0 Comments
It's now the month of May, and that means that I am finished with student teaching and only four days away from graduation. Glancing over this blog page, I realize that it might look, to anyone outside my student teaching circle, as though I had not reflected on my experience in the last three months. Let me assure you that could not be further from the truth.
Part of my student teaching experience was keeping a weekly journal in which I reflected on my teaching and learning for that previous week, and it is here that most of this activity occurred. Rather than transcribe and/or retroactively blog my experiences, I will begin to post my journal entries here in this blog for anyone who would like to read them. This will be a more authentic look at how my teaching practice has developed over that last few months. Keep an eye out here, and I will be posting these journals in chronological order very soon. Classroom management is an area that remains consistently on top of every student teacher’s and administrator’s list of things that are likely to create professional challenges. I was proud of myself this week for putting out a potential fire early on in the internship process.
My clinical faculty left the room to retrieve something from the teacher workroom and left me to watch the students while they did independent desk work. This happened to be the class that has the most frequent instances of off-task behavior. As soon as she left, one particularly energetic boy got up and jumped across the room and climbed on top of his friend’s desk, while another boy started throwing paper balls at a classmate, and a pair in the middle of the room began talking loudly over everyone else. I assessed the situation and decided to deal with each situation in that order: I sternly said the first boy’s name and pointed him to his seat; he said “yes ma’am” and sat back down. I turned to the boy throwing paper balls and told him he needed to be more sneaky if he wanted to do that and get away with it—so he needs to stop; he said “yes ma’am” and returned to his work. Finally, to the two talkers, I informed them it was time to use inside voices, and they, too, said “yes ma’am” and quieted down. Upon sharing this story with a movie-buff friend, she commented that the kids had been watching too many '80s movies a la Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueler's Day Off. In the space of five minutes the teacher had returned to a relatively calm and quiet classroom. I felt that my efforts to build rapport and show the students who I am as a teacher had begun to work since I was successful this early on in returning the classroom to order. My hope is that this will stick next week when I begin to teach my own lesson plans pretty much on my own! I got some advice once that was unfathomable at the time and took a long time to swallow: you may think your Plan A is perfect, but that's insulting to reality, so be sure to have a Plan B on hand. This is valuable advice for a teacher. I know what you may be thinking, that it's the very first day of student teaching, how can Plan A have gone out the window already? But stay with me, it isn't what you think.
Headed into the teacher education program, but especially into student teaching, I was very worried about my health. I have a tendency to be anxious and hyper-analytical, and did I mention that I'm a "brittle" type 1 diabetic with a hemoglobin A1c of 8.0? Going into Green Run this morning I was far more worried that my health would let me down and make this important day more challenging than it might otherwise be. This wasn't entirely incorrect, but here's the thing: my day wasn't ruined, it was actually great, and despite the range in blood sugar levels today (54 min/334 max) I have a solid idea of how to prevent a repeat of this. And while it continues to boggle my husband, I actually love data. The simple explanation for this is that I am a walking data set and I most likely always will be. Every new blood sugar read, carbohydrate consumed, or calorie burned gives me now information on how I can work to help alleviate my health concerns. Headed in for student teaching today, I was confident that I had a solid Plan A: I packed enough carbohydrates (116g) and had the right insulin distribution rates set up on my pump. I was mistaken, but that was okay, because I lacked a critical piece of data: estimated number of calories burned (411, according to MyFitnessPal). With that information, I can craft a new and improved Plan B. This is a valuable lesson to have learned both for my personal health and for my career of choice. I can change the number of carbs I pack into my adorable lunch bag or how much insulin I give myself, but like I can change a lesson plan that isn't working so hot or create an alternative assessment when the original one won't do the job. I'll be tested on my ability to generalize in this way soon enough, but in the meantime I'm feeling pretty confident in my ability to look at a situation and accept that, despite my best efforts, nothing will ever be perfectly-perfect, and it is more than okay to have a Plan B. ![]() While I was up last night thinking about what might happen today (first meeting with my clinical faculty [CF]) I got an unexpected and amusing (as always) message from one of my very favorite people, Andy. I have known Andy for many years--back in the days of Bush v. Kerry--and he is an amazing music teacher as well as an all-around great guy. The message he sent me was about an app that allows you to digitally apply a tattoo to yourself, I suppose to see what it would look like before you actually take the plunge and go get one. Having pretty strong feelings about tattoos I loved this, and we