The End

Well, I made it. I finished student teaching. There was a point last week in which I wasn’t sure how I was going to, but I did. The first nine weeks of student teaching were all I ever dreamed of: supportive, marvelous, mentoring, excellent in every way cooperating teacher; welcoming school community; boundless feedback; stupendous, engaged kids; and so many opportunities to feel challenged, appreciated and successful. Then came placement number two. I could go on and on about all of the negative aspects of it, but I want to forget those. I have to take from this experience what I learned about schools, teachers and teaching. Mostly I learned what NOT to do in my classroom. But that is reflecting negatively again, so, I will tell you what I AM going to do in my classroom.

I will:

• Provide a reason and a guide for learning no matter how small the lesson or activity may be.
• Be consistent and respectful in my discipline strategies.
• Follow all school rules.
• Know the school building and available resources.
• Keep my personal political beliefs and activities private.
• Use my natural energy and love of learning (I know, cliché and cheesy) to engage my students in the content.
• Use only respectful language when talking about my students with other teachers or staff.
• Strive to be a role model and an open door to my students in order to form relationships instead of trying to be “cool” by using bribery or relaxed discipline.
• Use my classroom time appropriately.
• Update my lessons and units each time I use them.
• Find my voice.
• Be a mentor to others.
• Attend, be on time and participate, where appropriate, in staff and school-community events.
• Respond to emails from parents and colleagues.
• Hold high expectations for my students and myself.

I am sure the list could go on. I will keep this list and make sure I check in with it every once and awhile when I am a “real” teacher. I need to hold myself to these guidelines for myself because if I don’t, then I could become the kind of teacher I don’t want to be.

Website Resources

I have a few websites to share. They were included on the district's weekly newsletter. The first one is called Into the Book http://reading.ecb.org/student/index.html. Students can do exercises with different reading skills. The website is geared for upper elementary. The second website is called Video Ant http://ant.umn.edu/vae.php. You can annotate a movie, and the website e-mails you the final product. I tried it for a lesson I am using tomorrow. After using it, I will have to see if it works as well as I think it should.

Language Arts...

My middle school student teaching has begun and I feel like it is almost over even though I just started teaching. I have planned and taught my first two lessons. Middle school feels so much easier than elementary in the fact that I have one prep. For the elementary school, I did not have time to make a great lesson for language arts. Language arts was the last subject I added, and I didn't have the time to figure out the most successful route for the youngsters.

With middle school, I need to watch that I have a mix of opportunities for the students because they get bored if I talk to long. On Friday, I felt like I talked to whole hour, and I was sick of hearing myself speak, and the students were sitting in their chairs about to fall over. I know sometimes they will get bored and learning does not always have to be fun. I just don't like to see a sea of dull, unenthused students.

As for my lessons, I have already changed my Monday plans. I can't get to far ahead in planning because things change constantly. After teaching Friday, I saw a need for extra instruction done in a different way, so I had to modify and change things. I also had a few students that found the worksheet to easy. They were supposed to find two new words to define and write in a sentence from the novel we are reading. I had three or four students say that they knew all the words. The book is written in an easier way, but for the average eighth grader, they would be able to find new words. I changed my worksheet, so they could find a word or a piece of figurative language. I am glad I didn't make those printouts yet!

My fifth hour class is a challenge. They love to talk, and there are six or seven students that are friends. This makes for a tricky teaching experience. Mrs. R says the best thing for these classes is to keep them busy. After Fridays lesson, I see the importance of this concept. I am actually playing with the idea of changing some seats around. I know who talks a lot. Couldn't I just move some of the key players to more prime locations? Maybe I will give them a warning, and if that proves to be unsuccessful, Monday will be moving day. I'm good at splitting up and noticing trouble areas. I am going to have to think about this a little more. There is always something to ponder about.

Educational Cleaning

I listened to this incredibly interesting podcast while cleaning for Thanksgiving houseguests this weekend. My recently retired teacher mother called me and told me I needed to listen to it. I am glad I did. I feel lucky that I have chosen a career that will always be changing (or at least people will always be thinking about how it can change)-hopefully for the better.

NPR Speaking of Faith
Learning, Doing, Being: A New Science of Education
November 19
What Adele Diamond is learning about the brain challenges basic assumptions in modern education. Her work is scientifically illustrating the educational power of things like play, sports, music, memorization and reflection. What nourishes the human spirit, the whole person, it turns out, also hones our minds.

Building Relationships: Brick by Brick (or tie by tie)

Well, middleweb.com will be an awesome resource for me. There are so many resources to sift through. It will be a perfect place to go before I set off into the world of real teaching-when I will have a first week of school with my students. Going through the lists of resources on the site makes one of my recent realizations even more striking to me. Teaching successfully in middle school has a solid foundation in the early formation of relationships with your students. I guess my realization might not be recent, but it has truly played out before my eyes.

