediately upon entering the classroom, but for now, many students are too busy socializing to notice the assignment on the board.
Wednesday, February 3rd
Today we continued what we were doing yesterday in class—elaboration. The students are getting it, but are reluctant to keep on doing it in class. They’re not stupid, they’re lazy. They are so incredibly reluctant to write in class that they’d rather risk a lower score on the WUR. They’re too complacent with their abilities that it’s almost sad. One of the most difficult things as a teacher is instilling a sense of desire for learning and betterment in students. I’m working on it. Fourth period today acted out—Radcliffe was running errands, so she wasn’t there for the beginning of class. Despite exhausting my bag of classroom management tricks, fourth period wouldn’t quiet down, and I was not able to read my daily portion of Touching Spirit Bear. When we got back from lunch, Radcliffe and I decided to rearrange the room so that the students were no longer sitting in groups of 3-4 at a table, and were now sitting at tables for two arranged in rows and columns. They didn’t take too well to the new set-up, but it’s a necessary change—until they behave and follow my instructions. The rest of the students were reluctant to change, but did so without too many cross words. A common theme in my internship will be how I react to the giant hurdle of classroom management issues. It’s entirely different than what I thought I learned in class, but this is the only way to learn. Effectiveness will come with time. No one is a classroom management professional overnight. Except maybe Mr. Cassels.
Thursday, February 4th
Last night I met with Katie, Jennifer and Mr. Shapiro for a monthly internship jab session at Applebee’s. There we discussed a lot of different ideas, strategies and stories. One of the topics that came up was how to deal with death in the classroom (not a student dying, per se, but death in general, as something we all deal with). Since I want to implement my letters for Haiti unit soon, I decided to start with an empathetic elaboration writing dealing with loss—eventually, I want to tie this in with the loss hundreds of thousands Haitian people felt after the earthquake. Some of the students wrote about death, but some of them found it a very difficult topic to write about, so I told them they could write about a loss (friends or family moving away, etc.). The students did a wonderful job elaborating on their loved ones without being prompted to do so by me, but I asked them to give me more. I asked the students to have the reader experience the same feelings that they did at the time of the loss through their words. This seemed to have had an effect on them, as all of the classes gave me semi-detailed paragraphs. The hitch in the lesson came when I called on people to share their writing. Again, there simply wasn’t enough time to allow all of them to share, so there were some hurt feelings. Because of the mature content we were working with, the attitude of the class was more somber and mature. For the first time in a while they were relatively well behaved. If you treat them like adults, they will act like adults. For the most part.
Friday, February 5th
In an attempt to get the students acclimated to the WUR testing environment, I had them write for the entire period today. In order to keep them from tearing my head off, I allowed them to work with a partner and write a paired essay. My instructions were to have an essay where I would not be able to distinguish to separate voices, for the students to combine ideas and work collaboratively to create a seamless essay. I may have received only one out of the fifty or so I collected. But it’s okay. The students are showing elaboration and well thought out planning—it seems as though my strategy is working. Grading these, and writing comments on them, however, is a definite chore. The students did really well today with the assignment. There wasn’t too much talking, and they were on task for the entire period. I separated the students based on ability—I paired a low writer with a high writer so that they could share ideas and strategies. This was met with some resistance, but I held my ground and the students eventually resolved their differences and just worked.
Monday, February 8th
Over the weekend I read a magazine and found out this interesting football type game to play with students. In honor of the Super Bowl, I decided that I would enact this lesson today, as it encourages sentence elaboration and all of the stuff we have been talking about all week. Plus, it might stick with them as they do their WUR tomorrow. The game works like this: Separate the students into two teams, and decide which team goes first via a coin toss. While on offense, a team can gain yardage by elaborating on a simple sentence (on the Promethean board and MS Word)—transitions get 10 yards, elaboration, 10 yards and adjectives 5 yards. A team plays defense by trying to do the same thing before the offense does. The game requires everyone in the class to be writing what they see on the board and adding their own elaborations. Whichever team raises their hands first will get the opportunity to drive down the field. The game was mildly popular with all the classes, but got easier to implement and play as the day went on. First period didn’t like it too much, but then again, I wasn’t exactly sure how to set it up yet. I feel that I could use this type of game again down the road and get better results. Each class took a three word sentence and elaborated it into a 75 word paragraph. I was very impressed.
Tuesday, February 9th
WUR day. The prompt was bogus. The students are supposed to be writing expository prompts, but this prompt asked for a narrative. Just because the word “explain” is in the prompt doesn’t mean that the prompt is conducive for an expository essay. Nevertheless, according to Ms. Radcliffe, the students wrote a lot more than they ever have before, so that is good. What their grades are still remains to be seen. Sometime in the coming weeks we will be evaluating them. The rest of the day was a break from academics. We had a “Fun Tuesday” for fourth period through 7th period (first and second period was WUR time). The highlight of today was decimating four of my sixth period girls in Scrabble.
