My Teaching Experiences

I'm a graduate student at Boise State University just starting to work with the school districts.

This no-frills blog is my account of my experiences in the school setting.

Archives:
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007

 Monday, February 27, 2006
This was a shortened week because of the holiday. Wednesday seemed like a normal day, although I am sure Tuesday wasn't since it was the first day back from a long vacation.

Friday, I stayed after class and talked with Ms. Gratton for more than a half hour. We talked about the teaching profession, our families, children - our own and in our classes - and classroom discipline. She really is a fantastic woman; I think very highly of her. She talked about some of her own short-comings in the classroom and her own method of growth as a teacher over the years.

I don't have much to say for the week, but I have been thinking about our conversation since Friday. She gave me a lot of calm about school and my future career. I'm grateful for that time.



Thursday, February 16, 2006
Monday was a fairly normal, uneventful day. Wednesday, a little different.

I have noticed a boy in sixth period who asks every day to visit the nurse; he did so again Monday. I think that as a teacher I would investigate that problem. My first instinct is to deny his request every day, but I think that what should be done is a gentle inquiry. He seems like the type of kid who doesn't see a lot of attention, especially positive attention. He was slow to warm up to me, but I've been super nice to him and very encouraging and I think that has finally had an effect because he's much more responsive to me now. The little boy who didn't seem himself last week must have gotten enough rest over the weekend because this week he was his old self again - enthusiastic and engaging. The girls still seem to think I'm all right; maybe reading with the one girl last Friday (she seems to be popular in the class) has had a lasting effect on the rest of them.

In seventh period things are a little different. Seventh period is a class of about 12 or so boys and one girl who is boy-crazy. The students seventh period are rambunctious, talkative and easily distracted. Three boys always sit up front and engage me in conversation, both before and during class. Before class they ask about my weekend and tell me they like my shoes. During class they talk about our word of the day and volunteer sentences and examples. Three boys always sit toward the back with the boy-crazy girl. They talk among themselves and try to look like they're not goofing off when they have no idea what's going on. When I address them, they give me that infamous 13-year-old look that tells me they think I'm not cool and therefore they don't care and they're not going to do anything other than pacify me to get me off their case. I don't care so much about them thinking I'm "cool," except that I know they would be a little more engaged if they didn't see me as another lame teacher who does the same thing as every other lame teacher they've ever had. At this point, I'm not sure how to get through to them. They're the self-defined "cool" kids who wear the right clothes and distance themselves from people who don't. They're the same group of kids I never got along with in school because they intimidated me. These kids don't intimidate me, but I'm not quite sure how to infiltrate their demeanor. I'm close with the girl, but she is still hesitant to give in completely because she's so easily distracted by the attention the boys give her.

For these social reasons, teaching in seventh grade seems drastically different from teaching in college. When I first started teaching English 101, my husband Kelly told me that he was most interested to see how well I constructed my relations with my male students. Later, Kelly told me that that was the thing about my teaching that he feared most: that I would grow frustrated with my male students. I can see that being a problem with the younger crowd. In college, things are a little different. People are older and care a little less. People are more present to engage on an intellectual level and care less about who or what is "cool." I think that this may not be such an issue in an English classroom where I get to interact more with the kids, or even in my own classroom, where I design the activities and assignments. However, since this isn't my class, I have limited abilities. Since there's little interaction time and even littler teaching/instruction time (in the form of designed learning activities, not direct instruction), I have limited abilities. Or, at least, I feel like I have limited abilities.

Wednesday Ms. Gratton was absent and had a substitute. It was a planned professional day, so I knew to expect her absence in advance. She had told me that she would turn the class over to me for both periods Wednesday, which I had no problem doing. Personally, I felt that I did a good job - even with classroom management, which was more of a challenge seventh period than sixth. I felt more comfortable leading the classes Wednesday with Ms. Gratton gone - more relaxed, really.

