Kaleidoscope+Part+1

Post summaries and responses below the chapter you are referencing:

Chapter 1: Hole, S. and McEntee, S. H. Reflection is at the heart of practice.

This article focuses on teacher reflection and finding meaning and reason in the decisions we make as teachers. The article also challenges educators to try to understand student behavior and action, and cease teaching opportunities. The essay encourages teachers to reflect on classroom occurrence by identifying what happened, why it happened, what did it mean, and what is the result of the teacher's actions. The article also emphasizes the need for teachers to share stories and reflect on possible solutions with their colleagues.

While the article offers several different ideas for reflection and understanding of student and teacher behavior, the focus on teachable moments remains very crucial. When the teacher in the story simply shuts the shades when the students walk over to the window to watch the geese, he realizes that he missed a crucial teaching moment. Instead of shutting the window, he could have taken the time to educate students about geese and answer any questions they might have. It was not until later he realized this. Therefore, as teachers we need to remain aware and constantly question our actions so we do not miss opportunities like this. -Becca Thebo

This essay focuses on the idea of reflection and the role it plays in the success of pedagogy. It emphasizes the point that, even in what may seem like mundane incidents, there are information that can enlighten our teaching strategies and the way we interact with our students. The essay encourages teachers to be observant of, sensitive to and interested in the everyday occurrences and interactions of the classroom. The author outlines two different protocols for reflection—one for individual reflection and one for group reflection. Both protocols, however, guide teachers through the same steps—examine what happened, ask, why it happened, analyze what that might mean, and mull over how your findings inform your practice. This essay encourages teachers to dive in to their environments, collecting data from all possible sources, analyzing them and putting what they have discovered back into practice. Teachers that are responsive to their environments, their students and themselves are the most successful kind.

To me, this makes a lot of sense. There are “hidden” data in everything we experience. It is the art of a teacher to uncover these data and use them to improve our strategies and practices. I think that reflective time not only helps teachers to improve their skills, but also provides for a few moments of productive peace in a chaotic profession.

-Alex Karpicke

This article discusses the importance of reflecting as teachers and how it separates ordinary teachers from teachers who are constantly improving. Reflection is an important thing to do as a teacher, or as a person in general, because it allows us to see things from a different perspective than the one we face in the moment something occurs. The article talks about two types of protocols: guided reflection protocol and critical incidents protocol. Guided reflection protocol calls for those reflecting to (1) collect stories, (2) ask what happened, (3) ask why did it happen, (4) ask what might it mean, and (5) as what are the implications for practice. Critical incidents protocol calls for those reflecting to (1) write stories, (2) choose a story, (3) ask what happened, (4) ask why did it happen, (5) ask what might it mean, (6) ask what are the implications for practice, and (7) describe the process. Both protocols are similar and have similar processes which help those reflecting take an event and analyze it - make meaning from it and/or see it in a different light. This makes a lot of sense to me, especially after reading Simon’s story about the geese and the blinds. I think I would have reacted the same way he did – by shutting the blinds. However, after reading his reflection and his realization that that could have been a teachable moment, I realize that sometimes you need to take advantage of unplanned moments and utilize them to your advantage. Reflecting on things that happen can make you realize that there are different, and sometimes better ways to handle things. -Deanna DiCesare    This chapter begs us to explore how we teach and why we screw up while teaching. It tells us to collect stories of what happened while teaching and then search through them to figure out why the outcome was the way it was and if we could have improved. The article discusses the differences between guided reflection and critical incidents protocol, where on is meant for a group and one is meant to do alone. Both processes review stories of incidences in classes and make the reader reflect on different outcomes. I think that it is very important to reflect on problems with our teaching just as it is important for writers to reflect and analyze their problems with writing instead of simply looking at the final grade and tossing the paper in their backpack, only to be retrieved at the end of year crumpled and covered in stains. We should take teaching as a learning process, and not a point reaches where we know everything already. Instead of blaming the students for the failures of reaching standards, perhaps we should examine the way we teach. The CI protocol is great because it brings in different perspectives on the different ways a teacher could handle a situation. -Luke Luginbill  As one can tell from the title, the main focus of this article is on the importance of reflection in the profession of teaching. In this article, the authors provide readers with two protocols: the Guided Reflection Protocol and the Critical Incidents Protocol; each of which are then broken into certain steps. The two protocols are also made easy for readers to grasp thanks to the use of real life examples, such as a teacher closing the blinds as students gather to watch some geese instead of utilizing the moment to teach as the teacher later reflects he should have. - Dustin Morley Chapter 2 Ducharme, E. The great teacher question: Beyond competencies.