Wednesday, February 10th—Friday, February 12th
Since first and second period yesterday was WUR time, we allowed them to have “Fun Wednesday.” The lowlight of my day was losing to one of my sixth graders in checkers. I will have to practice. The other periods got back on track with an FCAT themed lesson, since FCAT is in 4 weeks. I plan on having the students write down one prefix, one suffix and one root word each day until FCAT so that they are able understand and decipher some of the vocabulary questions on the FCAT. The rest of the lesson consists of FCAT test taking strategies and looking at what the questions are REALLY asking. We will be focusing more on this for the weeks to come.
Being in front of the classroom is only one part of the internship. It is incredible the amount of work teachers have to do, from planning to grading to cleaning. This week I was also able to call home to students and their families and get parents involved in trying to make my classroom a learning zone, not a socialization zone. Despite some classroom management setbacks, I’d say the internship is going about as well as it could be going. If I was doing everything right I wouldn’t be learning anything, so I’m grateful for my mistakes and learning experiences.
Monday is a teacher work day, so I’m heading up to Montford Middle School for professional development on the Promethean board. Should be exciting.
Your liberal, yet independent idiot,
-T
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Rest of the week
Tuesday, January 26th
Not a bad day. Exhausting, but not bad. I forgot my lunch box at school yesterday, so I had to grab a bunch of quarters for school lunch today before heading to school. Yesterday, I spent all day practicing the lesson I implemented today during first period. Fortunately, and unfortunately, half of the class was away on field trip, so Mr. Shapiro didn’t get to see my classroom management skills with a full classroom. But that’s okay, he’ll get to see them again, later. According to Mark the lesson was beautiful, but I felt there was a ton of room for improvement. That’s just the way I am, though. Nothing that I do will be good enough for me, I always strive to do better. Mark and I had a long and insightful conversation in the media center after my first period lesson. We talked about the areas that I did well at and, more importantly, the areas that I need to work on. The rest of the day was relatively normal. The students were either working on or finishing up the “Meeting of the Rails” article that I assigned for class work.
Wednesday, January 27th
First and second periods were normal, the students spend the entire period finishing up the previous day’s lesson. Whatever they didn’t finish today will be homework due on Friday. Fourth/fifth period decided that they were going to be a bunch of wild animals on methamphetamines today, so due to their constant defiance and unwillingness to acquiesce to my instructions and Ms. Radcliffe’s instructions, they spent the entire period silent, with their heads on their desks, bored to tears. There is only so much classroom management that can be talked about prior to the internship, but in order to fully understand it, you need to be in a classroom. The theories are just words on a page until you have firsthand knowledge of how to handle a class. Even then, that knowledge is hard to come by because it takes such a long time to develop. I know that I will eventually have my own unique and efficient classroom management strategies, but for now, I’m watching and experimenting. I have to say, I hated sitting there policing the students for talking or having their heads up even more than the students being punished. But, the amount of talking they were doing was completely unacceptable, and a consequence was necessary.
Thursday, January 28th
Because her dissertation is due very soon, Ms. Radcliffe took a four-day weekend to complete it. So today and Friday I get the classes to myself (for legal reasons there needs to be a sub in the room, so I was accompanied by the always delightful and insightful Mrs. Hadley, a former FMS E/LA teacher of 30 years). Today most of the classes started a new topic—compare/contrast. According to the bell ringer activity, the students have a fairly firm grasp of what it means to compare and contrast different items. In order to keep them interested in the activity, I tailored the bell ringer activity to draw from their interests, so the students were comparing and contrasting either two of their favorite musical genres, two of their favorite movies, or two of their favorite foods. I knew most of the foods, and some of the movies, but the only musician this white boy recognized is Lil’ Wayne. I have a sneaking suspicion that as this semester rolls on, I’ll become more acquainted with Rap, Hip-hop and R&B. However, I will not be the only one receiving a cultural education, I won’t consider this internship a success unless I have formed a love for the Beatles, Led Zep, The Who, etc. with at least one of my students. God dammit, I’m going to try my hardest to get all of them to fall in love with, in my opinion, the greatest music this world has ever and will ever hear.
