Back in June, I remember thinking that the second years were too disengaged. I even got a little angry at what seemed like an unwillingness to help us.
"Don't they remember what it was like for them last year? They act like they're so tired... please! It's summer!"
So this is my official apology to the second years for what I thought but never said last summer. With the exception of the fantastic John Darnell, I unfairly tagged most of them as unhelpful and borderline selfish. I get it now!
I was talking to a fellow first year just a couple days ago about how much we are looking forward to summer vacation. At some point early in the conversation we realized that we had the entire month of June to consider before we went on summer vacation. Light bulb moment.
I realize how much effort it takes to get through just a semester of school, let alone the whole year. So by the time June gets here, I will be drained. I am sure that one of the last things I will want to do is teach some more.
So how has my perspective changed? I have even more respect for the second years now. I am half way to where they were when I first met them, so now I have an even better grasp of what they had just endured. I realize that any extra effort they chose to put forth must have come from a good place-the same philanthropic place that drove them to apply to MTC. I hope I can be as positive of an influence to our incoming class of first years.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A Day in the Life
When I was told to write a blog about a day in the life of Ms. B, I tirelessly racked my brain for a way to make it interesting... or at the very least save you from excruciating boredom. After seconds upon seconds of careful consideration, I am sad to say that I came up with nothing. So in contrast to my introduction and with the interest of all parties involved, I will attempt to proceed with careful brevity and try to make this as painless as possible. Here goes!
10:00pm: I turn in for the night and set my alarm for 5:30am intending to hit "snooze" at least six times at 5 minute increments the next morning.
5:30am: My alarm goes off the first time. I usually try to talk myself into getting up at that point, but sleepiness quickly takes over and I hit snooze.
6:00am: My alarm goes off the final time. At this point I've allowed myself to wake up slowly enough that it's not too hard to roll myself out of bed. I take the next 30 minutes getting ready.
6:30am: I try to walk out the door by 6:30. On the way out, I grab something small for breakfast. It's usually a Pop Tart. Today my students told me they thought only kids ate Pop Tarts.
6:40am: I pull into the same gas station every morning and I park next to the same construction trucks. I have never liked to consider myself such a creature of habit, but there is something comforting about seeing the same people at the gas station every morning. I walk in, wave to the usual customers who sit at the booths to the right, and walk over to the coffee and cappuccino machines. I make my daily cocktail of half coffee, half mocha cappuccino and I grab a bottle of water. As I walk up to the counter, the ladies typically say something about my outfit choice for the day. Last Friday they told me I looked like one of my students. I'm usually in and out within 3 minutes.
6:55am: I get to school, clock in, check my mail box, and head to my class room. At this point in the year, I have significantly cut time off of my morning routine. I used to get to school at 6:30 and wait for the principal to get there and unlock the building. No more. Upon entering my room, I flick on the heat- although lately Mr. Buford, the janitor, turns it on for me. The next few minutes are taken by mindless but necessary minutiae like changing the date on the board, straightening the desks, writing the day's tasks on the board, and hooking up the projector.
7:10am: Every other week I have duty in the main hallway from 7:10-7:30. This is perhaps my favorite part of the day. I get to see every student that rides a bus and most of the car riders... that includes kids as young as kindergarten. After only a few weeks of school, certain elementary schoolers started giving me hugs in the morning. When I ask them why, they just smile, shrug their shoulders, and keep walking. Adorable.
7:35-8:00: My homeroom class contains some of my worst students. They are required to read their Accelerated Reader books and take tests on them during homeroom. Getting this group of kids to do so if awful. They're starting to come around.
8:05-9:00: I am lucky to have some of the more rambunctious 7th graders in my first period class so they haven't had time to wake up. They are usually mellow enough to pay attention but not too tired to fall asleep. Perfection.
9:05-10:00: Second period is my favorite group of kids and whether it's recommended or not, I tell them they're my favorites. Some may say that this will give them a sense of entitlement and it may snowball out of control by the end of the year, but so far it has just given me a way to guilt trip them... which is why they're my favorites. Guilt trips and disappointment are actually deterrents for them.
10:05-10:20: Break
10:25-10:45: The first part of 3rd period before lunch.