started talking about the politics behind tattoos in the workplace. Happily for me, this wound up being a pep-talk for my first day of student teaching. Andy reminded me that being a teacher is not about how you look or how you dress, it is about being a genuine person who is able to teach the content in a high-quality way. Or, as he put it, someone who brings their "it" factor to the table. This was a welcome and happy reminder that teaching is not about one particular thing, but about you, the teacher, as a whole package and what you have to offer. I was reminded that I do have a lot to bring to the table, including a belief in lifelong learning, a diverse variety of work experiences, and a lot of hard work and dedication to doing exactly this. This was what I took with me to my first meeting at Green Run High School today. My teacher, Mrs. Burnsworth, is going to be a great mentor teacher. While I was there, I met two of her former student teachers, both of whom are employed with GRHS! She was prepared to meet with me, gave me so many great resources on the content, and made me feel at ease about the big data-driven project I have coming up. My CF seems to have it all together and was happy to talk with me about the program. Everyone I met at the school so far has been upbeat and friendly, and I get the sense that the school values order but also flexibility. Another bonus: all the classes I will be covering are electives. That means no end-of-term SOLs to stress over and LOTS of room for creative instruction. There are two sections of sociology and four sections of psychology (with lunch/planning in period three both days--huzzah!). Since there aren't any state standards, my CF shared with me the pacing guides and curriculum planning materials that were developed by two teachers in VBCPS. These are the basis of what we will be covering this semester. The material sounds great, too, and not nearly as foreign as I had initially worried it might be: adolescence & adulthood, motivation & emotion, personality & intelligence, family, education, sports, and religion. Between my own personal reading interests, my work in the Student Success Center, and my classes on adolescent development and special education, I think that I am actually relatively well prepared to teach this content. Just to be safe, I asked for copies of the textbooks and curriculum materials and got all of it on handy disks. This, coupled with the books I snagged from the ODU library, should have me ready to teach the material as it comes up. I'm feeling pretty good about this. In another world, I could have been placed in an area where I have less practical training, like AP European history, or a subject that doesn't come naturally to me, like economics, or the most likely scenario, a class where the teacher and students are at their wits-end trying to prepare for the SOL tests. This placement at GRHS is going to be challenging for sure, but I believe it also promises to be a lot of fun. I can't wait to start my first day in the classroom next week, January 19, 2016! ![]() Things are finally beginning to make some sense now. This is due in part to attending the student teacher orientation last Thursday and Friday, but also credit is due to my friends from my practicum/instructional strategies class last semester. I am starting to feel like I have access to all that information I was so desperate for the last few weeks. I had been simultaneously dreading and eagerly awaiting the orientation for weeks now. Part of me was afraid that I would get there and find I was completely alone, not knowing any fellow students or professors and generally feeling highly unprepared to teach. On the other hand, I have been more than ready to learn about exactly what I will be expected to do and how I will be evaluated, and I was correct in assuming that orientation would answer these questions for me. As it turns out, my fears were unfounded and I got most of my questions answered. Before even arriving at the building, I ran in to a friend from my practicum cohort on the crosswalk. It was such a relief to see a friendly face and to get confirmation that I am not alone, either in my feelings or in my attendance. It was even better once we made it to the event. We were given a packet full of all the information we could possibly handle in two days. Also, even more cohort people were there, and throughout the two days we all got a chance to catch up and discuss our thoughts and concerns. This is not to say that I am without my worries for the capstone of my educational program. The assignments we are expected to carry out are challenging and will require the application of all the information I have been learning and synthesizing so far. Classroom management is still a concern, just as it is for all teachers early in their career. The crash course on effective management from C.J. Butler was helpful and just being around this professor was a pick-me-up. Another big assignment I was a little bit lost on was the professional portfolio; obviously I have some idea of how to put a portfolio together, not to mention working with other college students to construct their first portfolio, but the importance and the precision required of the teacher certification program are both heavy and exacting. Dr. Sommerfeldt's engaging and creative presentation gave me so much helpful information and made the whole thing seem less daunting. Fortunately I have known about the portfolio requirement for some time and have been diligently saving everything; now it is just a matter of finessing Livetext into letting me upload everything the way I am supposed to do it. Strangely, the one project I'm told everyone fears the most is the one that I find