They've Got My Back

I learned something huge about my students today – they seriously care! At least about our relationship. And how did I learn this? Well today I had full control of my most rambunctious class (a class of chatty, out-spoken 15/16 year olds). My cooperating teacher was out for a meeting. It was all me baby. Not the first time, but today was crucial. Today my supervisor was coming in. And I took a risk, a daring leap of faith. I told my class, “My supervisor is coming in to this class at some point today, and he is going to be assessing my teaching so I need you all to help me out.”

 The risk could have gone sour quickly, I think. They could have easily taken my head off with this opportunity. If they have any skill it’s questioning authority. These kids know how to make life difficult – they could scream out “Sir, sir! So and so is annoying me!” or “I don’t get it? What are we doing again?” And it did start off this way, they definitely had energy and it was showing. I was also taking a risk by trying to merge a character summary assignment and a quote assignment to teach citations. The class struggled with the concept, but seemed to be trying to understand it – still it was noisy. Very noisy.

Then, with about fifteen minutes to go, my supervisor walked in and a classroom of students banging drums became a classroom of students cleaning drums with feathers. The hush was tangible and the quietness actually effected my ability to teach for a second. But once I got over the initial shock, I couldn’t help but smile and share a few knowing glances with these students who seem so loud and indifferent. After class I saw a group of students from class and decided to say, “Hey guys, thanks for being awesome back there. I really appreciate it.”

“We got your back.”, they said.

Our "Technology Generation"

Last week I assigned my first big project, one that everyone is familiar with: the book report. We are reading "Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" and we are far enough through that I thought they could use more of their time writing. I figured the process was easy enough. I'll create some guidelines, hand them out and some kind of rubric so students know the expectation. I tend to hate rubrics, but I have found that being a student teacher means tailoring your teaching methods to fit snugly with your cooperating teacher - it helps all parties involved and I am totally ok with it. Anyway, the rubric was in an outline form and the students responded well to it. Actually, I started to assign the project without a rubric and made one upon popular request (read: student feedback and formative assessment).

There were, of course, some kinks. For instance I wanted students to tell me the genre of the novel they are reading. The form looked something like:

1. Genre

           What kind of novel is this?

This was interpreted a few ways like, "This was a sad novel...", which led me to believe I had missed the mark on our multiple talks of genre and my explicitly telling them the novels genre is historical fiction on many occasions. "That's just how it is sometimes." my cooperating teacher remarked of my concerns, "I think they should know what genre means at this point, some of them were just a bit confused by the prompt I guess." Those kinks on the outlined rubric aside, I found the hardest part of this project was the computer lab.

The computer lab started as this shining beacon of hope for me, and in my excitement we rushed over there to begin working on their book reports. "Thou shalt type up thine report according to thy outlined format and humbly submit it to me at the closing of the second class period." I said. And at the end of the first class period my students, nearly in unison, replied, "Would that we could Sire, but our school folder confounds us." And to my dismay they continued, "And thine email hath been forgotten by a score of us, nor do we knoweth our own email addresses, nor can we attach files. Our work today is for naught." And so it was that I discovered many of my students were technologically illiterate in an academic sense.

I think we assume too much about what students know about technology. Out of curiosity I looked up some information available about teens computer and media usage. Common knowledge would hold that teens are all tech heads, but studies show that teens browse the internet about 2x less than the average adult with the focus being on general search engines and social media. So they use technology in very limited ways, and unlike adults, teens are not forced to use the business side of technology - which is a literacy in and of itself.

My assumption was that students would understand how to save files in specific formats and know how to email with attachments. I also over estimated the number of students who would have access to a computer at home. Now, instead of this project being done in two class periods in the computer lab and at home, it has taken about a week. Our students aren't simply technologically literate because they grew up with it like people often assume. Computer skills are learned, like anything else.

Technology isn't second nature for this generation.

Realizations are easy to come by when student teaching, I have been finding, and after this project I realized that I went into this to be an English teacher, but I just became a computer teacher as well. I guess it's all just literacy anyway, right?

They're Against Me!

It’s hard to believe, but I’m four weeks into my student teaching, and things have been up and they’ve been down. The theme as of late has been classroom management. I have found that I am a horrible disciplinarian. Honestly, I hate the idea of being an authority. I don’t want to write students up, or use the fear of punishment to keep them in check. But lately I have found it necessary to be strict.