So much about middle school is your relationship with your students—a relationship that clearly starts and is outlined on the first day or days of school. By jumping into the school year after it has already started, I am a foreign element of my middle schoolers’ classroom. I cannot be trusted and I need to be checked out before they will truly be themselves around me and, most frustratingly, give me their full attention and respect in the classroom. I am only with them for six weeks—why on earth would they allow me into their lives? Because I am a motivational teacher, role model and all around sweet lady, that’s why! The hard part is showing them that.

They do their best to challenge and test me and while I can be myself with them and joke and I understand parts of their lives other adults might not, I am still struggling to engage them and motivate them to learn. This fact frustrates me and makes it harder for me to let loose and be myself-I just want them to take in the content…but I am learning and experimenting. I already supplemented the text with a PowerPoint complete with music and old time Western video clips on Monday. One student was laying his head in his arms before “Home on the Range” started playing. When it came on, I heard him say; “Are you trying to put us to sleep?” Halfway through the song, he was sitting straight up in his chair singing along-I pointed out to him that he was far from sleeping-he liked it. Funny how those tiny things can be the shining moment of your day.

I almost completely threw out my plan for Thursday and I am doing a kind of center activity about the Transcontinental Railroad. Even more so than 4th graders, I think (I know) these middle schoolers need active, engaged and hands-on lessons. No matter how awesome the textbook may be, I need to go beyond it. It is more work, but I knew from the start teaching isn’t easy and that the best teachers don’t teach by the book-no pun intended. My cooperating teacher isn’t stopping me (among the many other things she doesn’t really do…) so I am going to go for it. Even if they never remember where the golden spike was nailed in Utah in 1869 joining the east and the west railroads-I will still be working on building relationships with them.

Oh...Middle School Is Right

So far, in almost every aspect of my experience, this student teaching placement feels almost exactly the opposite of my first experience in 4th grade. I haven't felt welcomed at the school by the staff, my cooperating teacher and I don't click as well as my last one did and I often disagree with her instructional strategies, her standpoint about school politics and especially with the way she talks about the students. Finally, the students-they are barely what I expected. You are right, 8th graders seem so much like high school students. Where is the innocence of middle school that I felt? The girls seem so old and the boys so distant. I did spend one class period in a 7th grade classroom and it was more of what I expected middle school to be like. I think it might be that the 8th graders in my school are the kings and queens of the school and act like it.

Ok, so it isn't all bad. I am still in a school and I get to teach really great content-U.S. History. I love the content. The planning seems like a breeze so far. I have to teach the same thing four times a day-which means I get to practice and practice, but plan only once. I do teach a homeroom and a 6th grade Language Arts class, but it hardly feels like the work load and preparation my fourth grade classroom was. But it is already quite monotonous-especially when I have to sit and observe the lesson and not lead it. I enjoy not having to hyper-manage transition times: no hand washing guidance, no potty breaks, no breaks or recess or lunch help and they certainly are not silent in the hallways.

I know I have to keep an open mind-this is only week two. But I cried today. (Thankfully after all the students left for the day.) I taught 7th period and I have some really difficult students. There are two girls, who do not seem interested in learning-in the least-and I tried to get them to stay on task. I got a little too confrontational with them after my attempts at connecting with them failed. They were rude, didn't listen, and yelled in my face. I was trying to stay strong and consistent on my first day of teaching with them to show them that I am about learning and not social hour-and it blew up in my face. I cried because I don't know how to connect with these girls. They are the ones I feel need guidance and a role model the most, but turn away at any glimpse of adult attention or direction it seems. They want to push buttons, I want to use humor and motivation to keep students engaged and focused on the task at hand. But as my husband said-this is my free ticket to try out my ideas and strategies-and it isn't always going to work. I will keep smiling, work on keeping the students engaged and try not take negative interactions with students so harshly.

Oh... Middle School

How does middle school compare to elementary school for you?

I really liked my elementary students. Now being in eighth grade I feel like I am in a high school class. My cooperating teacher seems really good, so I am excited to be under someone with so much passion and expertise. My cooperating teacher is around my age. She has taught for seven years, and I am her first student teacher. She is really active in school initiatives. She is finishing up her master's degree. She leads a book group on grading authentically once a month, and the eigth grade team is pioleting a new grading system that bases everything on 5 points instead of letter grades.

She is on the NUA committee, which is a group of people who learn new teaching stratigies. Then eventually they teach these stratigies to the rest of the teachers. Does your district utilize the strategies from NUA? I learned many of them in my first placement. I even bought the book the teachers recommended because I liked to stratigies so much. Both the middle school and the elementary school talked about these new stratigies often.

As for the students, I am still trying to learn their names. I have a hard time with names, so it might take me until my fulltime teaching weeks to have all their names reserved to memory.

When I started this placement, the students were finishing up a poetry unit. As a result, the last few days have been spent in the computer lab. They were given time to write an analysis on a poem. I am excited to start teaching again. Sometimes it is hard to sit back and watch.

How are things in the social studies world?