After school on Monday I asked Ms. Gratton about the family status of our students. I asked what she knew about them as far as who or how many of the students came from low income and/or single parent families. She said that many of her remedial students came from those families and that few of her regular track kids did. That is something that makes me think of the kids at Hays. I've even wondered if any of my seventh graders have been to Hays or will end up there at some point in the future. Wouldn't it be superb to motivate those kids to read better - to get them to realize that fluent reading and a good vocabulary will help them get out of that poor family situation - that the more literate they are, the better their chances of going to college and obtaining a higher-paying job - that the better their understanding of our language is, the more interests they will have, which will open so many doors throughout their lives. But how to get that across? How to help them see that? Maybe they won't all become English teachers - even as lucrative a career as it is - but maybe their reading skills will get them a position managing a store, designing airplanes, or testing chemical substances - all things they can't do on the track they're on and things that many of their parents could never do because of their own poor literacy skills.

I'm not trying to be overly optimistic...just realistically optimistic. I just want to know how to get through to them. I want to know what makes a difference to them. What matters? What effects them? Am I wasting my time and energy hoping to help make a difference for something else? Something better?



Sunday, February 12, 2006
I forgot to write the other day on something very important: Ms. Gratton's teaching style and classroom management. I've been noticing it lately and the ways in which it differs from my own. Ms. Gratton seems more detached from the kids on a very defined teacher/student plane and seems to seldom allow them to have fun. But she's a fun teacher, so they relate to her easily and seem to respect her. Ms. Gratton does not let her students get away with anything at all and will call them on their errors in front of the whole class. For instance, if a student walks in late, she'll say "Susan, do you have a tardy slip?" rather than waiting until they're working individually and asking Susan (a false name) at her work station about a tardy slip. The group conversation never goes awry; in fact she almost discourages students to talk about extraneous things that they see as relative to the topic.

At first I was really caught off guard about her micro-managing, which extends to her relations with me. Sometimes it comes off to me to be expending extra energy that could be diverted elsewhere. Sometimes I'll be standing off to one side of the room watching her and the kids - watching their interactions, watching how they manage to get themselves off task, watching how and when she notices when someone has a question - but before I can jump back in on my own, she's whispering at me across the room, moving her hand in a circular motion, telling me to "circulate, Ms. Hagans!" when in fact, I'm learning a lot from just standing there watching. I know it probably looks like I'm loafing, but I'm not.

Lately, I have come to more of an understanding with the way she runs the classroom; I am less bothered by what I see as micro-managing activities and more engaged in the things that really seem to be wonderful management tools that I want to adopt. I like the way that she holds everyone in the classroom accountable for good behavior and doesn't feel compelled to speak to them individually, but rather out in the open to let everyone know the standard of behavioral excellence. And she never does it in a way that makes the kids feel bad or embarrassed in front of their peers, which I could see happening easily - espcially with this age group. I really like - and have since day one - how she uses everyone's names to get their attention. It really works. She also does something very simple yet effective that I have had problems with in my own teaching. She will explain what the students are to do for the day and then she repeats the directions at least once more.

As of now, these are just some observations - very little reflection involved. I just wanted to get them down in the early stages of my observations for future comment.



Friday, February 10, 2006
Monday I read with the girl from last Friday who couldn't make it through the first page of Sarah, Plain and Tall. I tested her in Read Naturally. She read the passage almost perfectly. It made me recognize the obvious benefits of the program. She had practiced that passage enough times that she could read every word just fine without stumbling. It makes me think that she could possibly do the same with her seventh-grade level reading, except that I doubt that she reads her history book over and over until she's able to understand it or read it without messing up.

Wednesday I spoke with another student from Boise State who shares the class with me seventh period. He said that being in our class has made him realize that he wants to work with slightly older kids. That got me thinking about my feelings about working with this age of kids. I really enjoy the kids. They're fun and have lots of ideas and think of interesting things to contribute to the conversation. At this point I don't know what age I would like to work with, but I do know that I like the younger kids. I almost want to do my future school work with another age group entirely so that I can experience more ages. I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to plan to work with the younger kids when I start teaching, though, because I'm so young myself. I don't know how much my age - or what the kids perceive to be my age - makes a difference. It isn't a big deal in my college classes where I sometimes teach people older than my parents, but then again, that's college. Sixteen-year-olds are a whole different story.