This article illustrates the significance of questions and answers in the classroom. Ducharme suggests that some of the most challenging questions that students encounter do not have obvious answers. As teachers we much not only teach critical literacy, but personal literacy as well. This comes from posing challenging questions that make students question their beliefs and ideas, and make them think critically. Asking students to think critically and and ask challenging questions allows for a better understanding of themselves, material, and the world. At the same time, the article also stresses the importance of cultural literacy and the need to hold basic knowledge before answering more complex questions.

This makes sense to be because it all ties back to Blooms' idea of high level thinking and the ability to obtain literacy. We as teachers need to pose these challenging questions and act as facilitators while they try to find the answers. In order for students to understand material they must connect to it and make it fit into their own world. Therefore, teachers must support this learning and constantly ask students questions. -Becca Thebo This article raised an important question for me: why do teacher education programs focus so much on competency in the content areas that teachers will teach, compared to the qualities a teacher must have and pass on to his/her students? I think the name of the article sums it up: Beyond Competencies. The best teachers I have had have not been “the best” in my eyes because of the knowledge they possessed in their content areas, but because they had demonstrated their love and passion for the things they were teaching and for their students. They had made every attempt at making students feel welcomed, safe and at home in their classrooms which allow for greater student learning. These teachers touch the lives of their students and are the ones that students remember the longest. So why do teacher education programs not focus on developing these qualities as much as teaching the content to their future teachers? Can these qualities even be taught at all, or are they qualities one is born with?

-Deanna DiCesare

This article discusses what great teacher's bring to a classroom environment in a non-scientific way (a way which most teachers prefer to talk). It mentions that good teachers must teach interconnectedness, that is, everything is related to everything else. To be able to teach that, one must have an interest in many subjects around him. Good teachers should love questions instead of answers. They should have a growing love for a subject and should constantly pursue it, and should show the students that love. They should love beauty and truth and be open with their students about their emotions. They should take risks to encourage students to be risk takers in their own lives. They should love the world with all its flaws and beauties, and should attempt to have the students grasp the horrors and beauties.

My English major side is very fond of this article, which drives my fact-driven psychological minor insane. I do believe that these qualities are shown in great teachers even without the facts. One quality that encapsulates these 6 is passion in life. Passion creates a drive for knowledge, particularly in one's field, but also in the world around him. New knowledge tends to produce more questions. Passion and beauty go hand in hand- look at descriptors of love and the majority of poems to find both. Passion encourages risks, since the desire is so great that the cost becomes smaller. I therefore believe that passion is extremely important to be a good teacher, and that is why so many teachers who have reached cynicism are no longer effective.

Also- my psychology minor is screaming at the author for perpetrating the myth that Eskimos have many different words for snowflake! To begin with, Eskimo is a racist term. Secondly the //**Inuit**// and the Yupik share the same language in many forms, but no one cares about the Yupik. 3rd- Inuits, Yupiks, Eskimos- Whatever- They do NOT have many words for snow- they have two root words- snow in the air and snow in the sky. then they have different endings to the word- like snow and snowbank and snowdrift. 4th- why would this matter? We have tons of words for snow- blizzard, storm, snow, flurry, powder, blanket, yadda yadda yadda It does not matter and does not affect the way we think- beach bums only have one word for sand, yet that does not limit their thinking. Sorry I just had to mention this so that no one else will continue this myth.

-Luke Luginbill

[Ha! Luke, I would LOVE for you to do a quick research report on where this urban legend came from and who perpetuated it! Thanks for keeping us informed and culturally respectful. --Lindsay Ellis] [I also thought the same thing as Luke, and remember reading a paper on the origin of the urban legend in one of my classes. --Dustin Morley]

This section talks about the components that can’t necessarily be assessed that make up a great teacher. It also starts off with a quote about how great teachers should impact students in a way that alters their lives, and saying how few teachers actually do this. All of the components listed aren’t considered common expectations for teachers – instead they are deeper elements. For example, the first component that the author suggests that great teachers need is an ability to relate different things to one another. The author goes on to make a great argument as to why this is so important for a great teacher, however it still isn’t a quality commonly thought to be necessary for teachers.

