Weekly Reflection 11

Hello,
So, I've been reading your posts, and I will admit that my posts could be a bit more exciting. Which is why I "revamped" my background and tried to add more detail to my day to day reflections. So here is my attempt at transitioning into my new type of blogging.

Monday
As you know, I leave early on Monday's in order to get to class. However, on Monday's the school also has a two hour late start. So my day is very limited with the students.  Despite this, I still learn a lot from the teachers during their plan time. This week during plan my CT and a few other teachers from the English department talked about their process for recommending students for Academic Placement classes  The teachers also talked about making the midterm for next school year. I found that this was not very interesting to listen to considering I can't give any input. However, it was really interesting to see teachers collaborating on the best way to assess the students based on previous years. In class, the students had time to read their books so that they could catch up for Friday which is when they should have the book read. The honors students were give time to peer edit one another's papers. I am really excited to read their papers because it is on Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck my favorite author.

Tuesday
Today, I learned that collaborating and receiving criticism is key in order to become a better teacher. So, for the past two weeks I have been able to teach two honors classes. The first class I teach is 3rd period. Since I have just started teaching them at the end of last week, they are still warming up to me and I to them. Today the students were learning about the use of the colon in writing. I was able to show them a bit of my personality by making some Kenan and Kel jokes as well as a movie joke. I was excited to get some genuine laughs from this group of students.

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this, but my CT and I eat in the teacher's lounge. The teacher's lounge is something I have tried to stay away from. In my last placement it seemed like a negative environment so I ate by myself in the classroom. Here, the lounge is much like eating at lunch in a school cafeteria. The teacher's gossip, they talk about popular culture, and other things that are happening in the school. I would say that the teachers are not negative but there is a general understanding that if they believe a student can do better then the student should do better. I digress, I also had my observation today, the teacher's in the lounge were all talking about how they had to go through that experience and some of their stories. It was interesting to hear that these stories do not really differ. Anyway, 8th period came around and my observation went really well! I am really comfortable with these students and I can tell they are starting to see me as the teacher.

I was able to use humor quiet a bit in my lesson. I gave a few stories, made a few joke throughout the lesson and I can honestly say that they seemed to be interested in colons and how to use them. For once, I was well paced and finished with just enough time for them to apply the lesson to a journal and their paper. I am really excited about working with them tomorrow and working with them on peer editing. I will say I would like to change their seats.The students in their respective groups right now are good. However,  there is one group in each class, that does not stay on task. I really like groups because they let the students been in charge of their own learning.

All in all, today was a fun day. I feel like I am finally getting used to teaching at this level.

Wednesday
Today the students are working on peer editing. I found that first period, which is the next honors class I will be taking over on Friday, works pretty well on editing and wanting feedback.

However, period 3 was a bit ridiculous  They were chatting a lot, I had to walk around more than usual. The students all keep checking or testing me to see if I will make them get back to work. Every time I see them possibly off task I ask them who they are working with or what they are working on. I can tell some of them do not like that. However, I'm not there to make friends. I found that the regular students are definitely not as intrinsically motivated as the honors students  Knowing this before I take over the regulars I need to start thinking of ways to effectively engage the students. (I would consider this a long term goal.)

 Now for the segment  "In The Teacher's Lounge." Today, in the teacher's lounge my CT and the other teachers were talking about a scandal that happened a few years ago where a teacher had a relationship with a student. It was really sad to hear about. The teachers  kept saying they could not understand why a teacher would want to have a relationship with a student, considering that they are not on the same intellectual level. This conversation brought down the mood of lunch in my opinion, but it is something to learn from: you are not there to make friends.

Well, that brought down the mood, some good news is that the girl's Cross Country team is going to state this weekend and so is the boy's Soccer team for the second year in a row! I think that is pretty neat. The school in an effort to get students to get excited and support the teams is having a two hour early release on Friday announced today through an email. Also, because today is Halloween the some of the student body population was dressed up. Of course, the students needed to follow costume rules for school such as, no chains, no make-up that hides the face, no masks, no weapon looking props etc. As a result there were a lot of  cats walking around. Fortunately the students that I saw were not dressed completely inappropriately.

Now, back to my teaching reflection. Period 8 was interesting. They all seemed to work really well. However, I had to make sure they keep switch for editing. When the students were done working on one paper, they sort of just sat there and talked. However, they did give really good feedback to one another which is perfect for editing before the final draft. There was one thing that sort of concerned me. There is a student in this class who I can tell does not respect me as a teacher. I get the strong feeling that he believes I don't know what I am doing. To a certain degree this is true. He is a smart student and works much like a robot. I know I cant make someone respect me, but it still bothers me a bit that someone thinks I incapable. I still am respectful to the student, but I am beginning to wonder if this will be an issue.

It was an interesting day.

Thursday
The start of the day was "cray cray!" So I got to school and hour early as usual, that is when team planning happens. I have been struggling with team planing because I hate coming into school the day of and not knowing what we are going to do for the day until the bell rings. It drives me a bit insane. This has been getting better because I ask the three other teachers what  the plan is for the week so I have some sort of idea of what to expect. Today though, I believe tensions were running high.