Most of the day went off without a hitch until sixth period. Sixth period today made yesterday’s fourth period seem like tranquilized sloths. The hellions were awfully talkative and completely unresponsive to any direction. Therefore, I imitated Ms. Radcliffe’s handling of fourth period yesterday, and had sixth period lay their heads down and be completely silent for the duration of the period. Unfortunately, the students of sixth period had other plans and viewed this as a social activity. Instead of being a teacher, I was reduced to a kindergarten cop, minus the Austrian accent. There were a few students who were following directions, and I hated to punish them, but in war there are always casualties. I assigned the class homework to make up for the lost class time.
Despite the shenanigans of sixth period, Mrs. Hadley praised me for my teaching, but warned me that I my lesson was geared for students who wanted to learn, not the students who needed to learn how to want to learn. The students who fill my classes, sadly, are the latter. I will be keeping her wise words close to my heart as I begin planning for the next phase of my internship—the takeover.
Friday, January 29th
Today was exactly like yesterday, behaviorally. Every period except for sixth period was on task and accomplished as much as possible (much more than I imagined they would accomplish, especially considering the lesson today was focused around group work—in middle school lingo, group work is synonymous with off-task socialization. However, Mrs. Hadley had the wonderful idea to give each member of the group a title and specific task, so the students looked like miniature corporations getting things accomplished).
Again, sixth period was bad. Worse than yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, and I know that they are extremely capable of the work they are being assigned, but they love to talk and stay off task. Fearful that I was letting them walk all over me by giving them last chance after last chance, I assigned them an in class task that they were to do instead of the lesson (which they would not be able to handle). I did not want them sitting with their heads down and lights off two days in a row, so I told them to write a letter to their parents explaining that sixth period is incapable of getting work done because they don’t know how to be quiet. I told them I wanted all of them to have their parents or guardians sign it and bring it in for me on Monday. This assignment has haunted me all weekend. I’m uncertain whether or not I made the right call, but what’s done is done, and there is no turning back. But I am not going to be trodden upon all semester. I kept a list of all of the students who followed directions and promptly made several phone calls home to praise these few students, but I’m still nervous of what tomorrow will bring in sixth period.
I also had to write two referrals today—one in sixth period for profanity and one in seventh period for profanity and defiance. This week has given me a glimpse of what the near future holds, and I’m extremely excited and a nervous wreck, simultaneously. Despite my shortcomings this week, I know that I have grown as an educator and a person, and I’m excited (not scared) to start next week. I’m especially anxious to see how sixth period goes tomorrow. I’m going to stay optimistic and say that it will go well. Now I’m off to do some grading before turning in for the night.
Your liberal, yet independent idiot,
-T
Not a bad day. Exhausting, but not bad. I forgot my lunch box at school yesterday, so I had to grab a bunch of quarters for school lunch today before heading to school. Yesterday, I spent all day practicing the lesson I implemented today during first period. Fortunately, and unfortunately, half of the class was away on field trip, so Mr. Shapiro didn’t get to see my classroom management skills with a full classroom. But that’s okay, he’ll get to see them again, later. According to Mark the lesson was beautiful, but I felt there was a ton of room for improvement. That’s just the way I am, though. Nothing that I do will be good enough for me, I always strive to do better. Mark and I had a long and insightful conversation in the media center after my first period lesson. We talked about the areas that I did well at and, more importantly, the areas that I need to work on. The rest of the day was relatively normal. The students were either working on or finishing up the “Meeting of the Rails” article that I assigned for class work.
Wednesday, January 27th
First and second periods were normal, the students spend the entire period finishing up the previous day’s lesson. Whatever they didn’t finish today will be homework due on Friday. Fourth/fifth period decided that they were going to be a bunch of wild animals on methamphetamines today, so due to their constant defiance and unwillingness to acquiesce to my instructions and Ms. Radcliffe’s instructions, they spent the entire period silent, with their heads on their desks, bored to tears. There is only so much classroom management that can be talked about prior to the internship, but in order to fully understand it, you need to be in a classroom. The theories are just words on a page until you have firsthand knowledge of how to handle a class. Even then, that knowledge is hard to come by because it takes such a long time to develop. I know that I will eventually have my own unique and efficient classroom management strategies, but for now, I’m watching and experimenting. I have to say, I hated sitting there policing the students for talking or having their heads up even more than the students being punished. But, the amount of talking they were doing was completely unacceptable, and a consequence was necessary.
