Hell on wheels, anyone?

Today feels like one of those days that I can learn a great deal from.

We had a supply teacher with us today, which I think always throws the dynamic of the class off. And the students felt a little more chatty and energetic than usual - especially for the work that we were doing: taking up a math review, listening to presentation, and writing a pop-quiz. I am not going to lie, I wanted to pull my hair out a little bit.

And then came to the point of the lesson where I didn't really teach long division with decimals very well and it may have been the ONLY topic so far in math that these students didn't already "get" - kind of threw me for a curve ball to be honest. So, I had to be honest with my students when they asked me "what do you do with the remainder if you already have a decimal there" and say "That is a great question, I'm going to find out and tell you after lunch". On one hand, I had this sinking feeling in my stomache that I had somehow let my class down - like I had somehow given away my secret that I'm not perfect, that I am human, that I'm not a master of long division, and I am fallable just like every other adult out there. Whoah - way to shatter the illusion of the all-knowing teacher, Ms. Dickson. But on the other hand, what I hope could have happened, was a great learning moment of the students seeing a teacher admitting when she doesn't know something and trying to make right. I admited to them that I sometimes struggle with long division too and I don't know everything. I suppose they could have taken it either way, but I think that honesty always has to be the best policy.

The feeling of today's teaching was humbling. After a couple of stellar lessons and great experiences and home-run experiences in the class, it is easy (maybe too easy) to feel cocky and over-confident. The grounding that I had after this class reminds me that I don't know everything, I NEED to prepare myself and my lessons, and I'm far from being anywhere close to an expert in this field.

Fruits of our Labour

I am an optimistic woman.

I like to look on the bright side of things.

I am always focusing on the silver lining of ANY dark and stormy cloud.

And I will always be that one smiling on the subway when everyone else is scowling.

However...

After all this work that we did on Friday on co-operation, I am not convinced that I really saw the fruits of that labour in class today. This leads me to a couple of conclusions:

1) Building community, a team and a group of young people that work together takes WAY more time than 3 weeks. It is an ongoing process.
2) The entire class dynamic can be thrown off by one person being present or one person being absent. It is like baking cookies - if on Friday we had Baking soda present, we may make a perfect batch, but if on Monday, Baking Soda AND Vanilla are absent, the cookies will be very different and barely edible.
3) Teaching may just be the hardest job in the world.

My head is swimming with wrapping up my units, completing our culminating tasks, introducing culminating tasks, planning a future field trip and contributing to extra-curricular stuff. I sometimes feel like I am constantly thinking about work.

It suddenly makes sense to me why school is only 10 months a year - so teachers can actually NOT work. We are constantly planning planning planning. Or, at least I am.

The More We Work Together...

Today's lesson in English was interesting.

We are just about to come to the part of A Circle of Silver when the main characters get kidnapped by members of the Odawa tribe. So I thought it would be interesting if I kidnapped the class...and then I wondered how I would actually pull that off, so instead I modified my original plan slightly and kidnapped their chairs.

After lunch, my students came back and all their chairs were missing. We started the lesson, having the students sit on the floor and "make the best of this situation", asking before we began "does anyone know what happened?" and "who did this?" - after a few student presentations, my AT interrupted the class with a note she "found in her mailbox", which was a ransom note, saying that the class had to work together as a team to get their chairs back.

I was actually shocked at the outcome of the class. I planned two co-operative learning games that I had used at camp years ago to get the group to work as a team. The first was creating a human knot and then having the group untangle themselves...it was a successful disaster in short. I think they learned a lot, but it took a lot of yelling, arguing and angry students to get there. The next game we played was human scrabble. Each student got to write one letter on their hand and then they had to answer questions themed from the novel using only the letters they chose. The second game was a little more successful than the first, in that they were actually working as a group, but it was fascinating how much tension these games brought up. It is hard for 12 year olds to work as a group. After I gave them their chairs back, we sat in the "community egg" (because it never really looks like a circle) and debriefed what we learned today.

My eyes are wide open to how important cooperation is and how vital team building is in the classroom. The more we get together, the happier we'll be!

Thoughts so far

It is amazing how quickly time goes by. It really does feel like the experience started yesterday and we're already well into the 3rd week of the practicum. It shocks me to realize that this time last semester, NEXT WEEK we would be wrapping up our lessons. In many ways I am grateful for the extra week of teaching - it is challenging to teach a full unit in just five weeks. But maybe that's just me, or maybe that's just this class. Regardless, I am happy for the extra time.

My AT gave me a great piece of feedback. She suggested that I try to incorporate some kind of hard / physical assessment in every class - so that after every class you have physical evidence of who got it and who didn't. I really liked this suggestion and have been incorporating this especially into my math and history lessons. I've even decided to have the students mark / evaluate each other's work at the end of the class to save me from having to do it. The more experience I get with teaching, the more I am learning how to be creative with the time I am given and to use my time as wisely as possible.