 So there are three teachers that plan together everyday and I have been sitting in on the planning since my student teaching started. Well, there is my CT, who has been teaching for 11+ years, another teacher (male), let's call him Tom, who has been teaching for about the same amount, and a newer teacher- I believe she has been teaching for maybe a year or two. Well here's what went down. So, my teacher is very opinionated and outspoken about how to teach English and what works and what doesn't. As you know the students are starting on their papers for the respective texts the Honors and Regulars are reading. The young teacher really wanted to have an assignment sheet for the Regulars on their paper. Which would outline how many quotes you need, how many pages, and come up with your thesis before you start writing your essay.

My CT hates this format. He made it clear as soon as she brought it up that it was not a good idea. Tom told her if she wants to do that she can. So they started to work on that together. (My teacher stepped out of the classroom for a second when Tom told her this.) When my CT came back he was said, "Why are we doing this? It does not work. Students freeze up and don't like writing or want to write when you give them a page full of things they need to do in order to write." He feels like you are setting the students up for failure when you tell them to write a thesis before seeing if the text has the ability to prove that statement. Well, tension got a little thick.

My CT just said do whatever you want. So, she was pretty much done for the day then left to her class she was saying earlier she like to have back ups in case her computer deletes it or if she is not going to be here next year. (I'm not sure what that means but if there is a job opening I'm going to apply for it.) My teacher said "[forget] this" when the other teacher said well what do you want to do. My teacher said nothing. Tom said, "Well I think that you should just say what you want to do because you're clearly not happy." My teacher decided to say well, "We keep telling her what to do and she doesn't want to do it. She's a new teacher and is still learning. I don't care if she is planning on not being here next year or not if your not going to listen or want our help then do your own thing. It makes no sense to do what she is trying to do. They've been doing that since the beginning of education. It clearly does not work." Then Tom and my CT went on to plan something that "works better." They came up with this: find evidence about your topic whether it is: music, violence  family, drugs etc., then define what you think about the topic, gather evidence from your own life, compare the two ideas and make a chart out of them. I think I understand why they did this, but I will get to that later. Then my CT had to step out again.

Tom spoke with me for a moment. Tom says that my CT is a idealist. I picked that up for myself right away, but I didn't tell Tom this. Tom says that my CT must understand that he is a lone salmon swimming up the stream and everyone else is moving down. He needs to understand that he probably won't be commended for his ideas until he has retired and everyone else sees that they work. Tom continued to tell me that he agrees with him, but he sometimes gets a bit over the top. He also said that his ideas mostly come from his teaching style which is from a junior and senior stand point, this is only my CT's second year teaching sophomores. Then class was beginning to start.

I feel my CT was a bit over the top today because he was being observed the first period by the principal. He did perfectly fine, but I just think he was nervous. I just can't believe all of this went down in under an hour. It was pretty intense. However, it taught me that team planning is difficult and it is also frustrating when you have your own agenda. Despite this, you can still learn to compromise and work together in order to become a better teacher for your students.

Back to my teaching schedule...
 I went a bit fast during 3rd period, but I had the student peer edit for tense and colons towards the end of class. Everything worked out fine. There is a student who will just sit there when I assign directions. I'm getting a bit annoyed because this is an honors class and I should have to tell him two or three times to get started. He will do everything except work, bother the other students, draw etc. I am going to talk to my CT about it soon.

The students in the regular classes worked really well on the pre-writing stage of their papers. My CT informed them that if they did not he would collect their books tomorrow. So, I suppose they didn't call his bluff, like he specifically told them not to.

My 8th period did well with the material. I had the students do some examples in their note books in order to pace myself a bit better.

Friday
We had an early release schedule today, I took over 1st period in addition to 3rd, and 8th period. I found that the students were expecting to not do work. However, I had them do some reverse editing where they would have someone who has not read their essay make an outline of their draft. I think the most frustrating thing a bout today is that the students were expect to watch a movie or something because other teachers were doing that. My CT and I were sort of annoyed to hear that. Throughout the day the students were complaining of having to do work, I was somewhat glad it was a short day.

******

You asked me last week you asked me how my faith is impacting my students. I would say my grace on assignments would be the best way for me to share my faith at this moment. This week a student forgot to turn in a major reading assignment to me last week. I asked her why she had a zero because I knew she completed the assignment. She was unaware that she had not even turned the assignment in. I suppose this is because she doesn't check her grades online. I allowed her to turn it in the next day even though it was well over due. I am also searching for new ways to show my faith in the classroom.

My journals will not be this long every week. However, this is the guidelines I would like to follow for the remainder of my student teaching. I believe that this week I focused on Illinois teaching standard 10, Reflection and Professional Growth. I believe that this week I have had to work on being a " reflective practitioner who continually evaluates how choices and actions affect students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community and actively seeks opportunities to grow professionally." I am trying to work on my presentation to others and this standard is the main one that I am working on.

Thanks,
Courtney