Thursday, January 28th
Because her dissertation is due very soon, Ms. Radcliffe took a four-day weekend to complete it. So today and Friday I get the classes to myself (for legal reasons there needs to be a sub in the room, so I was accompanied by the always delightful and insightful Mrs. Hadley, a former FMS E/LA teacher of 30 years). Today most of the classes started a new topic—compare/contrast. According to the bell ringer activity, the students have a fairly firm grasp of what it means to compare and contrast different items. In order to keep them interested in the activity, I tailored the bell ringer activity to draw from their interests, so the students were comparing and contrasting either two of their favorite musical genres, two of their favorite movies, or two of their favorite foods. I knew most of the foods, and some of the movies, but the only musician this white boy recognized is Lil’ Wayne. I have a sneaking suspicion that as this semester rolls on, I’ll become more acquainted with Rap, Hip-hop and R&B. However, I will not be the only one receiving a cultural education, I won’t consider this internship a success unless I have formed a love for the Beatles, Led Zep, The Who, etc. with at least one of my students. God dammit, I’m going to try my hardest to get all of them to fall in love with, in my opinion, the greatest music this world has ever and will ever hear.
Most of the day went off without a hitch until sixth period. Sixth period today made yesterday’s fourth period seem like tranquilized sloths. The hellions were awfully talkative and completely unresponsive to any direction. Therefore, I imitated Ms. Radcliffe’s handling of fourth period yesterday, and had sixth period lay their heads down and be completely silent for the duration of the period. Unfortunately, the students of sixth period had other plans and viewed this as a social activity. Instead of being a teacher, I was reduced to a kindergarten cop, minus the Austrian accent. There were a few students who were following directions, and I hated to punish them, but in war there are always casualties. I assigned the class homework to make up for the lost class time.
Despite the shenanigans of sixth period, Mrs. Hadley praised me for my teaching, but warned me that I my lesson was geared for students who wanted to learn, not the students who needed to learn how to want to learn. The students who fill my classes, sadly, are the latter. I will be keeping her wise words close to my heart as I begin planning for the next phase of my internship—the takeover.
Friday, January 29th
Today was exactly like yesterday, behaviorally. Every period except for sixth period was on task and accomplished as much as possible (much more than I imagined they would accomplish, especially considering the lesson today was focused around group work—in middle school lingo, group work is synonymous with off-task socialization. However, Mrs. Hadley had the wonderful idea to give each member of the group a title and specific task, so the students looked like miniature corporations getting things accomplished).
Again, sixth period was bad. Worse than yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to death, and I know that they are extremely capable of the work they are being assigned, but they love to talk and stay off task. Fearful that I was letting them walk all over me by giving them last chance after last chance, I assigned them an in class task that they were to do instead of the lesson (which they would not be able to handle). I did not want them sitting with their heads down and lights off two days in a row, so I told them to write a letter to their parents explaining that sixth period is incapable of getting work done because they don’t know how to be quiet. I told them I wanted all of them to have their parents or guardians sign it and bring it in for me on Monday. This assignment has haunted me all weekend. I’m uncertain whether or not I made the right call, but what’s done is done, and there is no turning back. But I am not going to be trodden upon all semester. I kept a list of all of the students who followed directions and promptly made several phone calls home to praise these few students, but I’m still nervous of what tomorrow will bring in sixth period.
I also had to write two referrals today—one in sixth period for profanity and one in seventh period for profanity and defiance. This week has given me a glimpse of what the near future holds, and I’m extremely excited and a nervous wreck, simultaneously. Despite my shortcomings this week, I know that I have grown as an educator and a person, and I’m excited (not scared) to start next week. I’m especially anxious to see how sixth period goes tomorrow. I’m going to stay optimistic and say that it will go well. Now I’m off to do some grading before turning in for the night.
Your liberal, yet independent idiot,
-T
Monday, January 25, 2010
1/25/2010
Monday, January 25th
Today was extremely hectic. I couldn’t afford one moment to breathe, but you know what, it was still an exhilarating and, dare I say, fun day. Unfortunately, the day started off with a tragedy—Mrs. Smith’s guinea pig, Pachez, died today, and instead of making copies of the day’s lesson as I had planned, I was busy making afterlife arrangements for Pachez. Not that I minded, as I am always willing to help out a fellow colleague, but I really could’ve used that time to make copies, because I was scrambling the rest of the day to compensate for lost time. However, as Ms. Radcliffe said, “Welcome to the life of a teacher.” What a welcome, indeed.
I didn’t need to make copies for first period because the lesson I planned for them is for tomorrow, for my university supervisor, Mr. Shapiro, to overview, but because there is no time between first and second period, I needed to make copies AQAP. Unfortunately, the copy machines (all four of them) had other plans. Needless to say, I didn’t have a chance to make the copies I needed to make. Which is okay, because I didn’t crash and burn too badly today. Actually, I think I did quite well. As always, though, there is miles and miles of room for improvement.
