Life Lessons

Hello dearest cohorts of mine.
         It has been a little while since I have posted on the blog.  Life has been moving a little too quickly this semester.  What a journey it has been so far.  For those of you who didn't know, I had lost my grandmother towards the beginning of March, so school and all of my lesson planning had to be moved to the back burner for a little bit in order to spend time with family.   Though the loss of a loved one is always difficult, the experience taught me some very valuable lessons:
                     -Surround yourself with positive, understanding individuals if at all possible.
          I sort of lucked out on this one.  We didn't necessarily get to pick our mentors, supervisors, or cohorts, but somehow I ended up with the best of the best.  My mentor teacher was more than understanding when I asked for a day or two to be with family.  Dr. Shea said he'd go to bat for me if need be, and you all have been fantastic for sunshine and laughs.
                    -Understand that you can't do it all.
         It is so okay to ask for help; to admit that you don't have it all under control; to feel like time has gotten away from you a little bit.  I have always been the type of person who goes and goes until she can't anymore.  I don't like admitting defeat and I tend to let things build up until they get to be too much for one person to handle.  I think I have finally realized that's not the way you keep your head above water.  I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle everything all at once when it came to going to the funeral and grading papers and planning lessons, so I just made sure to communicate that to all involved.  Low and behold, everything was fine and everyone understood.
                    -You're a lot stronger than you think you are.
          Life has thrown all sorts of crazy things my direction, but I was sort of hoping that the last semester of my college career could be smooth sailing.  Unfortunately, we don't always get what we ask for, and sometimes we have to take a step back and accept that there is a grander plan.  This semester has been all sorts of crazy with plenty of challenges.  There have been early mornings that I have just not wanted to go in.  There have been nights that I haven't been able to fall asleep because I'm too busy thinking about all of the odds and ends that need to fall into place.  But here it is, the first day of April, and we are only a little over a  month away from getting our degrees.

         I think the key to all of this has been my incredible support system.  I don't know how I would navigate some of these rough waters without the help of loving friends and family.  I have also been extremely blessed to have such a supportive mentor and supervisor, as well as some kickass cohorts.  Much love to you all.  We're ALMOST THERE.

Time flies!

I can't believe we're already at week 10 of our (official) student teaching! Time flies, and I mean that in terms of the semester but also in terms of a single class period. My 10th graders were reading excerpts from Dante's Inferno this week, and it just seemed like I was running really short on time every day! We did read the text in class, and that was mostly because they already have homework outside of class for their big term paper. The plan was to spend a little over a week on the Inferno unit and now it's going to be almost double that. 

My questions are:
1) When am I the one who is holding up the flow of class and should just back off and stop talking so much?

2) Should I give students (10th graders) historical context first or let them debate about the plot of the text on their own before introducing that material?

3) What are effective ways to check for student understanding of the text? Sometimes when we go over the guided reading sheet as a class I get the feeling that only the top of the class understood what happened in the text. Is this because I'm not giving them enough time to process the information or because they just did not understand the language of the text?

4) How do you decide which units are okay to take longer/bigger tangents on

5) What are your tips/suggestions for pacing during a single lesson?

Aaaaand the parent emails are flowing in...

So I'm sitting here during my prep period, and I probably should be doing other work, but I can't concentrate. Well, Jess and I just finished grading the research papers, and I'm just going to go ahead and say that many students (along with their parents) are not too happy about their grades.

One parent in particular emailed Jess saying how he can't believe how his son failed the research paper, his wife sat down and made the necessary edits with him, etc. etc. He wants the paper to be sent home with him, along with a rubric, and then set up a conference to discuss this whole ordeal. As I'm typing this, I'm stressed out beyond belief and close to tears.

So let's back up a week or so. Last Wednesday, I had students turn in rough drafts for me to go through and edit. All 150 of them. I sat down for a collective 9-10 hours and made individual comments on EVERY ONE, highlighting the areas that they needed to work on. I wanted to do what I could to help them do well...makes sense, right? Well, turns out it was a royal waste of time. About half of the students made none of the recommended revisions, and just handed in their original rough draft.