10:50-11:15: Lunch
11:20-11:55: The second half of 3rd period. It is really becoming exhausting to try to calm them down after lunch. Third period is my honors class, but every new student gets put in there because it's the smallest class. Most of our new students this year have not only been below the honors level, but they have also been behavior problems.
12:00-12:55: 4th period is my SPED/inclusion class. I truly enjoy working with the students who have learning disabilities. It seems like they are so much more appreciative and eager. There are also several behavioral IEPs in that class though so a lot of my attention has to be focused on maintaining order.
1:00-1:55: Planning - I used to leave school and just drive around Byhalia to take a break. That is becoming less necessary.
2:00-2:55: 6th period is my worst class behaviorally but I really enjoy their personalities. There are many occasions when I have to put serious effort into witholding laughter.
I tutor after school on Mondays and Wednesdays. After that, I go to basketball practice until about 6:00.
On nights when we have away games, my nights are pretty late. The record so far is 10:00.
So at about twice the required word count, I'll cut it off here. So much for brevity.
10:00pm: I turn in for the night and set my alarm for 5:30am intending to hit "snooze" at least six times at 5 minute increments the next morning.
5:30am: My alarm goes off the first time. I usually try to talk myself into getting up at that point, but sleepiness quickly takes over and I hit snooze.
6:00am: My alarm goes off the final time. At this point I've allowed myself to wake up slowly enough that it's not too hard to roll myself out of bed. I take the next 30 minutes getting ready.
6:30am: I try to walk out the door by 6:30. On the way out, I grab something small for breakfast. It's usually a Pop Tart. Today my students told me they thought only kids ate Pop Tarts.
6:40am: I pull into the same gas station every morning and I park next to the same construction trucks. I have never liked to consider myself such a creature of habit, but there is something comforting about seeing the same people at the gas station every morning. I walk in, wave to the usual customers who sit at the booths to the right, and walk over to the coffee and cappuccino machines. I make my daily cocktail of half coffee, half mocha cappuccino and I grab a bottle of water. As I walk up to the counter, the ladies typically say something about my outfit choice for the day. Last Friday they told me I looked like one of my students. I'm usually in and out within 3 minutes.
6:55am: I get to school, clock in, check my mail box, and head to my class room. At this point in the year, I have significantly cut time off of my morning routine. I used to get to school at 6:30 and wait for the principal to get there and unlock the building. No more. Upon entering my room, I flick on the heat- although lately Mr. Buford, the janitor, turns it on for me. The next few minutes are taken by mindless but necessary minutiae like changing the date on the board, straightening the desks, writing the day's tasks on the board, and hooking up the projector.
7:10am: Every other week I have duty in the main hallway from 7:10-7:30. This is perhaps my favorite part of the day. I get to see every student that rides a bus and most of the car riders... that includes kids as young as kindergarten. After only a few weeks of school, certain elementary schoolers started giving me hugs in the morning. When I ask them why, they just smile, shrug their shoulders, and keep walking. Adorable.
7:35-8:00: My homeroom class contains some of my worst students. They are required to read their Accelerated Reader books and take tests on them during homeroom. Getting this group of kids to do so if awful. They're starting to come around.
8:05-9:00: I am lucky to have some of the more rambunctious 7th graders in my first period class so they haven't had time to wake up. They are usually mellow enough to pay attention but not too tired to fall asleep. Perfection.
9:05-10:00: Second period is my favorite group of kids and whether it's recommended or not, I tell them they're my favorites. Some may say that this will give them a sense of entitlement and it may snowball out of control by the end of the year, but so far it has just given me a way to guilt trip them... which is why they're my favorites. Guilt trips and disappointment are actually deterrents for them.
10:05-10:20: Break
10:25-10:45: The first part of 3rd period before lunch.
10:50-11:15: Lunch
11:20-11:55: The second half of 3rd period. It is really becoming exhausting to try to calm them down after lunch. Third period is my honors class, but every new student gets put in there because it's the smallest class. Most of our new students this year have not only been below the honors level, but they have also been behavior problems.
12:00-12:55: 4th period is my SPED/inclusion class. I truly enjoy working with the students who have learning disabilities. It seems like they are so much more appreciative and eager. There are also several behavioral IEPs in that class though so a lot of my attention has to be focused on maintaining order.