I had to keep first period in the dark about my plan to use them as guinea pigs tomorrow, but I did tell them that we would be having a guest. Most of the students were well behaved, but I did have a small power struggle between a group of male students. We’re still pushing each other’s buttons, and figuring each other out, but I think we’re coming to an understanding of what behaviors are accepted and which are not. Second period was the same as first period (but, it kind of fell apart at the very end of class. Sixth graders are very sociable creatures). My favorite piece of dialogue from second period:
“Where is Ms. Radcliffe?”
“She’s at a dentist appointment this morning,” I said. “She’ll be back next period.”
“So you’re here alone today?”
“Yep. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” she paused. “I just don’t think you can handle us.”
But she was wrong! Handle them I did. Granted, classroom management is easier when five of your students are in the computer lab doing FAIR testing, and a random four or five others are all absent on the same day, but I held my ground.
I ran around the school like a crazy person trying to make copies during the planning period. Never try to make copies of a lesson the day you want to implement it. Ever.
Fourth and fifth period is where I was a mad scientist and got to try out the lesson plan that I will be implementing tomorrow in first period for Mr. Shapiro. It went as well as it could have, I guess. Because of the 12 minute mini-period before lunch, I didn’t really know what to do for bell work, so I had them revisit a passage that they read last week. Their response was groaning and complaining. Fortunately, I have a plan for the rest of the semester: read Touching Spirit Bear during that short down time, then use the rest of the period after lunch to teach.
The lesson itself was good (there are some changes that I will make for first and second period tomorrow), but overall I think it went well. However, I will say this: the lesson is intended to be an individual assignment. Sixth graders, especially the sixth graders in the 4/5th period class I teach, have a tendency to gravitate towards group work. For the first 80% of the instructional time I circulated the room, offering help where I could, and encouraging students to work individually. But once the students started getting antsy and unsure of themselves, they started talking and asking questions to each other. The last 20% of that class period consisted of me playing fireman, running around and putting out tiny group work fires. I would rather be a fireman than a prison guard, though.
Sixth period is an entirely different monster than any of the other periods. I love them to death, don’t get me wrong, but I will have to be a hard-ass with these students. Everyday cannot be a struggle. I’ve had trouble with sixth period before, but today was a struggle. Maybe even a war. Because of the constant talking, I eventually had to close the lights and have the entire class put their heads on their desks. Even then there was still talking. It wasn’t until Ms. Radcliffe came back into the room (after disciplining some students) that the class was able to be calmed. The wasted time proved to be too much, and the main part of the lesson was scrapped. We ended up talking about the anticipatory article (about prosthetics and athletes), then talked about my back condition, which was related.
Ms. Radcliffe handled seventh period, while I just circulated and tried my best to keep the students on task. Some students are constantly off task, and I will definitely have to keep my eyes on them. One student in particular is throwing off the (mostly) good vibes of the room; I hope that this student doesn’t become a severe problem down the road as there may be an intervention or two necessary in the future.
After school, Ms. Radcliffe and I talked about my strengths and weaknesses. Things I will be working on from this point forward:
Ask higher-level questions (why, how, etc.)
• Try different classroom management techniques, especially with 6th period.
o Praise students who are on task
o Assign homework if the day’s tasks are not completed (due to behavior problems)
o Be frank with them—“We need to accomplish this, this and this today. If we don’t, it’ll be your homework.”
• Work on class instruction. I work really well individually and in small groups, but I need to take those strategies and apply them for the whole class.
• Practice, practice, practice!
Tomorrow I am being supervised by Mr. Shapiro, I know I’ll do well. I didn’t make it this far not to. New motto: “The task ahead of you is never greater than the strength inside you."
Your liberal, yet independent idiot,
-T
Today was extremely hectic. I couldn’t afford one moment to breathe, but you know what, it was still an exhilarating and, dare I say, fun day. Unfortunately, the day started off with a tragedy—Mrs. Smith’s guinea pig, Pachez, died today, and instead of making copies of the day’s lesson as I had planned, I was busy making afterlife arrangements for Pachez. Not that I minded, as I am always willing to help out a fellow colleague, but I really could’ve used that time to make copies, because I was scrambling the rest of the day to compensate for lost time. However, as Ms. Radcliffe said, “Welcome to the life of a teacher.” What a welcome, indeed.
I didn’t need to make copies for first period because the lesson I planned for them is for tomorrow, for my university supervisor, Mr. Shapiro, to overview, but because there is no time between first and second period, I needed to make copies AQAP. Unfortunately, the copy machines (all four of them) had other plans. Needless to say, I didn’t have a chance to make the copies I needed to make. Which is okay, because I didn’t crash and burn too badly today. Actually, I think I did quite well. As always, though, there is miles and miles of room for improvement.
