Final Evaluation

This is how things have always been: I would be given an assignment, I would complete it, and I would receive a grade. Of course, I had a vague notion that these assignments were designed to orient me toward meaningful objectives, but I was busy. Since college started, I've never kept fewer than two jobs, and finishing college has been the means to an end. So, I completed assignments dutifully hoping they would be to my professors' satisfaction. In my mind, the grade I received was final. If it was low, it was because my work was poor, and I accepted that. If it was high, then good, I had performed as demanded.
What a huge contrast this semester has been! During student teaching, there were no check boxes in my planner, no essay questions, and no homework sheets. There was nothing to “turn in”. I was forced to stop right in my tracks and think. When I looked up, and I realized that all of those projects and reading assignments were for this, for the work and joy of teaching-- not for the degree or the certification. In that light, I could see that all of my previous courses as they had been intended. I thought about the word “course”, and one of the pictures that came to mind was a difficult path. Yes, all of these classes had been extensions of a single path leading me to the dual goal of education and educating.
During my student teaching semester, I didn't get grades that I could keep in a little ledger to tabulate my success. I had to listen-- for the first time, really listen-- to the evaluations and recommendations of my cooperating teacher and supervising professor. If I did poorly, I couldn't just fill in a “C” and average it in with the other grades. I had to teach tomorrow, too, and I had to fix the problem. It mattered, because these students matter. I have this taped to my refrigerator:
You are responsible for the very lives of the students entrusted to your care.
Everything you say and do has the potential to affect a child's life for eternity.
Their degree of success would be proportional to my effectiveness.
I believe the area where I started out weakest is also the areas where I experienced the biggest gains: discipline. I hope that students preparing for student teaching could understand how crucial this element is for teaching a lesson. In the future, University of Dallas may emphasize these areas more prior to the student teaching experience. When a class knows their expectations and consequences, and they can respect those rules, the teacher is no longer expending so much energy trying to manage an out of control class.
In practicum courses, an education student only spends three or four hours a week with a class. Little did I know I was not seeing an accurate picture of what it would be like to teach the same students all day long. As a visiting instructor from a university, the students had given me what I now recognize as an unusual amount of respect. By the time I took over in student teaching, I had not established by own set of behavior expectations, and the students detected that I was not maintaining my mentor teacher's rules. It was anarchy. They talked in the hall only seconds after I corrected them-- and in front of the vice-principal! They yelled out during direct-teach lessons. They openly defied to answer when I asked questions. And would you believe that when I called their parents for wrestling on the floor, they called me MEAN?
I know what did it. I know what was mean. It really was mean of me not to make standards for behavior clear from the very beginning. I had an odd idea when I came in, too, that as long as they were learning, it didn't matter if they were talking or playing a little. Well, that's great for those who understand already, but it took me a few weeks to see that this kind of behavior was seriously interfering with certain students' learning. It wasn't until the last two or three weeks that I started discussing expectations with students before a lesson or before entering the hall. I also discovered that the discussion element is important. The students met their challenge better when it was they who defined the school rules to me, rather than me being the one who imposed them from above. I know from my research study on Lawrence Kohlberg that children around the 4th grade can be very juridical about rules, and they have a very polarized internal compass of right and wrong. I just had to mobilize it.
As I started experimenting with discipline plans, I also recognized I had to make different standards for various types of class activities. They can expect silence during independent reading or testing, but I couldn't ask the same thing during, say, a science lesson where they cut apart fruits in groups, hunting for seeds. We made a class rule. It is called the science whisper, and whenever they are in science groups, they use a whisper to talk to their partner. I drew on my coursework from UD to recall that nine and ten year-olds are very concrete. Before my last science lesson, we discussed the science rules and actually wrote them on the board, and we left them up there.
Gosh, I wish I had been doing this from the beginning. We agreed that anyone who broke the rules would not participate in the lesson. It was very matter-of-fact. One student suggested it would be fair if some rules were precluded by one warning, and the students responded to this fairness. With two or three small exceptions, a class of wild ragamuffins was transformed into a model classroom, and I spent only one or two minutes correcting behavior out of a whole hour an a half. What a wise investment that ten minutes at the start had been! I can only imagine what a class would be like that had months of practice in meeting classroom procedures.
I went to Ms. McGibboney after the lesson (she had been in and out of the room), asking if she noticed anything different. She nodded. “I think they learned how to behave,” I said smiling. Again, she only nodded. “Oh wow,” I blurted out, having an epiphany, “Were they like this before I came here to teach? Did I RUIN your students for three months?” “No, you see,” she answered, “the thing is, I knew they understood how to behave this whole time, and so did they. I was just waiting for you to realize that. I could have just told you-- and believe me, it was hard not to tan some hides in the mean time-- but I wanted you to see it for yourself.” Now, believe me, the last thing I planned on learning in student teaching was that my expectations of students were too low. Yet, I has underestimated their ability to build an orderly classroom environment together; it was really something each student had wanted.
Thanks to the coursework at UD preparing me for student teaching, the majority of the time I spent during my student teaching was fine-tuning what I had already learned. I improved and learned a new techniques for getting a message across. I gained excellent practice working with leveled groups, and I got to see the theories I had been reading about in action. I watched the students build and construct their understanding, all with a little help, and I got to witness first-hand that it wasn't I who was building those ideas.
But even with all of these successes, no, I admit I was not always an effective teacher this last semester. There were lessons and days where I felt like I was truly failing. I was so tired. Some days, when the students were testing, I was bored. A robot could have watched them bubble in answer sheets. One day I went to the bathroom to cry, asking God to show me where I was really supposed to be. I hope that the words I'm writing here convey, however, my tremendous feeling of growth.
In my application for student teaching, I wrote that I believe education is a calling. More than I ever, I know that the calling is a gift. It is a longing. For the next few years, I will not be able to answer that call in a classroom. I will be home with my newborn son. And, I have learned something new about teaching... For those who are called, there will be no station in life, no position or occupation where I can cease to be a teacher. The motion of teaching is perpetual, an echo of divine illumination. Wherever I am, at home or anywhere else, I will still be a teacher, and I will respond to the call to affect a child's life for eternity. In Romans 12, St. Paul describes teaching as a gift of the Holy Spirit. I understand that to be given the privilege to work with these young individuals has been to touch eternity in twenty-one souls. This is where I am supposed to be.