1:00-1:55: Planning - I used to leave school and just drive around Byhalia to take a break. That is becoming less necessary.
2:00-2:55: 6th period is my worst class behaviorally but I really enjoy their personalities. There are many occasions when I have to put serious effort into witholding laughter.
I tutor after school on Mondays and Wednesdays. After that, I go to basketball practice until about 6:00.
On nights when we have away games, my nights are pretty late. The record so far is 10:00.
So at about twice the required word count, I'll cut it off here. So much for brevity.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
A Deeper Understanding
Chapter 3 in Content Literacy for Today's Adolescents talks about increasing our students' text comprehension. I feel like I am always talking about how much my perspective has been changed because of this teaching thing... so here is yet another example. Before, I never really thought about text comprehension. I hadn't heard it being emphasized since my earlier years of schooling. I vaguely remember a "Comprehension" column on the standardized test score breakdown sheet. I didn't pay much attention to it then - when my mother and I stood over it in the kitchen sometime in early July as I got my scores back from whatever test we had taken that year. Now that I am a teacher, I realize how important that column really was. It's not that I didn't know that text comprehension was an important skill. I had just never really thought about the fact that some kids have a really hard time with it.
I was glad that we were assigned Chapter 3 because getting kids to comprehend text seems like a pretty daunting task. Where should I begin? What are some activities that would help? How much time should I spend emphasizing it for a writing class?
Of course the book suggested some of the same old methods... teach them to look at context clues! I feel like that was the only method I was ever taught and it worked for me. Unfortunately it's not coming so easy for my students. Last week, during a subject verb agreement lesson, we were talking about ambiguous indefinite pronouns in sentences with no prepositional phrase. Once we defined "ambiguous" as a class, it was surprisingly easy to get them to understand what I meant by the rest of it. We had learned about singular and plural indefinite pronouns the day prior. We learned about prepositional phrases the first 9 weeks, and they only needed a little prodding to remember how to find those. But when I explained that we have to use context clues in situations when the sentence has no prepositional phrase to help us figure out whether our pronoun is singular or plural, they went blank.
"Context clues, guys! Just look at the sentences around it to figure out how many we're talking about! CONTEXT CLUES!"
Nothing
"All (is, are) here? ......What is the sentence before it talking about??"
Still nothing.
So clearly context clues aren't cutting it. My favorite suggestion in this chapter was probably the one about bridging text ideas. It gave a list of common words that connect sentences and what they signal. For example, it listed the time words: then, presently, now, thereupon, somewhat later, hereafter, finally, since... While these words would not help with subject verb agreement, I like the idea of charting several words to help students remember what they indicate. Keeping things in categories has always been something that has helped me, so I'm going to try it with my students and for now, I'm throwing context clues out the window. Maybe they just need a break from that method.
I was glad that we were assigned Chapter 3 because getting kids to comprehend text seems like a pretty daunting task. Where should I begin? What are some activities that would help? How much time should I spend emphasizing it for a writing class?
Of course the book suggested some of the same old methods... teach them to look at context clues! I feel like that was the only method I was ever taught and it worked for me. Unfortunately it's not coming so easy for my students. Last week, during a subject verb agreement lesson, we were talking about ambiguous indefinite pronouns in sentences with no prepositional phrase. Once we defined "ambiguous" as a class, it was surprisingly easy to get them to understand what I meant by the rest of it. We had learned about singular and plural indefinite pronouns the day prior. We learned about prepositional phrases the first 9 weeks, and they only needed a little prodding to remember how to find those. But when I explained that we have to use context clues in situations when the sentence has no prepositional phrase to help us figure out whether our pronoun is singular or plural, they went blank.
"Context clues, guys! Just look at the sentences around it to figure out how many we're talking about! CONTEXT CLUES!"
Nothing
"All (is, are) here? ......What is the sentence before it talking about??"
Still nothing.