Today, for example, I was guiding one of my fourth year classes (10^th grade) through a brainstorming activity. The goal was to brainstorm characters, motivations, a conflict and resolution and a lesson for legends they will be writing. “Today we are brainstorming our legends, and in the classes following this I will give you all time to write them.” I said, thinking I was being quite clear. “You will need to outline these key things,” and I listed them on the board.

1. A character with a motivation
2. A conflict and a resolution
3. The lesson your story ends with

I thought this was clear, but I hadn’t realized how disruptive the few quiet conversations going on had been. When I wrote them on the board, the noise began to grow. I turned around after writing these things and told them to begin. It took me about a minute of walking around to realize that not a single student was really working – they were essentially looking busy, but when asked, none of them knew what to do. I got back in front of the class, “Ok, show of hands. Who has no clue what we are doing?” Nearly all the hands sky rocketed up, and I got a few cackles. “Not a clue!” one student yelled helpfully.

‘What!?’ I was thinking, ‘I literally gave you all the information you need. This was supposed to be easy. Are you working against me or something?’ Suddenly I became the stern authority I never wanted to be and said quite loudly, “You have no idea what we are doing because none of you are listening.” Hyperbole has always been a strong part of authoritative reprimands, “You are writing legends, today you are brainstorming ideas, the three categories on the board are what you should be focusing on . Who are your characters, what are their motivations. What is the conflict? And what lesson will be learned from your story?”

Keeping the class quiet the rest of the time was difficult enough. My painful realization today was, as much as I dislike the idea of it, I will have to get strict and direct and authoritative with my class from time to time. But I also remembered something important from my education classes, which is “Don’t take it personally.” Students aren’t against you, students are in a battle against the idea of school and you are a part of that idea. As a teacher I represent something more than myself , I represent an institution. So at the end of class, I approached the students that were rowdy during class and tried to show them me. “Hey guys.” I said, “I know you want to chat and have fun, and I can sympathize with that, I was in school too. But please realize that I have a job to do. I appreciated the moments you were attentive. I would like to ask you to do that more often instead of disrupting class. Any discipline measures are a last option for me, so please show me the respect I show you.” I will see if this works for me.

Carefully Being Myself With Students

More and more, even though it's been told to me before, I'm finding that the unexpected moments are the best moments as a teacher. And as lost as I feel sometimes, there are always these jack-in-the-box life experiences that backhand slap me back to reality and say, "Fool! Quit yo jibbah-jabbah!"

After a day in Dublin with my grandma, I had my first encounter with students outside of the classroom. I had just gotten of the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) and was waiting for the bus to my house in Kilcoole, when a large group of students crossed the street and recognized me. "Mr. Cameron!", one student said and smiled. Some of the kids were from different schools, and most of them were exchange students. "Who's that?" another asked. "One of my teachers." she replied. I can only guess what they were thinking standing there talking to me. Maybe something to the effect of, "I can't believe our teacher is standing here waiting for a bus like us." but I bet if they knew the speed in which my mind was machine gunning they would have been completely overwhelmed.

You see, as a young budding teacher I have thought back on the horror stories I have heard about teachers who do things that are completely innocent but are misinterpreted or deemed inappropriate etc. and I found myself being overly critical of this interaction. Which in turn was a bit frustrating, because this interaction should have simply been a chance encounter with a group of students and an opportunity to get to know them.

But the reality of being a teacher is that you are held to a different standard. And in that moment, surrounded by twelve or so students, I felt a responsibility to be very conscious of who I was. We talked about travel (as many of them were exchange students), their time so far in Ireland, and I answered many curious questions about the US - questions like, "Is it warm in America?" And overall it was a great experience that I actually feel will impact how receptive students are to my teaching in the classroom. If anything I learned how important it is to interact with students in some way outside of the classroom (extracurricular sports, drama, clubs, etc.) if you want to be a great teacher.

And you can always be yourself, just carefully.

The Bag of Tricks Grows Deeper

A bag of tricks is necessary in life and in teaching. And because I will soon be leading classes on my own, I have been very conscious of activities that can help me manage the class and keep students attentive. 

On Thursday, not only did I add a trick to my bag, I had a moment of realization. Students are under so much social strain, and are developing at such a rapid rate, that they often put up a tough or lazy or apathetic guise that can be hard to break through. They strive to appear older and tougher than they are, but I found a way to break through this barrier; reading out loud. Even in my noisiest, most raucous  class of fourteen and fifteen year olds, once I start reading "The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas" to them, they quiet down. Their silence shows me they respect me as a teacher, and my voice shows them I care about them as people, that they aren't just receptacles to challenge, inform and control - I've also been reading in a lovely German accent for some of the nasty Nazi characters and I like to think my embarrassing performances will get them out of their shells.

