WWMD?

            Today I had a difficult day at school, specifically with one of my students (we’ll call her Kayla).  All day I was frustrated by her behavior, the way it impacted the classroom and routine, and the fact that I felt at a loss to guide her and the other students in my class through what has easily been our (and by our I mean my) most stressful day of the year.  I struggled to use the practices that I know are best and instead gave the students who were behaving cookies at 9 AM, bribed them with homework passes, and encouraged them to ignore Kayla’s behavior (again, I’m not proud).  I ended up writing Kayla up, giving her 0’s for the entire day, and dreading my interaction with her tomorrow in fear that the day will go just as badly or worse! 

Then I returned home to read Nakkula and now am sitting here asking myself WWMD (What Would Mitch Do)?  Mitch seems to be this counselor who has everything together and turns a chance encounter – witnessing Julian creating graffiti in the boys’ bathroom – into a prolonged ‘getting to know you and who you want to be’ experience.  Mitch provides a safe and understanding environment in which Julian can express himself, let out his true feelings, and experiment with his own adolescent identity without being judged by others.  Mitch reaches out to Julian’s teachers and parents to share some of the struggles that Julian is experiencing as he tries to find his own identity in all of the different roles he is challenged by on a daily basis (pg. 37).  Basically, Mitch did the exact opposite of what I did in my classroom today.

While I found parts of the Mitch-Julian story to be contrived, it did make me realize that there were certainly better ways that I could have handled my day with Kayla today.  After reading these chapters from Nakkula and being reminded that I am a co-author in the lives of my students, I want to be better prepared to deal with difficult situations such as the ones that I was presented with today.  As I was reading the chapters it seems clear to me that Kayla currently has a diffuse identity (pg. 32).  She acted in a way today that I have never seen before, which I think is what made the entire day so difficult for me to understand.  Kayla is typically a mature and motivated student, but today acted extremely impulsively and used attention seeking behaviors. 

Tomorrow I will try to be a little more “Mitch-like” with my approach to all students, especially Kayla.  As I have shared before, I strongly believe in routine and high expectations in order for my students to be successful and I don’t want Kayla's behavior to interfere with that.  Today she behaved in ways that were unacceptable in regards to the safety and education of my other students, but I also feel as though I can do a better job of reaching out to Kayla and trying to find out what is going on with her.  Because I know that she doesn’t always act like this, because her behavior today was the exception rather than the norm, and because I have built a relationship with Kayla thus far this school year, I hope that we can both approach tomorrow as a new day and that I can reach out to her and remember my role as “co-author” in her struggle through adolescence.            

Nakkula

Chapter one of Nakkula reaffirmed my observation of an adolescent and further explained what I had written about in my reflection paper only one week ago.  For that assignment I observed my students during their morning routine. The students were ready for school, eating breakfast, taking their medication, and getting ready to come downstairs to school.  As the observer I tried not to interact with them much, because I didn’t want to interrupt the normal flow of things, but because of our familiarity the girls were interacting with me some.  What I observed during that time is a set of behaviors unlike I am used to seeing from these same students while in the classroom.  The girls were much more disrespectful, rude, and challenging during my observation.  At first I thought maybe they weren’t ‘morning people’, but as Nakkula points out on page 3, “As adolescents test limits through experimentation with their behavior and the responses it elicits, and as adults help shape and label that behavior, adolescences itself is being constructed.”  These individuals were testing limits and they were learning from the adults in the situation that their behavior was either not of concern or didn’t require redirection at that time.  Without going into too many specifics, I now realize that I was seeing adolescence happen.  These adolescents have learned that what is acceptable in one situation might be unacceptable in a different situation, based on the reactions of the adults who surround them.  As adolescents they are constantly “creating themselves and the worlds they inhabit” (pg. 5) and as adults we play in integral role in that creation.

The section on coauthors and teacher-student relationships brought back memories of my teacher research project from SED 551 in which I specifically examined the role of teacher-student relationships in the classroom.  A concept that was present both in that project and Chapter 1 of Nakkula was, “because teaching is a vocation that suffers from lack of extrinsic rewards relative to higher-paying and higher-prestige professions teachers depend on intrinsic rewards to make their work feel worthwhile (pg. 13).  This chapter furthered my understanding of the role that teacher-student relationships play in education.  I liked the thought of cowriting our narratives with our students and think it’s important to remember that they are shaping our stories as much as we are helping to shape theirs!

Campoy Article - I think!

Campoy Article

I tried to link to the Campoy article above, but I'm not sure if it was successful.  Sorry it took forever!

Ayers Part 2

At Dr. Horwitz’s suggestion, I took an active reading approach while reading the second half of To Teach.  Typically I rely on a highlighter and maybe a few notes in the margin, but this time I armed myself with sticky notes of various sizes and colors (as well as my trusted highlighter) and began reading.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to use the sticky notes for, but I was determined that I would figure it out and throughout my reading, I did.  I color-coded my notes to keep track of “questions I have”, “things I disagree with or don’t seem right”, “ideas I want to try in my classroom”, and “practices I think I’m already good at”.  Here are some of the ideas I discovered while reading…

“Questions I Have/green sticky notes”

At the bottom of pg. 71 I couldn’t help but think of Dr. Bogad’s “igloo” story she shared last year.  She told us of a teacher who used to do an entire unit on igloos – incorporating math, science, social studies, language arts, and many other lessons and activities into her unit.  Now, as Ayers suggest here, students are robbed of that opportunity and only get the “surface knowledge” about a topic.  I know that a big topic in education right now is the shift to the CCSS and I in no way am an expert on it.  I’m wondering if the shift is going to allow the focus to go back more to when ‘igloos’ were allowed?  Will there be any clear change at all?  Will it be up to teachers as individuals?  