- Dustin Morley

Ducharme's article provides several lenses for reflection on "what is happening" in our classrooms:

To what extent does your CT (and other teachers you encountered):


 *  love questions and risk taking rather than answers (Ducharme 8 & 10)
 *  demonstrate knowledge and commitment to some endeavor or to beauty (Ducharme 9)
 *  seem at home in the world (Ducharme 11)
 * Lindsay Ellis

Chapter 3 Mawhinney, T. and L. Sagen. The power of personal relationships.

This essay addresses exactly what its title would indicate—the notion that personal relationships go a long way in the classroom. It addresses building relationships with students, getting to know them, investing in them, allowing them to see you as a real person while keeping a healthy distance. It defines high expectations and discusses how to handle disciplinary issues. One of my favorite points is about having high expectations. Research shows us that students will essentially “rise to the occasion”, or expectation, of a teacher if they have a strong relationship with him or her. Education is not a business (well, it really is in reality $$$), it is a personal interaction and an important social function. Teachers succeed much more when they take these suggestions to heart:

Be funny, but not at anyone’s expense, listen and be empathetic, have high expectations for your students and always encourage them to meet them, let them know that they can and will meet them, show students the respect you expect them to show you, be polite, be fair, be consistent, love your students. Find a balance of closeness and professionalism, authenticity and authority, love and respect. -Alex Karpicke

This article discusses ways in which teachers can build lasting bonds with their students while remaining professional. The article discusses how things such as humor, caring, listening, questioning, and involvement strengthen bonds between teachers and students. The essay also illustrates the importance of taking time to get to know students and letting students get the know you as a teacher. Students need to see their teachers as students, and teacher need to express an interest in getting to know their students. this shows that the teacher cares for her/his students, thus students willingly open up to their teachers.

While reading this article, I was very impressed by the emphasis on getting to know students and letting them get to know you. Although, while I read through this section I kept asking, as a young teacher how do I make that line between friend and teacher obvious? I know a lot of first year teachers struggle with this, and as a young teacher I need to show I care and have interest in students' lives while making that line distinct. -Becca Thebo

This article was by far my favorite of the ones we read this week. The power of personal relationships is huge! Developing relationships with your students is very important and if you do not develop relationships your likelihood o﻿f success will substantially decrease. Students need to know you care and, as I stated above in the response to chapter 2, some of the best teachers that I have encountered have been the ones who have shown students that they care about them and make them feel at home and important in the classroom. There are many different and appropriate ways to develop these relationships and it is important to do so in a style that is comfortable for you. You have to show interest be involved in students’ lives because that shows them that you care and that you want to get to know them. Also, letting them get to know you as a real person, not just their teacher, can help them relate to you. However, you need to make sure that a line of appropriateness is not crossed because the students still need to respect you and still understand that you are the authority figure.

-Deanna DiCesare This article talks about how teachers should not be robots, but should be compassionate human beings that seek to foster personal relationships with students by showing respect, being courteous, and acting fairly. Allowing the students to see your life and make them realize that you are more of a human than a robot bent on punishing them is very important in establishing classroom control. After a negative interaction, a teacher should reestablish contact with the student instead of ignoring him/her. A good way to build personal relationships is to be involved.

The reason that I am going into teaching is because of the relational aspect. I believe that we all have an art, and mine is relationships. By spending time with students and relating to them on a personal level, a teacher can have more of an impact than an entire year's worth of curriculum. However, relationships can be quite dangerous, particularly the male-teacher female-student relationship and one must always be protecting himself from any possible law suit. The question I have is how to be fair (ie in book- not demanding a tardy slip) when the administration requires standards.

-Luke L

This article addresses the importance for teachers to create relationships with their students and also addresses the challenges of keeping the fine line between a professional and an overly personal relationship with students. The article argues that students perform better when they feel more comfortable in a classroom.

- Dustin Morley

Mawhinney and Sagen's article provides several lenses for reflection on "what is happening" in our classrooms: To what extent does your CT (and other teachers you encountered):


 * know students and allow them to know him/her (Mawhinney and Sagen 14)
 * listen carefully with empathy (Mawhinney and Sagen 15)
 * treat students with respect (Mawhinney and Sagen 15)
 * use humor to put students at ease (not poking fun) (Mawhinney and Sagen 16)?
 * Lindsay Ellis

Chapter 4 Baldacci, L. Why new teachers leave...