I can't quite understand this parent email, because despite what it said, there was little to no evidence of editing in this students' paper. He turned in a biography despite myself telling him multiple times it needed to follow the idea of intolerance, and there was absolutely no proofreading at all. Almost nothing was capitalized, and he even wrote using "till" and "u." I kid you not.

I don't even know what to do at this point. My co-op said she'd handle it, but I know this won't be the last angry parent I have to deal with over this unit. Everyone has the opportunity to rewrite the paper, but still. The problem in the first place was their neglect to listen to my advice - will that change the second time around? Who knows.

I was having a pretty good week. So much for that.

Maybe I am getting the hang of this DI thing.

My biggest concern last semester was definitely differentiation - I had no idea how it could be possible to cater teaching to each individual student. It frustrated me to no end trying to figure out how to challenge my advanced students without damaging the egos of the kids who weren't up to speed. How do I grade them - is it possible to do it equally and hold everyone to the same standards? Do the standards change? My questions were endless, even up to the beginning of this semester.

Now that I'm actually in the pilot's chair this semester, I'm seeing how that DI can be more of a possibility. I'm learning that it doesn't have to separate between every single last student, but can be catered to small groups of students, or even classes. One of my 7th grade classes appears to be much lower than my other two classes, despite the students not having any kind of IEPs. Their instruction needs to be much more detailed, and because their class is my first 7th grade of the day, they suffer from all the kinks and bumps that need to be worked out throughout the day. My mentor noticed the same thing, so we sat down and tried to come up with a solution.

This is where DI comes in. Jess, my mentor, offered the idea of maybe setting that particular class period back one day, so that their lesson comes last when it's finally perfected and I see what works and what doesn't. My 6th and 7th period 7th grade classes have to be the guinea pigs, but they perform at a higher level and can work through any problems much easier. They tend to participate more and have better discussions which helps keep the flow going. By that time in the afternoon, I'm also in the swing of things with a higher confidence level, which helps avoid any issues giving the lessons the first time around. 3rd period has the polished product, and everyone wins.

After just a week of integrating this plan, I'm already seeing better results. My lessons for that 3rd period class run much more smoothly because I know what works and what doesn't - the prior knowledge helps me make any last minute changes if needed as well. My confidence is up since I've already taught the lesson twice before, and the discussions flow much better and easier. I'll admit I was skeptical about the whole "DI" buzzword to begin with, but now that I'm actually seeing the progress in action, I'm interested in experimenting with it in other classes and lessons as well.

ROLLER COASTER

I have so tried to avoid the use of this classic metaphor, but the profession of teaching has just been begging for it.  Here we are, getting ready to start another week and all I can think of is reaching my hands into the air, holding my breath, and getting tiny little butterflies in the middle of my stomach as I wait to climb another great height.  Last week was definitely one of those level weeks, the kind that make you feel like maybe you can do this after all.  It was a time of deep breaths, constructive advice, open ears, and excitement to keep going when, just the weekend before, I had been alone in my kitchen, tears streaming down my face, frantically calling my mother for some gentle reassurances.  I was convinced a week ago that May would never come, that I wasn't doing what I needed to be doing, and feeling like I couldn't ever possibly catch up with all that I had to do.  Low and behold, I did.  I made it through.  The more I think about it, the more I am trying to resign myself to the fact that this semester is not going to be as easy as I expected.

Coming out of last semester, I remember being nervous but completely reassured of my capabilities in the classroom.  I had just done well in all of my classes, I wrote a unit plan I ended up being very proud of, and I feel like I made a great impression not only with my students but with the school community as well.  I was so ready to face student teaching--how much harder could it be?

........A lot.  Jumping in during the middle of the day and taking over where my mentor had left off is totally and completely different from being responsible for the learning of every single student in each of my five classes.  It was a rough wake up call to realize that some of the material I was covering wasn't being taken in.  Especially when I had executed quite a few full day lessons/mini-lessons last semester with great success.   I just can't believe how high the learning curve still is after 3 days a week in the classroom every week before going full time.  