Observing a first grade classroom: Gifted and Talented

Our class finished their standardized state writing test today. I hold a part-time job in the afternoon, so I couldn't attend the administration training. They must define many regulations, because the training would have taken me a few hours. I wanted to be in the class during test day to cheer on the students, but I'm sure it would have challenged me to monitor individual, silent work for a six and a half hour period.

Instead, I spent the day observing a first grade GT (gifted and talented) class. The teacher, Miss Griffith, has been working with this same grade level for twelve years-- that was how she accumulated so much for her classroom. I had been overwhelmed at the volume of STUFF she fit into her class so neatly. She had brought in shelves of hundreds of her books, many purchased new, and the rows of windows were lined with fish tanks (three, with different aquatic themes!), bean plants, sea shells, and baskets of different fresh leaves and flowers. Her science discovery garden reminded me of a class-sized forest for Rousseau's little Emile.

On low shelves, which she had also bought, were ten clear gallon bins filled to the brim with brightly colored objects like beads or small plastic teddy bears. Miss Griffith showed me how the manipulatives are used, and I saw that the students used them less frequently now that they can think of addition and subtraction in the abstract, but for some reason these first graders still enjoy sorting them- unprompted- during free time.

First, I was amazed that these first graders were beginning to perform math functions abstractly. Now, however, looking back, I wonder if they could have just memorized unit addition and subtraction through practice with the manipulatives. The memorization would bridge the gap between manipulatives and abstraction.

What is it about the children, though, that makes them love sorting so much? I remember spending hours as a little girl of four or five sorting the still-sandy seashells my grandfather carried back from the islands he visited. Carefully lifting them out of the wooden cheese crate, I lined them on the edge of the oriental rug from smallest to largest, and then I grouped them in families: conches, clams, swirly ones, flat ones, and the most precious, the sanddollars. Over each family I appointed a mother and father. It was a ritual as much as it was a game. Do children need to order the world around them to enjoy it? As Miss Griffith tolf me, no one had instructed them on this task, but they went about it as dilligently as if classification were the work of childhood, something they knew instinctively and craved by nature. They must use the same skills when assimilating other ideas into schemata, don't they?