So clearly context clues aren't cutting it. My favorite suggestion in this chapter was probably the one about bridging text ideas. It gave a list of common words that connect sentences and what they signal. For example, it listed the time words: then, presently, now, thereupon, somewhat later, hereafter, finally, since... While these words would not help with subject verb agreement, I like the idea of charting several words to help students remember what they indicate. Keeping things in categories has always been something that has helped me, so I'm going to try it with my students and for now, I'm throwing context clues out the window. Maybe they just need a break from that method.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Free Write
I was warned about October. I was warned about a lot of things that would happen during the first part of the year. October was supposed to be the month from hell, the month when everything caught up to me and I began loathing my job. We were told of former teachers who said October was easily the worst month of the year. The weather gets colder. Daylight hours are shorter. I was scared of October because August and September were fantastic! How can the good times just end?
They didn’t.
I’m not sure if they were just trying to build things up so much that when it actually came around it wouldn’t seem so bad. In my case, I don’t even think that was the case. October just wasn’t that bad. In fact, a lot of new and exciting things have been happening. We are trying to start a school newspaper. These kids have never had one so they seem to be really excited. We had 35 show up to the first meeting. I’m also working with one of my journalism professors from Ole Miss, Garreth Blackwell, and he has offered to help. He and his wife even donated some digital cameras for us.
I’m also coaching basketball. Now I’m going to be honest, I don’t really even like basketball, but they asked me to help and I don’t know how to say no. What surprised me is that I am actually enjoying it. We have some great kids and contrary to my two weeks of helping with high school volleyball, the middle-schoolers actually try. They dive on the floor, get mad when they don’t play, and they have this amazing competitive spirit.
Perhaps the best part of October has been that I have gotten to know my students better and better. Their personalities are starting to come out, and while some may caution me about the discipline problems that could bring, I’m happy about it. I laugh at my students every day. I must say that I don’t love the teaching part of my job as much as I thought I would, but I love my kids. They keep me coming back to school every day. They give me reason to roll out of bed in the morning. Discipline has become more of a challenge, but they’re not unmanageable. I would rather have to put more effort into my classroom management than have a room full of kids who are afraid to show me their personality.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Assessing Literacy Growth
It was suggested that journaling is an excellent way for students to assess their own strengths and needs. Out of the entire fourth chapter of Content Literacy for Today's Adolescents, I found this suggestion to be the most applicable for a writing course.
Content literacy is not a huge issue for my class. The seventh grade state framework does not require that we introduce very many new terms. I spent the first nine weeks on the eight parts of speech.... the whole nine weeks! By the end of the quarter, my kids knew their terms.
I am more worried about the progress of their writing. I have already found that it is extremely difficult to monitor the writing of 140 seventh graders, so to be more effective, they need to start monitoring themselves. I recently requested composition notebooks for each of my students through Donors Choose. After reading the section on effective assessments involving students, I am sure that journaling is my best option.
The book also suggests rubrics as a powerful way to involve students in assessment. I feel that this is a double-edged sword. Yes, rubrics let the students know what is expected, but they can also minimize creativity.
I was glad that the book included a section on the pros and cons of standardized tests. I always wrestle with the issue of standardized tests. They are obviously our go-to assessments for almost everything, but I don't think that they are always the best. I agree with the book when it says that standardized tests are a good way for districts and principals to evaluate special programs. It goes on to say that these tests provide only a gross estimate of student reading level. The benefits of gross estimates are limited.
Perhaps one of the best and most common ways to assess literacy is informally in a casual, relaxed environment. I worry that students freeze up when they are asked to read and comprehend on tests. I enjoy listening to them read in small groups of their peers. In those situations, they seem to be the most laid back.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
This Teaching Thing
Back in June I was nervous. I had heard how tough summer school was and I wasn't sure if I could handle it. Once I was immersed in the grind of my summer schedule, I realized that it wasn't that hard to run on no sleep, and while I wasn't very good at teaching yet, I felt that I could get the hang of it soon enough. By the end of summer school, I had gotten more confident, but as the two weeks before real school slipped away, I started downright dreading it. It seemed like so much. It seemed nearly impossible. It seemed like it wasn't worth it.
I put off my departure from Ohio for as long as possible. I ended up leaving at 4:00 am the Wednesday before professional development - Monday. I got to Byhalia around 1 pm, and oddly, as soon as I walked into the school, my nerves eased. I walked into my classroom for the first time, saw the pile of old books, stacked desks, a garbage left by the previous teacher, and instead of getting even more overwhelmed, I got excited. Maybe it's my competitive nature, but by the end of the day, it looked like a classroom. I had sanitized every desk... twice. I included two pictures of my room at the end of day one.