This essay tackles various reasons while teachers leave their jobs within their first years of teaching, Specifically, through her personal story, Leslie Baldacci shows some of the variables that contribute to this high turnover rate. While she offers reasons like not maintaining classroom control and working with students who fail to follow directions and respect the teacher and classroom, she focuses more on the school and administration. She discusses her first teacher environment where staff was not supportive, administration was unorganized, and she had little consistency in what she taught and the grades she taught. One year she taught seventh grade and the next was brought down to second grade. The principle also constantly changed what she taught throughout the year. At one point, she had to teach all subjects to her eighth graders. It wasn't until she moved school districts that she discovered the impact of an effective staff.

While Baldacci's case was extreme, I think that many educators face some of the same issues. It wasn't until she went to a different school system that Baldacci saw the positive effect that an organized administration had on the school. Unfortunately reality remains that many first year teachers fail to receive the support and constancy they need to run an effective classroom. -Becca Thebo

This article was disheartening to say the least. Although her case may be an extreme one, I am not naïve enough to believe that these things do not happen. It should not be shocking to anyone if new teachers leave after faced with these kinds of circumstances. To be a new teacher is nerve racking enough, but to have only had a shortened certification course before entering the classroom is more nerve racking. Furthermore, to be promised a mentor and that would work with you daily and then get someone who was too busy and saw themselves as only a “disciplinarian” makes the situation even worse. To be put in this situation, do her best and still get punished when her advisor laid into the principle and mentor for not supporting and helping Leslie, and still continue to press on through the year took a lot of work and dedication I’m sure. I’m not sure that I would have been able to deal with a situation like this, honestly. I know that there are a lot of struggling schools and school districts in the world today and I realize that I may end up in one of these. Leslie’s account of her situation has opened my eyes to how bad some of these schools really are.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">-Deanna DiCesare This article demonstrates the major problem with education- the fact that some schools are awful (and continue to get worse) and some schools are just plain great (and continue to improve). The article talks about why teachers tend to leave poorly run schools with little money and seemingly uncontrollable students. The article does a good job of describing the bureaucracy and lack of care poorly run schools have. I hate this article- why did she quit in the end? I grew up in schools that were horrible. I want to teach in schools that are horrible. This article convinces me that I will leave as well, and make the horrible school even worse. Did anybody else feel their stomach leave them when the kids asked the teacher why she is leaving them? -Luke Luginbill

This article describes the experiences of the author, who left the newspaper business to become a teacher through the program Teachers for Chicago. The teacher describes a most unfortunate experience at a Chicago inner-city school where she didn’t know what she would be teaching until very late in the summer, and where the principle moved teachers around after five weeks creating chaos in many classrooms. The author described a good number of problems that occurred at the school and eventually left the school for another one.

- Dustin Morley

[Yes, this article was painful to read for me also. I felt uncomfortable-to-me anger at the school administration. I tried to manage my anger by imagining being this administrator. I wouldn't want that job, either. I don't have enough hours in my day to write grants for additional financial resources, get to know each teacher personally, put in place complex systems of behavioral consequences, teacher mentoring, curricular review, goal setting, and accountability. That's what it would take. While I know myself well enough to know that I would not succeed at that administrative job, I would hope that there are people with such skills out there. Unfortunately they are not attracted to the pay scale of this position. Perhaps there is where I can leverage my own personal power, to advocate for better pay. But should more money go to administration or to teachers themselves? CEOs of companies and administrators make too much more than employees, in my opinion, but I also see how crucial their leadership is to keep organizational ships afloat and sailing strongly in the right direction. -Lindsay Ellis]

Baldacci's article provides several lenses for reflection on "what is happening" in our classrooms: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">To what extent does your CT (and other teachers you encountered):


 * receive support from administration (Baldacci 20)
 * demonstrate optimism about doing job well (Baldacci 22, Johnson 25)
 * receive support and give support to colleagues (Baldacci 22, Johnson 28)
 * have supplies that he/she needs (Baldacci 20, Johnson 28)?