I spent that morning helping her with reading benchmarks. The district's standard for reading is to read one hundred of the high frequency words in one minute by the end of first grade. When they came up, I was amazed that the students blazed through the words faster than I would have imagined, faster than my fourth graders could read them, and maybe even faster than I could read them: 150 words per minute!!! "Small, she, it, when, then, make, will..." they buzzed. Then, they read a passage matched to their fluency and answered questions for comprehension. What they answered was not directly in the text. For example, a dog and a cat built a sand castle together cooperatively-- that was a story they read. The children were then asked where the story took place. They answered, on the beach, at the park volleyball court, or in the backyard sandbox. The passage never stated the setting; yet, their answers proved they had imagined a place where all the dialogue and descriptions would be plausible. They had constructed the place in their minds. I imagine my fourth graders would answer, "It doesn't say," or, "It's not here," all based on the concrete narrative.

All fifteen of the children were white except for one biracial boy (African American and Anglo). However, in my fourth grade class, there are twelve hispanic children, three black children, one white boy, and four children of mixed ethnicity (all hispanic and Anglo). "Miss Griffith," I asked, "Why is the demography of your class inconsistent with the rest of the school?" She looked back at me until I went on, "I mean, why is it so white?"

"Oh, that," she answered, "I'll tell you the trends, and you can make of it what you will. Every child in this class has supportive, married parents and a stay-at-home mom with a high level of education. About half of the children went to private kindergarten, but the other half could never afford it." Her description challenged my understanding of the word "gifted", by which I usually mean a natural talent or aptitude. If her description is accurate, the most powerful gift these children had from birth was the stability and nurture from home, despite socio-economic status. The tests prove the gift's effects measurably. "The fact that they are white is really a coincidence," Miss Griffith explained, "because it's really only that a certain portion of white families follow this pattern, and their children are the ones who qualify for GT.

Play Gone Awry: My mistake

The weather turned cold again. I put on an overcoat this morning and a pair of my husband's wool socks. So far, no one has admitted noticing the heel lumping up by my ankle. For this class, it meant another day of indoor recess.

I wish I could have a key to the room. I know it is a liability, but every time we leave the class, if the door closes, we get locked out. Then I have to traipse around the hallways, wasting time, looking for Ms. McGrew in the book room, copy room, lounge, and office. I don't know what they think I would do if I could actually get into the classroom on my own when I get here in the morning. I think I would... scurry up above the ceiling tiles, pregnant and all, and drop down onto the breakfast line.

I am not used to feeling like a constant liability. Sometimes, I feel like anything a teacher says or does can be misconstrued into a lawsuit or a suspension. Do teachers and administators live their careers walking on eggshells? My latest lesson isn't one that the students learned from me, though. I had to learn a lesson myself about the care teachers must exercise in their interactions with students.

We were waiting to get into the classroom for recess, and after corralling the Team of Twenty-One (the class), I was rudely reminded about my key situation. It was the first time I had been locked out with the whole group, and they were getting bouncier by the second. I would have to make a dash to the most likely place to find Ms. McGrew... but I couldn't leave all of those hurricanes behind.

Two culprits in the gang were especially wound up, and I knew if I left the rest alone for a minute, things would be a little calmer. "Come on, you stinkers," I joked with them, "We have to find Ms. McGrew." I took them each in the crook of their arms and we mowsied down the hall, three abrest. I felt unusually silly, since it was recess time for me, too.

"Is this how teacher's used to drag kids around in the old days?" Antoine asked me.

"Oh no, they did it much more creatively," I replied. "No," I explained, "The mean old marms would snatch children by the ear and use it as a short leash." With that, I gripped them both and we walked in tow to the end of the hall. I set them free, then, because I saw Ms. McGrew around the corner.

The rest of recess was uneventful, but it was too short. They only got about seven minutes after fooling with the key so long.

This morning, Ms. McGrew called me in for a meeting in the book room, the most secluded place in the school. Teachers don't congregate there like they do in the halls or in the copy room. (The copy room in the morning is the most happening place on the block.) I knew it had to be serious.

She explained to me that two years ago, there was an incredible teacher at this elementary school. He was a real joker, too, and he was able to make kids laugh to help them remember things-- a real asset to the school and to their educations. One day, he had taken a child by the ear, just as playfully as I had, and when they went home and told their parents, those parents took it to the district school board. The teacher was removed from his position with pay.

People who know him attribute the stroke he had not too long after to the stress of the suspension. She said he isn't "brain-dead" or anything, but he will never be able to teach a class again. He is not the same, and he can't think like he used to. I almost cried, right there, hearing the terrible story of what happened to this man. I felt an overwhelming sense of gravity, like I was plunked down to the realities of earth after floating around in the clouds having fun.