“Things I disagree with or don’t seem right/red sticky notes”

Maybe Ayers is just trying to make a point, maybe I’m too cynical, but I struggled with the panels on page 82 where Bill is sitting around waiting for his students to return from standardized testing.  In my experience, if kids are testing, teachers are proctoring.  If for some mysterious reason teachers aren’t proctoring they are grading, observing, on lunch duty, hall duty, standing in line at the copier, attending an IEP meeting, planning… you get the idea.  Just when I was getting frustrated with the fact that he was sitting in a chair he states, “Plus, I’m lonely”, this about put me over the edge.  Maybe I’m cynical, maybe it’s my teaching situation, but I can safely say that I don’t recall having those thoughts as a teacher.  Please disagree with me if I’m wrong – but I was very quick to reach for my red sticky note here!

“Ideas I want to try in my classroom/blue sticky notes”

Alice Jefferson (pg. 46) picks a topic every year that she doesn’t know anything about and does a long-term project surrounding that topic.  I often make excuses that I can’t do small/whole group activities, because my students are all in different grades and they are typically placed in my classroom temporarily.  Therefore, it’s difficult to do projects/activities where we rely on the whole group and take place over a period of time.  A project such as the one that Ms. Jefferson uses would be perfect for my classroom.  Not only would it build on the students’ knowledge of a topic, but it would also build on the feeling of community in my classroom.

“Practices I think I’m already good at/pink sticky notes”

On page 98 and 99 Ayers highlights eight different ideas of how to be a better teacher.  One of the ideas that he focuses on here is, “Linking Consciousness to Conduct.”  This section made me think of Aaron, the student who we read about earlier whose brother was in jail awaiting trial.  Like Aaron, all of our students live in a world outside of our classroom and they all have different experiences, strengths, and struggles that we have to be aware of and sensitive to.  As I shared over both semesters last year, this is something that I really focus on in my classroom and think that it helps to build a sense of community and understanding in my classroom.  Although I think I’m already good at this practice, it’s one that is important to me and that I need to remind myself of on a regular basis.  I think that Ayers did a nice job of referencing this practice here and will remember the “crack in the wall” analogy while working with my students.

These are just a few of my reflections I encountered while reading the second half of this book.  I look forward to reading other blogs and also our class discussion on Wednesday!

Interesting Interest Inventory

I just finished taking my LSI and according to this inventory my preferred learning style is Diverging.  According to Kolb, people with this learning style prefer working in small groups, listening with an open mind, and receiving personalized feedback – all which describe me perfectly!  Upon reading the other descriptions on Page 9, I definitely thought that this description suited me best.  Even reading some of the suggested “tips for strengthening your use of the __________ style” made me cringe when I read the Assimilating and Converging style.  As suggested by the tips for the “converging” style, I would like to ‘set goals’ to make try to enhance some of the other learning styles.  I think that it will help me appreciate the learning styles of some of my students and create a more well-rounded classroom environment.

As we begin our third semester together I feel that I know this group well enough to assume that we did not all have the same preferred learning styles as determined by this interest inventory.  As Kolb states on Page 12, one of the easiest ways to develop learning styles is by “develop(ing) relationships with people whose learning styles are different from your own.”  For me, this is a class where I look forward to doing just that!

To Teach

I had a really difficult time when I started reading this graphic novel.  I have no previous experience with this style and while I know that this medium is becoming more popular, I have not yet read it for pleasure or otherwise.  I found that I was completely skipping over the pictures and was only reading the words.  After a couple of pages I started over and forced myself to look at the pictures as I was reading and I had a completely different experience!  I actually found myself highlighting the pictures almost as often as I was highlighting the words that went along with them.

The best example I can find of this is on page 16 and 17 when Mr. Ayers is visited by the two specialists from the district.  Within a few panels (which I can only assume are the equivalent of maybe 15-20 minutes) Mr. Ayers seems to go from confused, to frustrated, to down-right angry and ready to pull his hair out.   While the text is direct and to the point in this section, I really found that the expressions on Bill’s face were what made this section the most memorable for me. 

In addition to the use of illustrations, the individual case studies really stuck out to me as I read.  Quinn stole my heart, as I have had many ‘Quinn’s’ throughout the years.  I really enjoyed ‘getting to know’ Quinn on pages 27-29, and enjoyed Bill’s observations of his behavior.  The whole mentality that Bill presented here was positive and highlighted Quinn’s strengths and abilities.  Even on some things that other teachers could put a negative spin on, Quinn had a very positive outlook on.  For example (page 29), “Quinn’s filled with delightful energy.  Sometimes he can become so excited that he can be aggressive, but never with animosity.”  I don’t believe I have ever heard a teacher use the phrase “delightful energy” before.   Usually it’s that kids are “ADD”, hyper, or some other catchphrase that have been adopted in educational circles.  I catch myself not being able to look at all situations in such a positive light.  After reading this section I found myself trying to 'find the good' in all of the situations that presented themselves throughout my week.  When I found myself getting frustrated I tried to look at the situation from Bill's perspective and look for the good in every encounter.  It's a slow process, but I felt like I did an 'ok' job - especially for a Monday!

I have to admit, I was pretty lost on pages 52-55 when Bill is describing a vignette about his son Zayd.  I have nothing highlighted, went back and reread the text, and looked at the pictures all over again to find some meaning in this.  I didn’t really find the relevance of this story and wondered if Bill just included it because he had included stories about his other sons!  Is there anyone who can help me out with this?!?

Ed Camp

http://edcampri.org/

The above is a link to EdCampRI which is an Unconference on 10/26.  If you have any questions about it let me know!  Thanks!