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

 Friday, March 17, 2006
Sometimes I am surprised with Ms. Gratton's attitude toward the kids. She obviously thinks highly of them because she has been in teaching so long and because she believes so fervently in the Read Naturally program, but sometimes I am really taken aback by her ease with which she finds fault with the kids.

On Monday, the lock that locks the cabinet in the computer lab came up missing seventh period. She was certain she knew who took it, so she found him in his seventh period class and confronted him about it. He told her he didn't take it. After seventh period she talked with me about it and told me how she knew - she just knew - that he had taken it and that she was so upset that he would do that and not admit it to her. Wednesday, I found out that he had not taken it; the teacher who was in the lab before lunch had accidentally picked up the lock and carried it out with her.

There is a boy in seventh period who is working his way through The Chronicles of Narnia but is now only in the first book. Ms. Gratton has told me on many occasions that he can't read that book and that he has no business trying to read something that large and at that level. She says he's wasting time and that he's only setting himself up to fail and that she's already told him that. Hearing this, I am appalled. Especially since I read with that boy today and found that he is doing phenomenally well with that book. He uses voices for some of the characters, laughs at Lewis' humor, and connects events in the story with things he has read previously in the story. I told her what a terrific job he's doing with the book and she looked at me doubtfully. She told me "You know he's not in here for reading problems, right?" Evidently she wanted him in the class because of his extremely disadvantaged home life.

So then I wonder: Why tell him this wonderful book is too much for him?

I wonder if she's being realistic and I'm being idealistic. I wonder if she knows a little more than me about teaching and reading and students or if I know more than her about believing in people. I wonder if she's right and I'm naive or if I'm right and she's harsh. I wonder if I will get like that when I have experience in the field or if I just have a naturally sunnier disposition. I wonder what she tells parents or how she can consciously bring to a kid's attention the fact that he's a failure.

I have asked her about this, and she says that she thinks the kids need to be realistic and recognize the things that they do that make their lives harder. She really thinks she's doing them a service.

I disagree.



Monday, March 13, 2006
This week brought me stress through my personal life and lack of sleep. It always amazes me that no matter what is happening outside of West, I walk into that classroom prepared to be with the kids.

I have discovered that I really enjoy this age group. The kids are a lot of fun and I feel like I can connect with them easily. Ms. Gratton has been very complimentary this semester with me and the way that I interact with the students. She makes me feel very positive about not only my experience in her classroom, but my future as a teacher.

On Friday I read with a male student from seventh period who tries to be the best student he can be while struggling with a reading disability. He's quite diligent about wearing his glasses, which he thinks helps him read, but passes over big words that he doesn't recognize. When he does that I think to myself that no amount of glasses strength will help him recognize or familiarize himself with those scary words. When I read with him I help him practice those words that trip him up: cumulonimbus, mythological. We say them over and over, discuss their meaning, look them up in the dictionary, use them in a variety of sentences. I hope it works. We chose a book together Friday for him to read called Raptor; he seemed to really get into the first few pages. One problem I noticed with him is that he doesn't connect information very well. I just hope that that doesn't tie him up in reading this novel; the author seemed to confuse a lot of information just in the first two pages.



Friday, March 03, 2006
This was an even shorter week as I was only at West on Monday.

I read with a young man Monday who appears to be a very dependent reader. He had read a book the week before on Pompeii and said that he remembered most of the book, but he only scored a 20% on the quiz. So on Monday, Ms. Gratton asked me to sit with him and reread the book with him for at least 15 minutes with the expectation that he would retake the quiz. I made sure to have a conversation with him about every page he read aloud so that I could help him through the thinking process - hoping that that conversation would help him pass the quiz the second time around. Our conversations went something like this:

(He just read a page that described the town at the base of Mount Vesuvius. The page says that scientists refer to the mountain at that time as a "sleeping giant" because of its outwardly peaceful look and the fact that there was an accumulation of gases preparing to blow the top off this huge volcano. The picture depicts fairly flat lands leading up to the large mountain, with Mount Vesuvius being the only mountain in the picture. Below Vesuvius is the town of Pompeii.)

ME: Why do you suppose scientists refer to Mount Vesuvius as a sleeping giant?
HIM: I dunno.
ME: Let's look at this page again. Where do you see the term sleeping giant?
HIM: I dunno. (He has already turned to the next page.)
ME: Well, go ahead and turn back to that page. Let's find the sentence that talks about Mount Vesuvius being a sleeping giant.
HIM: K. (Turns back.)
ME: Do you see that sentence?
HIM: Yeah.
ME: Where is it? (He points to the sentence. I tell him "good job" and read the sentence out loud.) Does rereading the passage help us figure out what it means that the mountain was a sleeping giant?
HIM: No.
ME: OK, well maybe we can figure it out another way. What do you think about when you hear the phrase "sleeping giant"?
HIM: Nothing.
ME: What does it mean if something or someone is sleeping?
HIM: I dunno.
ME: How acitve are you when you're sleeping?
HIM: I'm not.
ME: Good. So if you're not active when you're sleeping, what does it mean that this mountain was sleeping?
HIM: It wasn't doing anything.
ME: Right. But there's something you know about this mountain that the people in Pompeii didn't know, isn't there?
HIM: No.
ME: Is this just a normal mountain?
HIM: No.
ME: What is it?
HIM: A volcano.
ME: Right. And what is going on inside this volcano that everyone in Pompeii thinks is a mountain?
HIM: I dunno.
ME: You said you already read the book. What happens at the end?
HIM: The volcano blows up.
ME: So what is happening before the volcano blows up?
HIM: I don't know. It's getting ready to blow up?!?
ME: Great! But on the outside of the volcano people can't see that it's getting ready to blow up, so it just looks like it's...
HIM: Sleeping?
ME: Exactly. Now what about this "giant" part?
HIM: I dunno.
ME: What is a giant?
HIM: I dunno. Something big.
ME: Yeah, something big. Maybe the picture can give us a clue about why this mountain was called a giant.
HIM: No.
ME: How big are the things in the picture - the things that aren't Mount Vesuvius?
HIM: They're not.
ME: So in comparison to everything else around it, Mount Vesuvius is the largest thing near Pompeii.
HIM: Yeah.
ME: Good. Now let's read the next page.

I tried to praise him throughout our conversation after everything he said and tried to ignore his yawning and constant gazing at the clock. I've read about dependent readers, so I felt pretty confident in seeing the signs of dependency in him when we started, but I still wasn't sure if our conversation was helpful or hindering. I wanted him to start thinking on his own and really working toward comprehension without me giving him all the answers. I really wanted to discuss the text with him. He only wanted to get through that book, though. He was reading without punctuation and without expression, just turning the pages as fast as he could. I knew that nothing was going into his head and that without pausing for a moment and contemplating the passages, he would fail the second test. I just don't know if I did a good job.