Ms. McGrew hadn't seen me with the two kids, but two faculty members saw me in the hall and came to her. "It just brought back a bad memory of what happened to Mr. Lawrence. They were worried for you," she explained. I nodded gravely.

Ms. McGrew was concerned about one more thing, too. "There is one girl in the class who has really taken a liking to you," she began, "And I don't know why, but sometimes we just make a connection with a child, and they want to be our best friend. I see her coming to you for help when I know she already understands, and she huddles around you whenever she had the chance. You have to cut that off. I know it's easy to talk to her, because I like her too, but... Mrs. Eckstein, I am worried the other students will pick up on a special relationship and feel slighted."

I knew exactly the student the was talking about. Camille is a very special, incredibly intelligent girl. She has enough personality to be a talk-show host. Who knows what the future has for her. I too have noticed Camille clinging to me. This morning, I tried to put a little more distance. When she brought me her writing, I sent her back to her desk to use the strategies she already knew to edit. After she is finished, I will look at it, but not with Camille trying to sling herself around my shoulder and ask me if I will teach her how to draw eyes. It's difficult for me, but it's something I have to learn.

I have to leave play to the children.

Cowboys and Indians

Until this point, recess has consisted of fifteen minutes of subdued free time in the classroom. The weather is just too drizzly, too cold, or a combination of the two. The whole time they played indoors, I was nervous about an administrator passing us in the hall and warning us to be quiet. They are nine and ten year olds: I know they wanted to run and chase each other. In what felt like a fight against childhood, I spent half of "recess" regulating the speed they rushed across the lockers at the back of class. They can't push each other in the rolly-chair; someone could fall. They can't write on the board; they would use up my precious dry-erase markers or mash in the felt tips. They can't laugh or sing too loud. There is no jump rope, no soccer, so sliding. Maybe they should draw?

If you can't tell, I hate indoor recess, too. You need space in the classroom to crawl off to a corner and tell a secret to your best friend. The fights over who gets to play on Nickelodeon's website irritate me, too.

After all that torture, for me and them, yesterday the kids got the first outdoor recess of the semester. It was almost seventy degrees, and the breeze was just rough enough to be invigorating. All twenty-one students poured out the school's back door like water out of a faucet. I took my spot on the teacher's bench by the playground and watched them, smiling. After they had worked hard all morning on a three-hour math diagnostic, it relaxed me to see them tagging each other.

One little boy who moved here from the country sat by me and crocheted: his grandmother in Louisiana taught him how to make "manly" toys out of the yarn. He was explaining how tight enough loops, a thousand times wrapped, make a bouncing ball. I guess I was a little too intrigued, because a red-faced woman approached me with four boys in tow.

"Mrs. Eckstein, I'm Mrs. O'Brien. My classroom is just inside that window. You would not belEIVE the HORRible thing I just saw. These two boys were wrestling on the ground, and these other two were shooting imaginary GUNS at each other!" Mrs. O'Brien raised her eyebrows in horror while she explained their crime. She thrust them toward me and made a huffing noise, "I figure you would be able to take care of them. I have to get back to my class. I just can-NOT beLIEVE these CHILDREN!"

She read the puzzled expression on my face as surprise at their behavior, because she nodded curtly and returned inside. The boys waited in a criminal line-up. Now, I know that kids just can't fight at school, but I was not as distressed at the report as Mrs. O'Brien had been.

"Ray, what upset you to make you wrestle Harvey?" I questioned.

Now it was Ray who looked confused. He looked up at me and answered, "We aren't mad. We were playing."

"But, Mrs. O'Brien said she saw you rolling around in the dirt hitting each other," I asked, suspicious they might be "covering".

He just looked up and shook his head. Harvey explained that it wasn't a fight, but yes, they had been tumbling around like house-apes. To me, the only conclusion that I could make was that they were being... boys.

How could I take away their recess for a week when they were just playing like children do? I sat them down and explained that we just can't wrestle at school. Someone could get hurt, and then it might not be fun anymore, right? Then there could be a real fight. It was a long talk, and I believe they understood me.

I went to the vice principal to ask her opinion. I was praying she didn't suggest something like suspension. "When that happens, have them sit out the rest of recess that day," Mrs. Piezchech suggested, and I agreed with her. She explained that they were just being normal children, but they must learn that is not acceptable for the schoolyard. "The same goes for the gun slingers," she advised.