I had to keep first period in the dark about my plan to use them as guinea pigs tomorrow, but I did tell them that we would be having a guest. Most of the students were well behaved, but I did have a small power struggle between a group of male students. We’re still pushing each other’s buttons, and figuring each other out, but I think we’re coming to an understanding of what behaviors are accepted and which are not. Second period was the same as first period (but, it kind of fell apart at the very end of class. Sixth graders are very sociable creatures). My favorite piece of dialogue from second period:
“Where is Ms. Radcliffe?”
“She’s at a dentist appointment this morning,” I said. “She’ll be back next period.”
“So you’re here alone today?”
“Yep. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” she paused. “I just don’t think you can handle us.”
But she was wrong! Handle them I did. Granted, classroom management is easier when five of your students are in the computer lab doing FAIR testing, and a random four or five others are all absent on the same day, but I held my ground.
I ran around the school like a crazy person trying to make copies during the planning period. Never try to make copies of a lesson the day you want to implement it. Ever.
Fourth and fifth period is where I was a mad scientist and got to try out the lesson plan that I will be implementing tomorrow in first period for Mr. Shapiro. It went as well as it could have, I guess. Because of the 12 minute mini-period before lunch, I didn’t really know what to do for bell work, so I had them revisit a passage that they read last week. Their response was groaning and complaining. Fortunately, I have a plan for the rest of the semester: read Touching Spirit Bear during that short down time, then use the rest of the period after lunch to teach.
The lesson itself was good (there are some changes that I will make for first and second period tomorrow), but overall I think it went well. However, I will say this: the lesson is intended to be an individual assignment. Sixth graders, especially the sixth graders in the 4/5th period class I teach, have a tendency to gravitate towards group work. For the first 80% of the instructional time I circulated the room, offering help where I could, and encouraging students to work individually. But once the students started getting antsy and unsure of themselves, they started talking and asking questions to each other. The last 20% of that class period consisted of me playing fireman, running around and putting out tiny group work fires. I would rather be a fireman than a prison guard, though.
Sixth period is an entirely different monster than any of the other periods. I love them to death, don’t get me wrong, but I will have to be a hard-ass with these students. Everyday cannot be a struggle. I’ve had trouble with sixth period before, but today was a struggle. Maybe even a war. Because of the constant talking, I eventually had to close the lights and have the entire class put their heads on their desks. Even then there was still talking. It wasn’t until Ms. Radcliffe came back into the room (after disciplining some students) that the class was able to be calmed. The wasted time proved to be too much, and the main part of the lesson was scrapped. We ended up talking about the anticipatory article (about prosthetics and athletes), then talked about my back condition, which was related.
Ms. Radcliffe handled seventh period, while I just circulated and tried my best to keep the students on task. Some students are constantly off task, and I will definitely have to keep my eyes on them. One student in particular is throwing off the (mostly) good vibes of the room; I hope that this student doesn’t become a severe problem down the road as there may be an intervention or two necessary in the future.
After school, Ms. Radcliffe and I talked about my strengths and weaknesses. Things I will be working on from this point forward:
Ask higher-level questions (why, how, etc.)
• Try different classroom management techniques, especially with 6th period.
o Praise students who are on task
o Assign homework if the day’s tasks are not completed (due to behavior problems)
o Be frank with them—“We need to accomplish this, this and this today. If we don’t, it’ll be your homework.”
• Work on class instruction. I work really well individually and in small groups, but I need to take those strategies and apply them for the whole class.
• Practice, practice, practice!
Tomorrow I am being supervised by Mr. Shapiro, I know I’ll do well. I didn’t make it this far not to. New motto: “The task ahead of you is never greater than the strength inside you."
Your liberal, yet independent idiot,
-T
Saturday, January 23, 2010
First Two Weeks
Wednesday, January 6th
Today is teacher planning day, so Ms. Radcliffe and I set up the room to get it ready for students tomorrow. I also met some teachers and administrators today during my tour of the school. My adventure of today was battling the copy machines in the main building.
Thursday, January 7th
Today is the first day of school for the students. It is the start of the spring semester for me, my last semester before graduation. I got to be in front of every class today in order to introduce myself and let the students know that I am going to be their teacher, not just a helper to Ms. Radcliffe. In addition to introducing myself, I also laid down my rules and expectations to the classes. I tried to tell the students in the first period class my rules and expectations from memory, but that went down like a lead balloon. To make it up to first period, I said that we would start fresh on Friday. I used my rules and procedures sheet for the rest of the classes that day with better results. I feel that today went well, especially for it being my first day. After school, Ms. Radcliffe and I talked about my plan of experience and other things. Tomorrow we will start VITALS, the curriculum that Ms. Radcliffe is basing her dissertation on.