Today I read with a couple kids one-on-one again. In sixth period I read with a male student who seemed to be having a really off day. I asked him about it, but he said he was just tired. His home language is Spanish, but he does a really good job reading in English. He finished his book today while we read together. Afterward I asked him some questions about the book and found a similarity between him and one of the main characters. He said he had never done that before and looked like he liked the new concept of relating to the characters in his book. Then I read with a female student who seems very social and energetic. She did a good job reading, but in the course of reading I discovered that her vocabulary was lacking. She read words like "jaded" and "mortified" just fine, but had no idea what they meant. That gave me some good opportunities to talk vocab with her - something that she seemed to be interested in. I hoped all through that encounter that she would identify with me on some level - that she would see me as a confident, cool, young woman who was smart - something that she could be too. Maybe that's just wishful thinking. Seventh period I read with a young man whose home language is Spanish. He reads on about a first-grade level. We went to the library and read a children's book about dinosaurs at bedtime. He did all right with the words, but again, didn't know a lot of vocabulary words such as "mope," "sulk," or "pout." After reading the book once we went through it twice more, just looking at the pictures and getting meaning - both sentence level and story level - from each page. This was a skill he definitely lacked. It felt odd to do this with a seventh grader; this is something I'm more accustomed to doing with my first-grade sister.

By the end of this week I've noticed that the kids are feeling more comfortable with me. Many of them are glad to see me and request for me to work with them. They are used to me reading with them or asking them questions about their work or jumping in the middle of their group conversations. It gets more fun to join the class each day.



Monday, February 06, 2006
I felt like I got more of a feel for what was going on in the classroom this week. I have the kids' names down and I'm learning their interactions with each other and with Ms. Gratton. I also feel more comfortable with Ms. Gratton and have started asking her more questions. I really like working with her. She's great with the kids - it almost seems like she's known them for years - and she's encouraging and helpful toward me.

Monday and Wednesday I worked with the kids on the Read Naturally program. I'm still working out my opinions of that program. A kid on Monday was reading a passage that contained the phrase "The pygmies, natives of the land, gathered berries." Or something to that effect. The word pygmies was defined in the sentence. It was one of the words he stumbled over in his reading. It was obvious that he'd never seen the word before. Afterward, I brought that mistake to his attention and asked him if he knew what pygmies are. He said he didn't know. I told him the definition was in that sentence. He reread the sentence twice outloud and still had no idea, so I used the opportunity to teach him about using context to decipher meaning. That instance has been on my mind since. Did he just not know how to read for context clues? Is that a fault of the program, since it primarily teaches kids to read more fluently rather than teaching them to read for efficacy or comprehension? Is it because he got ahead of himself and was waiting for the class to end and was annoyed that I was asking about pygmies? I'm unsure.

Friday we were in the classroom rather than the computer lab. I felt like I finally got to work with a student in a one-on-one capacity, which showed me a lot about their reading. During sixth period I read with a female student who seemed to be a pretty good reader. I could tell she wasn't up to grade level, but she was reading wonderfully with the book she had selected. Seventh period was a different story. The girl I read with that hour had just finished reading a Beverly Cleary book and took a quiz on it. She only received a 30% on the quiz, but she said it was because she was reading another book at the same time and so she had gotten them confused. Ms. Gratton told her that when I took her to the library that period, she was to select a thinner book. Thinking that that was our only stipulation for reading material, I recommended Sarah, Plain and Tall to her. I had read Sarah, Plain and Tall in fourth grade and can remember thinking even then that that was such an easy book. I thought I had done a good job and was proud to take this student back to the classroom with a good book that she was interested in. Ms. Gratton was skeptical, however. And she was right. When I sat down with my student, she couldn't get through reading the first page of the book without making fewer than five errors, which is the magical cutoff number to determine a difficult book. I had thought for sure that that book would be a good match for her, but evidently she needed something simpler. Then I looked at the book she had borrowed from Ms. Gratton. It had fewer than 30 words to a page and was mostly pictures. She reads on a second grade level. I found out Friday that there's a boy in the class who didn't even recognize all the letters in the alphabet when he started the school year.

So all this has gotten me thinking...How are these kids in seventh grade? Why have teachers passed them on if they couldn't read? How did teachers not know their students couldn't recognize all the letters of the alphabet? How do these students pass science or history when they can't read the text book that was written on a seventh grade level? What is done for these students in classes outside their remedial reading course? Ms. Gratton has so much faith in the Read Naturally program, but I question the good it's doing. Sure, it helps them with fluency. But how does fluency help them when they're studying their science text book the night before an exam and they need to understand the words and concepts in the text?