When it comes to holding up your fingers with invisible guns, I know there is an agressive way to do it, a threatening way. These boys were holding imaginary guns like sticks in the place of swords or rulers in the place of light sabers. How truly threatening is that? Mrs. McGrew, my mentor teacher, suspects Mrs. O'Brien overreacted because she hasn't had sons like so many of the other faculty here have, but... Our son won't be born until June, and I still have a strong sense that a few tumbles have never raised the terrorism alert to a new color.

This morning when my husband was driving home from work (Mr. Eckstein is a night-interpreter of sorts for a tech company.), he called to have me turn on National Public Radio. They were talking about the importance of free play during childhood. Apparently, play helps self-regulation as an older child and as an adult. The study they cited maintained that children who do not have time to play freely, without structure, have trouble managing their behavior later. The reason would be that those children never developed the internal system of rules for behavior-- which are learned in social interactions with peers. Furthermore, these mechanisms for behavior help us to learn when we should speak and when we should listen. Children who play know how to read facial expressions, know when to call out, and know what would upset another person: in short, they are more attentive students and learn better in the classroom.

Is NPR really telling me that a group of boys and girls playing a game of Knock-em-out Space Invaders is LEARNING? Heavens, could play help the human species to grow cognitively, socially, and psychologically?

It's not a new idea, really. In the kindergarten class my fourth graders visited today to mentor "Reading Buddies", there were shelves of hats for use in imaginative play. There was even a pup tent that looked like a giraffe set up in the room to imagine you on a camping trip. Free center time, anyone? For at least a hundred years, educators have begun to acknowledge that young children learn by exploring and playing in the world around them.

I thought to myself, 'Maybe this class is just starved for a little interaction.' We sit quiet so much of the day. I have to scold when someone turns to their neighbor during a direct teach to talk out of turn, and I don't like scolding. I wish they had more than ten or fifteen minutes a day to get the chatters out.

So, today we studied metric and customary units with a buddy. They had a set of matching cards, like the game "Memory". They had to match up the picture of an object with the word describing that item. Example: The book picture went with the kilogram card. If you could pick up both in one turn, you could keep the set.

I was worried they would become distracted and loose track of the learning, but I was genuinely surprised at how quiet they were. No, the class wasn't silent; yet, there was a pleasant, low hum of conversation. I heard talk about how funny it would be to find an apple that weighed a ton. I overheard a giggle about a Killer Tomato and how much he must have weighed. It was good.

Still, I hope it warms up soon so that we can get out of this room again!

Shaking and Ordering, "UNDERSTAND!"

This last week, I planned a series of mini-lessons on grammar to help correct mistakes I keep seeing. Wednesday, the mini-lesson was complete sentences. Since I only had fifteen or twenty minutes, I planned a few quick five-minute activities for our review. Each was designed to approach the theme from a different angle~ a strategy for reaching more of the children. Just because I planned it, however, does not mean it would work. I learned this as the lesson was crashing, burning, and oozing nuclear waste...

My activities:
1. A paragraph I composed about Valentine's Day. It lacked periods, and they got to drop them in where they belonged. Maybe they learned something about Valentine's Day, too.
2. Conversation hearts! The students composed complete sentences from the fragments and phrases stamped on the candies.
3. I printed out the day's headlines from Google News. They circled the headlines that weren't complete and rewrote them to be complete.
4. Students sorted cards with similar sentences written on them: some were complete and some were fragments.
5. I wrote a paragraph on the board, and they could come up and stick magnetic circles where the periods should be.

The ensuing madness:

When I started walking around, however, I realized they did not understand what a complete sentence was. The sentences they composed from the "hearts" were still fragments, and they dropped periods in all the wrong places. They were lost on all the other stations. Hmm. Ok, so after spending almost ten of my minutes explaining the directions, another five minutes elapsed before I noticed that they were LOST.

Now, I knew a mini-lesson was supposed to be 15-20 minutes, but since Ms. McGrew didn't stop me, I continued the lesson. I tried working through activity one together-- and some of the students understood, I think... But on the whole, most of the kids needed a little more practice. I gave examples of fragments and complete sentences. The students read aloud to tell me when something "made sense" as a complete idea.

Then I realized the problem. Without explaining sentence structure as a subject and predicate with additional clauses optional, they could not tell me whether a sentence "made sense" or "sounded right". Now that I was FORTY-FIVE minutes into the lesson, I didn't know what to do. The peak of frustration came when Jacqueline yelled out seriously that "It was fun," didn't have enough information to be a sentence.