Friday, January 8th
Today is my mom’s birthday, and I had planned on having each of the classes sign a birthday card for her, but I completely forgot. I watched Ms. Radcliffe implement her VITALS curriculum for first and second period before trying my hand with it for the remaining classes. I didn’t crash and burn, but I didn’t do as well as I would have liked. It is difficult for anyone to follow the thought process of someone else when teaching their lesson, so there were some slip ups on my end concerning that, but the largest problem for me is classroom management. I need to buckle down on off-topic and out of turn talking. Despite some classroom management issues, I think that today went as well as it could have. My goals are to improve my classroom management strategies as well as gain a rapport with the classes. I think that part of the problem with the classroom management this week is that it isn’t really a real school week and the students are still in winter break mode. Next week should be better behaviorally I think.
Week 1
Monday, January 11th
A quick rundown of the personalities of my classes:
First Period—Usually quiet and pretty smart, their answers are on level with what Ms. Radcliffe and I are looking for.
Second Period—Same as first period, but a little louder. On the VITALS assignment on Friday their answers were a little more literal and less figurative than First Period’s answers.
Third Period—Planning!
Fourth/Fifth Period—Mostly made up of lower level students, and high energy and low concentration level class. The students are friendly but thick skinned. Some of them have seen things and experienced things that I can’t even begin to imagine. I have a lot of respect for them, but I also need to find a way to reach them. This period is weird because it is interrupted by lunch, so the first 7 minutes of class we can’t get anything done, then it usually takes 4-5 minutes to get them back on task after we get back from the lunch room, not to mention the 5 minute walk there and back. Lots of wasted time. On M W F this class goes to the computer lab to work on FCAT and reading skills. Personally, I think this is a waste of time. The kids don’t like it and it takes away from direct instruction in the classroom. But policies are policies, and I’m just an intern. This class will be a challenge, but I eat challenges for breakfast.
Sixth Period—By far the most unruly class of them all. I blame pent up energy from the lack of a recess, and the fact that they recently had lunch. This class usually gives me the most classroom management problems, but like first and second period, they are intelligent.
Seventh Period—Made up mostly of students I have earlier in the day. This is the activity period, so we usually work on reading skills and such. On Fridays they’ll have a fun day or something to that nature.
Today went well, I watched Ms. Radcliffe deliver the lesson in first period then I took over for the rest of the day. We started working on sequence words using a picture book. Using Shel Silverstein’s, The Giving Tree we learned what transitions were and made a class graphic organizer. Seventh period started reading Walter Dean Myer’s Smithy Blue Solves Two, a detective play. They will be performing it on Thursday.
Tuesday, January 12th
Like Monday, I watched Ms. Radcliffe teach the first period, then I took over for the rest. We finished The Giving Tree today and started working on the next part of the scaffold. The students are split into groups by table, and each table was assigned a different picture book. They are to read it as a group, find the transitions and make a graphic organizer on a large piece of chart tablet paper. I found out today how loud group work is. Using my discipline policy, Ms. Radcliffe and I devised a way to keep the classes in check. Every two weeks the classes will be given a “Fun Friday” to reward them for nine days of hard, on-task work. Over the course of two weeks if a table accumulates three strikes in one day they lose Fun Friday privileges. The students quiet down very quickly when I start handing out strikes. I think it is an effective classroom management strategy that I plan on using in my career. However, I still need to work on my classroom management. Part of it is the students getting used to me, and me getting used to the students, but I’m too concerned with being the good guy. I have to stop trying stop that practice because it hurts everyone.
Wednesday, January 13th
Continuation of yesterday with group work. Made more copies, had an Intern meeting with Mrs. Pickett in the morning and met Mr. Shapiro, my university advisor, during planning. Only one table has lost Fun Friday privileges so far. 7th period is still working on their Smithy Blue play, their performance is tomorrow.
Thursday, January 14th
After finishing up their group projects, each table presented their picture book and posters to the rest of the class. Still having some classroom management problems, but I’ve come to the conclusion that 6th graders don’t really know any better yet, they’re still young. Granted, they are closer to being 7th graders each and every day, but I think a part of them still wants to be in elementary school, treated like children. Part of the hidden curriculum has to be teaching them how to act during presentations and things like that. As I type this, the gears in my mind are turning and I’m thinking of some activities that will allow them to learn how to act in certain situations.