Chapter 5 Johnson, S. M. ...And why new teachers stay.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This article showed why some new teachers stay, why some switch schools and why some leave the profession altogether. The heading “Support Breads Success and Stability” sums it up – when teachers are given the support necessary, they are set up for success and are helped to succeed. When one is successful they are more likely to have a good experience teaching and feel like they have made an impact and are, therefore, more likely to return to teach again. This article focuses on what teachers need to be successful: time scheduled to collaborate with other teachers, professional growth opportunities, and an administration that supports and provides for the teacher. These are all the things that Leslie struggled with in the article preceding this one.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I think that time to collaborate with other teachers and a supportive administration is huge parts of becoming successful. If you do not have any support, your chances for success decrease substantially. An administration that backs up the teacher and gives them what they need, helps increase the odds that students will see and respect the authority of the teacher, thus allowing them to have and maintain control of their classroom.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-Deanna DiCesae <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This article focused on the various reasons why new teachers have such a high rate of leaving their schools after one to five years. The author looked at how the current generation of teachers differs from past generations. These differences included that many teachers are coming over from a different profession or have plans to switch over to another profession. The article also discusses how new teachers often don’t find themselves experiencing the kind of support that they had expected to find at their schools. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> - Dustin Morley <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This article discussed both why teachers are leaving and what it takes for teachers to stay. According to the research, which has a small population, teachers stay when they can work together, have good supplies and resources, feel encouraged, and have good administration. This article seems to take a swing at inner city schools for the most part, except for Fred's school, and says they are generally poorly run because of lack of supplies (money) and lack of student achievement, which makes the school have less money and less achievement and on and on. I think this article is intriguing because it shows that teachers, particularly new ones, really want help from others and are not receiving it. I also think it is interesting that many teachers seem to not want to teach their whole lives, and tend to transfer to other schools. I believe that the best way to be a teacher is to stay at one school your entire career so you become a mainstay in the community.

Johnson's article provides several lenses for reflection on "what is happening" in our classrooms: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">To what extent does your CT (and other teachers you encountered):


 * demonstrate optimism about doing job well (Baldacci 22, Johnson 25)
 * receive support and give support to colleagues (Johnson 28)
 * have supplies that he/she needs (Johnson 28)
 * plan to stay at his/her school for an entire career? (Johnson 31)

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Chapter 6 Giroux. H. Teachers as transformative intellectuals.

This essay intensely makes the point that, for our educational system to serve its true purpose and meet its full potential, teachers must take on the role of transformative intellectuals. Transformative intellectuals are professionals that “provide intellectual and moral leadership for our nation’s youth”. To simply state this role I think of a transformative intellectual as someone who bridges the space between the intellectual, political, social, and economic world and the students who do not yet engage with it fully or meaningfully. Essentially, we are intellectuals and thoughtful citizens who are training the future citizens to be thoughtful, critical, responsible intellectuals. The article stresses the point that, currently, the educational system and political powers are taking this responsibility away from teachers. Rather than allowing teachers the opportunity to design curriculum based on the contextual needs and social atmosphere surrounding the student body and the society in which it exists, they are treating teachers as implementers. They are simply technicians executing the curricular design given to them. They are not allowed to think freely, design creatively and react contextually. This is the problem.

I was deeply intrigued by this article. I love viewing the profession of teaching as a body of “free men and women with a special dedication to the values of intellect and the enhancement of the critical powers of the young”. This is, indeed, our job. We must cultivate intellectual sharpness, critical power, and social responsibility in the people who will soon be running our societies.

-Alex Karpicke

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">This article describes the need for teachers to be transformative intellectuals. I think that the last line of the last line of the Postnote says it all: teachers need to be “captains of their own classrooms.” Instead of having responsibilities taken away from teachers, they should be given more freedom to choose and design their curriculum. There are so many benchmarks and standards that teachers need to worry about covering that their curriculum is a lot of times strictly structured for them by schools so that they are certain the standards will be taught and covered. This leaves little room for teachers to be and use their creativity and design their own units and lessons. Teachers should be trusted enough to be given the control and be responsible for making sure the standards are covered but allowed to do it in their own way. There is too much focus on the contextual information being passed on to the students and not enough focus on the atmosphere surrounding the students and how the students are learning and should be learning. Districts now are just treating teachers as a way to pass the information onto the students instead of people who are suppose to be shaping the lives of these students by teaching them not only the context but important qualities and life lessons.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;">- Deanna DiCesare

Giroux's article provides several lenses for reflection on "what is happening" in our classrooms. Does your CT and/or other teachers at your school: > > > >
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">implement a given curricula or critically evaluate it (Giroux 35)
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">act like an intellectual or a specialized technician (Giroux 36-39)
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">make changes to given curriculum (Giroux 39)
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">make changes to school, community, society? (Giroux 39)
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Lindsay Ellis