Spiraling out of control:

"It is a sentence, Jacqueline."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is. Does it sound-"

"No it's not!" she interrupted. Then, the rest of the class around the horseshoe erupted in chaos as student took sides for or against her position. Was I seriously in an argument about a sentence, with a nine year old? I wanted to drop my whiteboard marker and give up.

They just aren't getting it. Someone must have taught them this before, right? And they just forgot? I don't know.

I looked over at Camille's desk and saw the grid sheets for the other activities still blank. Blank! The other students were just as behind. In my frustration, I asked them to work silently. I realize now that I shouldn't have done this. When they finally finished, I had used an entire HOUR of the class' time, and I only accomplished (1) an argument and (2) seeing what they didn't know. I don't think anyone understood something they hadn't before.

I have this understanding of a complete sentence, and I explained it every way I knew how, excluding without swamping them with advanced grammar. It was like there was a thick wall between what I wanted them to know and what they could understand. I felt awful. Why wasn't I reaching them? I guess it's like Plato says. You just can't pour knowledge into someone; instead, I have to coax them to give birth to the idea within their own selves.

All the while, Ms. McGrew was taking notes on my methods and things she wanted to discuss with me. I both dreaded and looked forward to the meeting. I knew it had gone wrong, and I was actually ashamed at how little I was able to help them understand. I hoped she could have told me the magic key to saving the lesson and help me understand why the students had looked at me like I had been speaking Russian.

"They're low," she explained, "They don't learn like you did when you were in fourth grade." When I made the lesson, I had designed it by reminiscing about how I had understood things in fourth grade. "They don't understand with just a few examples. They need practice, practice, practice, and then they need to review and review, and review again-- or else they forget," Ms. McGrew explained, "Low kids just don't have the foundation concepts needed to explain at-level ideas, so you have to start from what they do know."

Hmm. Shaking a child by the shoulders and ordering, "Understand!!!" might not work, but that is exactly the image I had flashing across my mind when I got blank stares to every word I said. Next image: sitting at my desk opening TAKS scores for my own class, opening an envelope of scores. Every child in the packet failed. Next image: Me, curled up in a gutter begging for change, wearing a "Teachers are special" lanyard. I know it was overboard, but this is how my overly active imagination told me that I had failed, will fail, and will ultimately fail at life.

I have to disagree with the fantasy, however. Just as I stared hard at Monique and told her she could write a decimal, I had to urge myself not to give up. I'm only starting, right? No, I'm going to keep trying. We'll retire complete sentences for a bit, but maybe we'll have time to revisit it later. Maybe we'll learn something else that will make it easier. Maybe after they finish a handful more books or become more English-proficient, it will come more naturally. Right now, though, I don't think they're ready. I just can't stress out about that. They can't be forced to understand, anyway.

Last night, as I was finishing evening prayer, I remembered the frustrations of Christ after he gave parable after parable, and the people still did not understand. I guess it is an inevitable part of teaching-- even if you are the perfect teacher, which I am not and never will be-- that the students may not understand the first, second, or even third time. He's giving us time to "get it"; I can give these students the same allowance. Thanks be to God that He never came off his throne in the highest heaven to shake me and order, "UNDERSTAND!"

My Fledgling Lessons

Good work, me!
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Asking the student to clarify what he or she means... Instead of suggesting what I believe he or she meant.
WHY: Student will usually just agree with what I suggested they meant.

Addressing the whole group with an exemplar mistake... Instead of only correcting one individual.
WHY: Other students may have the same misunderstanding.

Correcting a student with the words, "You know that I think?"... Instead of just providing the correct answer.
WHY: I want to show the process.

Correcting a miscue (ex., reading "cats" as "tacks") with the question, "Does that make sense?"... Instead of consistently blurting out the correct word.
WHY: Students should practice asking themselves if what they are reading makes sense.

________________________________________

Room for improvement:
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
I told them what I noticed about the passage before I gave them a chance to tell me;
They were giving me blank looks, and I didn't modify what I was doing;

I was reading aloud to them during guided reading, when the whole point of guided reading is to let them read above level and guide them to better understanding(!);

I got frustrated with one child who kept pulling summaries out of the AIR, with no support in the passage, and I repeated, "That's not what it says," FOUR TIMES (I could have asked him to SHOW me where he was getting all of this, and he would have come to that conclusion on his own);

I need to watch a few children to keep them from dominating the passage discussion.

What's Good for the Goose: more on differentiation

If you had asked me two months ago, "What are the key elements of my teaching philosophy?" I would have answered, "Differentiation and understanding the nature of the child." I really thought I had it figured out, like that was some magical equation to success in every child.