Since then things have really been good. Of course I've had bad days. It wouldn't be natural if I hadn't. I'm new at this, so I take everything with a grain of salt. Sorry to throw a cliche at you. I don't expect things to be perfect, and I think that has kept me sane. My mindset now is so much better than it was before I started. I really enjoy my kids. They make me laugh a lot. Even in situations like today, when I wanted to get angry at one of my students, I couldn't help but just stand up there and laugh. He was being funny! I'm sorry, Teacher Corps, if it is not recommended to show your cards like that. I'm sure I should have given him a consequence. But I
have to stop and enjoy myself (or my students) at least once daily.
So has this been easier or harder than I thought? Easier. So far.
I put off my departure from Ohio for as long as possible. I ended up leaving at 4:00 am the Wednesday before professional development - Monday. I got to Byhalia around 1 pm, and oddly, as soon as I walked into the school, my nerves eased. I walked into my classroom for the first time, saw the pile of old books, stacked desks, a garbage left by the previous teacher, and instead of getting even more overwhelmed, I got excited. Maybe it's my competitive nature, but by the end of the day, it looked like a classroom. I had sanitized every desk... twice. I included two pictures of my room at the end of day one.
 |
| The view from the back of the room |
 |
| The view from my desk toward the right side of the room |
have to stop and enjoy myself (or my students) at least once daily.
So has this been easier or harder than I thought? Easier. So far.
"Is the teacher fair?"
So I chose my best and worst-behaved classes and passed out a survey asking if I was a fair teacher. It's obviously a simple yes or no question, but I told them that they could elaborate if they felt the need.
I assumed that my "bad" class would be really negative. I knew there would be a couple kids who said I was fair. There are a few good eggs who got stuck in my 6th period class... poor things. What was shocking though, was that a lot of the bad kids also said I was fair. I would love to dive deeper into why that may be. But I'm baffled. Obviously I know I'm fair. I don't hand out undeserved consequences. I don't hold grudges outside of class... or even inside of class. I try to call on kids to answer questions after they get in trouble. I don't want them to think that I think they're bad and unworthy. But we all know how kids are, especially when they get in trouble. "Fair" is not a label they normally give authority figures.
I guess what was less surprising was that my "good" class also labeled me as fair. I hand out next to no consequences in there. No need to expand on that.
What I expected to get but didn't get a lot of was negative feedback from the trouble-makers. The kids who usually say, "Ms. B be mean," are the ones who ALWAYS get in trouble. No! I'm not mean... only to you... because you refuse to behave. And only if you define mean as handing you the consequences listed on the wall at the front of the room. You know, the ones that correspond with the rules posted on the wall at the front of the room. But I digress... while I allowed their responses to remain anonymous, the shockingly low number of "unfair" responses tells me that a lot of the bad kids know why they get in trouble.
Maybe there's hope that they will trace the cause and effect back far enough to stop themselves before they disrupt the class....
I assumed that my "bad" class would be really negative. I knew there would be a couple kids who said I was fair. There are a few good eggs who got stuck in my 6th period class... poor things. What was shocking though, was that a lot of the bad kids also said I was fair. I would love to dive deeper into why that may be. But I'm baffled. Obviously I know I'm fair. I don't hand out undeserved consequences. I don't hold grudges outside of class... or even inside of class. I try to call on kids to answer questions after they get in trouble. I don't want them to think that I think they're bad and unworthy. But we all know how kids are, especially when they get in trouble. "Fair" is not a label they normally give authority figures.
I guess what was less surprising was that my "good" class also labeled me as fair. I hand out next to no consequences in there. No need to expand on that.
What I expected to get but didn't get a lot of was negative feedback from the trouble-makers. The kids who usually say, "Ms. B be mean," are the ones who ALWAYS get in trouble. No! I'm not mean... only to you... because you refuse to behave. And only if you define mean as handing you the consequences listed on the wall at the front of the room. You know, the ones that correspond with the rules posted on the wall at the front of the room. But I digress... while I allowed their responses to remain anonymous, the shockingly low number of "unfair" responses tells me that a lot of the bad kids know why they get in trouble.
Maybe there's hope that they will trace the cause and effect back far enough to stop themselves before they disrupt the class....
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