Now, I think I am slowly beginning to catch up.  I still think it will be awhile before I feel I can take consecutive deep breaths and NOT come home and work on school stuff at least two hours every night, but I'm learning to adapt.  My lessons have started to become more insightful, and I find myself eager to try out new things whenever possible.  For the time being, I feel as though I can do my best to enjoy the ride.  (Though I won't totally rule out another drop from the peak.)

Hope you all are doing so well!

Is this what it always feels like?

That's the question I keep asking myself during these initial weeks of student teaching: Is this what it always feels like? I'm sure the answer to that question is yes and no. This profession is a marathon, but perhaps more so than I had ever realized. At the same time, I know that this awkward and disjointed phase in my teacher development will not last forever.

I never knew it would be so hard to implement the theory and good practices I learned throughout my teaching training. I have a goal for what I want my students to come away with, but I constantly ask myself whether or not they're actually grasping those concepts and if that worksheet I labored over for an hour even provided them with information or meaningful discussions that burrowed a way into their brains.

My head is always spinning with deadlines and materials to prepare and readings to do alongside my students, yet I feel that I am beginning to ask myself the questions that experienced educators do with second nature. Questions such as: What is it I want my students to take away from this? What should I trim away? Did they really understand that lesson? How can I hold them accountable for reading?

I know many of these questions are topics we discussed in our education courses, but my brain seems to be so preoccupied with preparing lessons that I need to remind myself to reflect upon where we're at as a class right now and not where my long-term sketch of a plan tells me we are supposed to be by next Thursday.

Planning. Flexibility. Adaptation. Those seem to be my key words from last week.

We have all done it:  lounged back in our comfiest sweatshirt and pajama pants watching a movie that we have shamelessly cried at for more hours than we would like to admit.  Shakespeare reminds us that this engrossment in a movie is the magic of the theater; as humans we have the capacity for empathy which allows us to become so interwovenly attached to the life stories that are played or acted out in front of us that we can not help but feel a part of these stories.  Perhaps we even see something in ourselves in these stories.


This past Tuesday at Manheim Township Middle School, I experienced this moment that was so heart-wrenchingly uplifting that my eyes shamelessly welled up with tears for a student who took an incredible risk in my classroom;  I realized its the human experience that we are all banded together with that make these moments magical in a movie or played out right before your eyes--no script and completely real.  My student gave his speech on Harriet Tubman in front of all of his peers--A LARGE GROUP! He has been battling with who he is and how he fits in the social world of school since he began his education.  He is one of my students with a three page IEP because he falls far on the autism spectrum and he has severe anxiety issues.  For him, speaking in front of a large group is "living a nightmare (imagine this forced out in a growl)".  My mentor teacher and I have been communicating with the special education teacher about our concerns that a few of his accommodations my be hindering his growth as a learner.  He has always been given the chance to give speeches in small groups, but after a long conference all of the teachers and I agreed that he could speak in front of a large group.  With insurmountable amounts of encouragements and support from two learning support teachers, an administrator, Mr. Robbins, and me, my student stood up in front of his peers and gave his speech. 


Was it movie material "picture-perfect"?  Not in the slightest! His fear governed every aspects of his speech:  his tone of voice, his growling projection of his voice, his tense and painfully obscure posture, his eye contact only to the podium beneath his strained fists or to the learning support teachers, me, or Mr. Robbins.  But he took that sliver of faith in himself and took the greatest educational risk that he has ever done by getting up there in front of his peers to present his speech!!! My heart could have exploded--probably just as much as he thought his heart was.  This are the moments that make you want to be a teacher.  These are the moments that truly show you have some sort of impact on a student just by supporting them and pushing them to accomplishing things they never would have thought were possible.  I may have only had a small influence on him compared to the teachers that have worked with him from the start, but witnessing that unveil itself before my eyes was the "picture-not-so-perfect-ever-but-still-pretty-dang-incredible" moments that define teaching and make it worth while.