Now that I am in here, though, I am struggling to hold on to that philosophy. In my last post I wrote about how important it is to individualize; a teacher who teaches to the whole class either leaves a group of students behind or drags on when some children are ready for the next thing. But... I am really finding the implementation of that philosophy much more difficult than I anticipated.

Our TAKS writing tests is in a week and a half. I wish I could sit with Camille for fifteen minutes discussing commas. But with Cody, it would take at least (at least!) fifteen minutes to help him understand what "a sentence" means and why he need to start using periods. They are in so many different places, and the things I want to teach them, well, I feel like the time I want isn't there-- unless I neglect the rest of the class. No one else is ready for commas, and no one else struggles with using any periods. I feel so bad stopping by their desk for two minutes and moving on to the next child; I know they didn't understand from a hit and run explanation.

Last week I had trouble focusing too much on one or two children during the writing hour. I guess my problem is that I like individualizing, but I don't know how to do it efficiently. I'll watch Ms. McGrew.

Carefully designed small-groups could be a solution. In Ms. McGrew's Guided Reading groups, she divides the class of twenty into groups of about seven and meets with them for 20 minutes about a passage. Even then, the groups have a huge range of abilities. Are the very slowest following along with the "low-middles"? I see them staring off, sometimes not even on the same page. The very brightest look bored even with the high group. I just don't know what to do at this point. The groups are so large when she spends that amount of time in session. Would they benefit more from smaller groups, formed with specific strengths and weaknesses in mind? Maybe it would take less time; maybe it would be more effective???

Can TAKS practice be more individualized? Ms. McGrew said that if I can wait a little longer, I'll see it. They just took a test called the PAS Series, which scores their level as readers ("lexile number"). It should have revealed weak points in their understanding, and Ms. McGrew is going to show me how to make a personalized packet with practice sheets for each of the objectives they missed. Hopefully, we can fill in some gaps. What about the students who didn't miss any objectives? The test practice material may not help them to grow at all. I just don't know.

Ms. McGrew is an incredible teacher. I trust her methods, but she told me to ignore Cody and Camille for the next little while to focus on the others. Something in me hopes there is another way.

Differentiating Instruction

If I teach to the whole class during certain lessons, I find myself wishing all of the students could learn at the same rate. Fast finishers annoy the rest of the class, and they shoot their hands up to answer all of the stimulating questions that are supposed to help the rest make connections. It's intimidating. Other students withdraw when one of the quick learners asks a question the others don't understand. But, I want to answer. I want to congratulate Noel when he connects comparing decimal values with alphebetizing, and I wish I could explain his comment to the rest of the class. 'It isn't fair to the others,' I tell myself, 'to carry on with this student when the others struggle with the bare basics.'

On the other hand, the latent learners-- many times just as bright, yet more meditative-- frustrate the others by their displays of discouragement: furrowed brows and shouts of "I don't get it," and "I can't do this." I want to give them the time to understand, to spend a few more minutes explaining a concept. It gives me a aching sense of guilt when I have to move on and promise we can talk about it during lunch, recess, or in tutoring. 'It isn't fair to the others,' I tell myself, 'to drag the class behind for one person.'

Before I was in the classroom, I was baffled thinking of how to include so many different rates of learning. To attain a utilitarian ideal, the instructor would either have to adjust her rate for all but the very slowest or directed towards the brightest and most attentive. The others could remain politely bored and confused. Eventually they would stop asking questions.

In the era of high-stakes testing, students passing the standardized test is many teachers' concern. High-achievers are low-risk for failing the test; they may be neglected without worry. A few students may be so behind that there is little hope they will be able to mature full grade levels over a year, and even with outstanding progress they will likely fail. Attention would not be for them, either. It is the middle rung of students on the cusp of passing or failing who often receive the most attention. And, isn't it most fair to all students to teach to the middle path?

I've watched Ms. McGrew implement what is called differentiated instruction. Basically, differentiated instruction means individualizing lesson plans and units. It doesn't necessarily mean that all lessons take place with one child at her table, one on one. Some will be whole class, some small group, some individual.

The most obvious difference among the students is how quickly they understand a verbally explained idea in class: speed. But I've noticed there are a number of other factors that differentiate students. Cultural background knowledge and language divide the bilingual Spanish-speaking students from the six English-only students. If the varied physical development in fourth grade is any indication, there might be a developmental spectrum of readiness for a few concepts. Preferences and interests open up the path to some ideas and close others, and five or six students are identified as dyslexic. One is transitioning out of special education, and another has left the bilingual class. A few others could benefit, in my opinion, from a few special services for possible emotional disturbances or a neurological problem. I've noticed a few students shine when I give them verbal instructions; others need to read it.