Really though, I don't care who the student is, nobody is too cool to be read to.

How do I plan units like Jackson Polluck?

So everyone, I got to do two things today:

1. I got to teach. (Yes!)
2. I planned Units. (Yes?)

First, the teaching. Of the four classes I am in on Mondays, I got to teach 1st and 3rd year English. Both experiences were spur of the moment. I walked in and my cooperating teachers said something to the effect of, "So, do want to take over for the day?" With all the planning I was trying to fit in today, it was a welcome challenge. And I must say that when I am in front of the class I feel like I am in my element. Experience still has a lot to teach me about holding the reins, but I enjoy the experience of learning by doing. Building relationships and connections with these students is very exciting because I think of the doors that open as a teacher when students feel they know me, and are comfortable with me. It's definitely playing into my favor being an American here in Ireland as it provides students a reason to be interested in me - I try to flip that around and use it as an opportunity to show an interest in them as well. But there is also this looming thing called curriculum and I am under the impression that I actually have to teach these kids something. And the consensus seems to be that I have to plan these learning opportunities. So here's the second part of this little update.

The planning. It gets very stressful sorting through stories, pictures, articles, resources, templates, graphic organizers and activities - not to mention the fact that I have to organize these things around some structured topic - to create a coherent unit. Well I feel confident in building relationships, but coherence? I think I've spent much of my life fighting it. Is there a way to plan "un-structure" and still be explicit with learning objectives?

I kind of feel like I've been shown how to design in pointillism but I'm trying to make a Jackson Polluck. It's all art right?

Part of the problem is I am creating these units from scratch (for the most part). I truly haven't found any units online that I feel comfortable with teaching - they seem cheap and thrown together. I want my units to have a defined target for the students - as well as a narrow focus - with a clearly scaffolded arc of learning. By my standards they need to progress through some skills to adequately support growth and learning. I am still learning how to do this.

Still, my unit topics are amazing: Science Fiction, Creative Writing, Native American Legends, Photojournalism, Sound in Film. I'll let you know how the planning goes this week. And if anyone is interested I'll post the units as well.

Until then I'll be planning with this in mind, "Life keeps on changing, I tell it to stay still but it won't listen." - Rocky Votolato

Got Structure?

Today marks the final day of meetings and preparation and the beginning of my student teaching. And also my first blog post on my new, fancy “Student Teacher Blog” so that you can all read about my hilarious great success and undeniable failures for the next ten weeks. It’s not that pivotal, really though, because the first week or two consists mainly of observations of the school culture, the classroom structure, general rules, policies in action, and the daily routines of my classes. But I do think it’s a good place to begin reflection, because I am starting to realize quite a few things.

I would also like to say, this post is a throwback to the Woodring days as I’m expecting all my amazing professors to read this blog.

And here it is: What was I thinking?

Apologies to all my professors I was questioning and hassling because, “I really don’t think that’s the best way, this is how I like to do it.”

I’m starting to feel like I want all the structure and preparation in the world…did somebody say rubric? For anyone who’s not sure what I’m talking about, let me explain. In my classes at Woodring College of Education  I was staunchly a minimalist – a bit of a wild child perhaps. “Rubrics cramp the natural development of writing. It’s an organic thing, man.”, I would say to my professor Don Burgess. And all this backwards design and outlines of time, what was the use?

Well, now that I’m about to be in the hot seat for weeks on end, I’ll tell you the use – you’ll know what you’re going to assess the students on for the next freakin year!

Don, you were right my man.

I’m probably being a little bit hyperbolic, I still think writing needs to be practiced and allowed to occur creatively without too much restriction, and I still want my classes to be malleable – not too regimented. But I stand here now, a deer in the headlights, saying “Thank you.”, to those who provided me with the unit plan templates, student inventories, learning checklists and assessment strategies I so valiantly (and vainly) fought in College.

I think I will be happily planning in UbD world this school year.

On another note, you all may also know that I am teaching in Ireland, if not, now you do. Let me tell you something if you’ve never been here – they drink tea like they’ll go blind if they don’t, and now I do too. I’m going to be bringing a hundred pounds of it with me when I come back, if I do come back at all.