Another thing I am doing in this practicum is allocating time for myself after the school day is finished. Whether I am going out for dinner with a friend, meeting someone at an art gallery after school or just going to a yoga class, I am doing a better job at balancing my life, which I think is benefiting me big time in the class room. I feel more rested, more happy and more excited for the school day to start, which is only a good thing.

More to come!

It almost feels like I am a game show host and I am trying to sell the prizes in as interesting and flashy a way as possible. When the students are smiling, so am I and when the energy drops down because we are reading from a textbook together, my energy slumps too. Keep them entertained, keep them smiling and keep them engaged. It is hard work to do and I am forever grateful for my prep periods and my time in the evening to dream up new ways of teaching math and history.

I had a great idea of using Facebook to create historical character profiles to assess their understanding of New France – but after having a conversation about using the multiple intelligences in assessment practices, I think I am going to curb the Facebook idea for another class (I guess I don't have to use EVERY great idea right now) and use another assessment for the New France unit. We have 4 guiding questions in this unit: Can two sides win a battle? Was it a good thing the English won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham? How did co-operation affect the development of New France? What is the significance of studying New France? And everyday, they have been adding to these questions and we have been using these questions to inspire our lessons. So, instead of creating an assessment that is so far detached from the whole unit, I thought it might be cool if the students created their own assessment (established by a contract), incorporating these 4 questions and their responses.

I think it is a wise idea for the students to say what kind of learning they want to do and in a gifted class, it is an option that can be explored fully and can be used to its fullest potential.

My Goals

It felt like a very full week - 4 long days of classes followed by a day at school today (Friday), however, it was so worth it. This day to reconnect with the class at my host school was really great. I chatted with my AT and she is just throwing me right into it. I'm going to be teaching 3 units (WOW): Fractions and Decimals, New France and Creative Writing / A novel study in English. I am really excited and really looking forward to having this week off to start my planning...and getting all those projects out of the way so when I am in practicum I can focus solely on that.

I wrote these goals down (thanks lululemon!) even before I had started this practicum, but I think this is a good place to share them. Here is what I wrote down:

- Journal / Blog every day (or nearly everyday) about the teaching experience.
- Be involved with a sports team or an extra-curricular activity
- Start either an after school reading program, a math club, a drama club or a yoga group depending on what the interest is.
- Invite the prinipal to one of my lessons for feedback.
- Have all my lesson plans finished before day 1 of the practicum block.
- Learn all the students' names before the end of the observation week.

Now that I have met the students, learned a bit more about the school and the culture of the group, I think I have a few more that I want to add:

- Include DPA in my lessons (in an integrated manner) at least 3x / week.
- See my friends at least once / week outside of school.
- Go to the gym or yoga at least 3 times / weekday.
- Create new methods of assessment for me and for the students, which is interesting and dynamic.

This is obviously just a working list, but I think it is a good start.

The Gift

This past week with my students and this present week while in classes, I have been doing quite a bit of thinking about this idea of "the gifted class". There seems to be something wrapped up in that label that I haven't quite been able to unpack. This entry is my attempt at understanding what that label means and could mean, in relation to my class.

For starters, teachers and the students themselves seem to use that label as a threat or as some kind of an expectation. In the short 5 days that I was with my group, I heard more than one supply teacher say "You are the gifted students. You should get this no problem" - what if a student were in this class because she was gifted in language and verbal communication, but she struggled in math. If that comment were made to her while she was struggling with a math problem, I wonder what that might do to her developing sense of self.

Deena (her name has been changed) is a student in this classroom who is very much a leader, has a very subtle mean streak to her and is often rude and outspoken. Observing in this classroom, I saw her say the odd mean comment to another student, give "skunk eye" (as I like to call it) to another student and in general just act like not a very nice young adult. While she was leaving the class, she said to the supply teacher "aren't we a nice bunch of kids" to which the supply answered "Oh yes. Oh yes, you are a nice bunch of kids" - now, I'm not disagreeing with the fact that this is a nice bunch of kids, but hearing Deena say this made me assume that this is something that this class must be hearing often...often enough that the class can act however they want, always knowing that the teachers like us, so it is okay.

The other point that I've been left to ponder is that the students in this class are gifted when it comes to numeracy and language. Where are the students who are gifted musicians, gifted painters, students who are beyond average when it comes to bodily / kinaesthetic knowledge? These students are smart in one or two areas - I would not say that they are all well rounded or socially well adjusted. How do we decide students are "gifted"? Shouldn't we treat all students as the wonderful, "good", and gifted students that they are?