Obviously, there is a varied set of intelligences and range of learning styles. Now, knowing all of this is wonderful, but if I don't have a plan to teach to all of these kinds of kids, it won't do anything but lead me to despair!!! Then I could sit with my lunch in the teacher's lounge and shake my head about this generation...

My Stomach Hurts

They spent over a day on benchmark tests for state curriculum objectives (the "TEKScheck"). Can you believe they do this four or five times a year before the real thing in April? I can see the anxiety on these kids' faces when we talk about "TAKS Day". During the benchmark, Monique started nervously rocking in her chair, clutching her belly. "My stomach hurts," she whispered to me after I walked over.

At first I thought she wanted to go to the nurse to be excused from the endless multiple choice questions. Feeling pity, I halfway wanted to let her go. Monique... she is a bright girl, but it seems like most of her academic struggle is believing what she herself is capable of doing. She gets discouraged easily, and at the beginning of any new lesson, she is likely to blurt out, "I don't get it!" or "I can't do this!" She is her own enemy in these tests, it seems.

"Are you hungry? I have some cheese-it crackers," I said, crouching on the floor to look her in the face. She grimaced, "No."

"What did you have for dinner last night?"

"Nothing."

"Why?" I asked. I wondered about the possibilities: child neglect, dire poverty, a twisted punishment... Or, maybe she was just picky?

Monique only shrugged her shoulders. "Well, if you want anything to nibble on, it might help-- so let me know, ok?" I told her, patting her back. She only knodded and frowned harder. Poor girl.

About ten minutes later, she was still rocking in the chair, now with her legs crunched up in the fetal position. I invited her to walk down the hall with me to stretch out a little, to move a bit. We walked down the hall, and just to the water fountain, and Monique grimaced again. I thought she would have felt better away from the test!

But she ran to the trashcan and started throwing up. Being pregnant, I first felt an aversion to be anywhere near, but then, almost instinctually, I reached down to her hair and pulled it out of her face. Funny, I've never felt the instinct to help any child who was throwing up before. Is this the first of my mothering instincts? I smoothed Monique's hair and patted her back gently as she continued wretching.

I didn't feel the least bit nauseous myself.

Monique went home sick that day, but she returned this week feeling better. Last week, Monique had been distant with me, and when I had asked her to do anything, she had rolled her eyes or sighed. She hadn't rushed to tell me about her dog or American Girl Doll like some of the others in the class who were eager to be my friend. I was a teacher, and she was a kid. I was wholly other. Sometimes it seemed like she didn't see adults as the same kind of species as she was.

Yet, I have seen a change in Monique. When I speak, now she listens like I may have something to say. Her head is turned toward me, a subtle thing, I know, but I really notice it when I compare this behavior to the way she would look down or away in boredom. It isn't my lessons that have changed. She hasn't rolled her eyes, and when I remind her to work individually or raise her hand, she just smiles shyly and nods assent.

Could it be that Monique trusts me now?

Direct Challenge to Authority

"Harvey, how would you summarize paragraph six?"

Silence.

"Harvey, will you tell us what you think it's about?"

"No," he answered.

All eyes are on me, then turning back suddenly to watch his defiant face. If I engaged him again, it would become an argument centering around whether I could force him to answer. I know now and knew then that I cannot ever force him to answer.

"Well, Harvey, you may read it again silently while Kayla tells us about her paragraph. Underline a few ideas that seem important to the story, and we'll come back to you," I paused before continuing, "Or, if you would rather, you could just talk about the paragraph with Dr. Asami [the principal] and your mother."

There was the chance he didn't understand, and the extra time would help; yet, when I said it, I didn't know whether I was bluffing or not about sending him to the office. What would it solve if I troubled the principal about Harvey not answering my question? I also had a fear that if Harvey started telling me no, the others would, too. No, I had to make it clear once and for the rest of the year that I am their teacher-- despite it saying Ms. McGrew on their roll sheets-- and they will participate when asked, or face a consequence.

I didn't wait for Harvey to answer. Kayla described the main idea of her paragraph, and when I looked back at Harvey, his mouth was already open to describe his chunk of the passage about the sun.

He tested me. I think I passed.