quite compelling. This is the "impact on student learning" report. This assignment requires us as student teachers to select a generally representative class of students, give them a pretest, teach a unit, and give a post-test. In all this will mean a lot of planning and data collection and dis-aggregation...and I LOVE data! This project is really the way I would like to conduct all my units of instruction in a perfect world. Over the course of this graduate program I have come to understand and appreciate the power of data and what it can do for education. I just need to be sure I don't get too wrapped up in the meaning behind the numbers, and I should be fine. Either way, this is just the type of project for me. Again, I can't say how happy I am to be working in close association with the people I made connections with in instructional strategies last semester. We talked as a group and realized that, while we are all experiencing the same anxieties and exciting, it might not be so bad if we could share those feelings as a group for the duration. To that end, one member of our group created a fabulous Facebook group that will allow us to "...vent, cry, cheer on, and support one another." This is a great idea and I'm so glad that I have a community to go to when I have a great idea, a bout of confusion, or a terrible day. I believe this will make student teaching run more smoothly for me and will provide an important outlet when questions necessarily arise. Tomorrow morning I meet with my clinical faculty at her classroom at Green Run High School. Then next week, I have my first seminar with Dr. Clark, my university supervisor. Five of us all have the same seminar/university supervisor, so more good news there, too. I can't wait for tomorrow. It will be so nice to meet my CF and see where I'll be spending this semester. I think all my questions are on the way to be answered now. I like to imagine that I am like most new teacher candidates, excited to be coming to the end of a long and challenging program and finally getting to be fully in charge of a class of students who have come to recognize me as the professional-in-training that I am.
I did, however, realize one thing that was different: I was probably sweating the entire thing way too much. This is something I likely would have kept to myself, save for the fact that my endocrinologist thought I was really overthinking the stress factors of student teaching on my type 1 diabetes. She assured me that well planned snacks, deep breathing, and the acquisition of a new Dexcom sensor would go a long way to assuaging my fears. My diabetes-related concerns might be the most unique aspect of my worrying, but the other came from the outside and I allowed it to become internalized, at least briefly. This negativity was generated by others' responses to my clinical placement at Green Run High School. I myself attended First Colonial High School many years back, and have deeply explored this other school since then. In general, people who are not involved in public education, or those who themselves went through Green Run High School as students, had few kind words share about the school. I spent the last two weeks or so (since receiving my placement assignment) mulling over these comments and rather than doing what I should have done in the first place--balk at the snap judgements and go and do some research myself--I chose to accept what others had to say with little question. Why did I do this? My best guess is, it's the holidays/end of fall semester/start of spring semester/big changes in my job/brand new challenges in my academic life, and I allowed the stress of all this to interrupt my usual critical thinking process. Without ever meeting my clinical faculty or the students of this school, I accepted the judgements of others without much resistance, and for this I feel some regret. Today, however, after thinking over what my well-meaning doctor had to say and reconsidering my own personal feelings and anxieties, I decided that today was the day I would stop panicking about students teaching. As it turns out, just a little fact-finding led me to discover that both my supervisor and my cooperating practicum teacher both completed their student teaching at Green Run (High and Elementary, respectively). They both had good things to say about the schools and the students, and were honest about the challenges I might face. It was heartening to get real and thoughtful feedback about my placement, and I appreciate them for this. The bottom line is, the basic information I need to do well in the assignment will be covered this Thursday and Friday. Next week I am allowed to contact my clinical faculty and get to know her. Two weeks from now, I will meet my clinical students and begin to get to know them as people. Most of all, I haven't spent the last two and a half years working so hard for nothing; all this time was dedicated to preparing to be an excellent student teacher, and that is exactly what I intend to do. A mindset free of per-judgement and a well-deserved sense of confidence in my own abilities are what everyone here deserves. Starting now, I am setting aside my worries and concerns and will move forward to embrace this final phase of my master's program. No excuses, judgements, and per-conceived notions allowed. Check back in the Spring semester to see how my student teaching experience is going. I plan to complete my student teaching with Virginia Beach Public Schools. I'll be recounting my thoughts and feelings, concerns and new ideas as I work through the last semester of my teacher education program. See you in January!
|
AuthorTrue stories about teaching and learning in Hampton Roads, VA Archives
May 2016
Categories |