Friday, January 15th
Like the last time we did VITALS, I watched Ms. Radcliffe do the first period, but this time I took over second period through the rest of the day. This VITALS lesson went better than the previous week’s for me, as I’m starting to get the hang of being in front of the class for hours at a time. Already in the first week of internship I’ve had more hours and experience in the classroom than my entire time in the major. Also, I’ve learned more than any text book could teach me. Because 4th/5th period meets for a block period, they have Fun Friday’s every Friday. The table that had to sit out was very angry, but I think it will make them more observant of the three strike rule in the future. I can feel myself becoming more and more of a teacher as I progress through this week. I’m still having difficulty with their names, but I’m making headway. Next week I am focusing on learning their names and working on my classroom management techniques.
Week 2
Monday, January 18th
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; No school. Potluck at my place with all of my English Education friends! Certainly a mental vacation to see them all and talk with them all again—you don’t realize how much you miss people until you don’t see them every day.
Tuesday, January 19th
On Friday, the students had to hand in their weekly homework, which was to write a paragraph sequencing how to make a root beer float. Today we graded their essays based on how well their instructions worked. Today we hyped 100 students up on soda and vanilla ice cream. I wonder how the other teachers felt about us?
Wednesday, January 20th
After making enough copies to destroy Osceola National Forest, each class moved on from picture books and started working on paragraphs. We’re still working on sequence/transition words (and will be for a little while), so we’re gradually working on getting the students competent enough to read and recognize the passages on the FCAT. After working on sequence, we’ll move on to description, compare/contrast, problem/solution and multiple text structures. By this time next week I will start to take over the classes myself, so I will be responsible for the structures after sequence, as well as the Friday VITALS. The paragraph the classes are working on now is based on the loggerhead turtle. Like with The Giving Tree, we read the passage as a class and create a graphic organizer as a class. This takes the entire period for each class. I’m working hard on my classroom management strategies, but I’m definitely making progress. I think the students are beginning to view me as a teacher, rather than an assistant to Ms. Radcliffe. This theory will be put to the test tomorrow, though, as Ms. Radcliffe will be out finishing her dissertation. Today I started reading Touching Spirit Bear to all of the classes so that they are exposed to what good reading/pacing/pronunciation sounds like, as well as be exposed to literature that they can relate to. Also, today I handed out my first referral, something I really have been dreading. But constant class disruptions and defiance will not and should not be tolerated at any level.
Thursday, January 21st
You know, I think today went very well, all things considered. While I felt like a bloody animal thrown into a shark tank for most of the day, I was able to maintain control over the classes and move to the next portion of the sequence/transition words unit. After revisiting the loggerhead turtle, we moved onto “elbow buddy” work, a paragraph based on the Olympics (ancient to modern). Here the students were to work with their buddy and find the transition words, create a graphic organizer and summarize the paragraph in a GIST (Generating Interaction between Schema and Text) statement (20 words or less, a strategy we have been working on since The Giving Tree). My only two problems today besides loud noises (which I handled pretty well, according to Mr. Barnes, the sub) were two students, one in my second period class and one in my seventh period class.
Friday, January 22nd
Today was the first “Fun Friday” for the students. Before they could participate in board games they had to hand in their homework, a letter to me telling me their favorite movie, book and song, so I could get to know the students better. Most of the first two periods were just keeping students quiet and playing around with them. I crushed a student at checkers without getting a king. But most meaningful to me was speaking to the two students that gave me problems yesterday. I read over their letters and found out that we have common interests. One of the students is a cook and watches the Food Network religiously and the other wants to be a video game designer. The student who wants to be a video game designer has never done a thing in class or even uttered a word, but today he and I spoke about video games and things to that nature. The other student talks too much and answers back, but we had an excellent conversation about cooking and the food network. This weekend I’m going to make an inventory of all of the students interests so I know what to include in my future lesson plans. I already have a bunch of ideas for the future video game designer and head chef. I left during the planning period to go receive my TEACH award at FSU, so I did not get the chance to interact with the rest of my students. So far, though, this internship has been amazing, and I look forward to taking over the classes and implementing my own lesson plans. With Ms. Radcliffe as my CT, I think that I will do a splendid job.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Getting the ball rolling
I have come to the decision that it is in my best interest to keep an introspective blog of my final year at the Florida State University.
It is currently 530 in the AM, the morning of my last final in this summer session. I have tons more studying to do and I am uncertain why I am wasting time here.
It is currently 5 hours and 26 minutes until exam time. I have a bad feeling about this.
Your liberal, yet independent idiot,
-T
It is currently 530 in the AM, the morning of my last final in this summer session. I have tons more studying to do and I am uncertain why I am wasting time here.
It is currently 5 hours and 26 minutes until exam time. I have a bad feeling about this.
Your liberal, yet independent idiot,
-T
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