Deanna

9/13/2010

The students are given seating charts at the beginning of each nine week period. The first day of class, my CT let her students pick their seats since the seating chart hadn’t been made yet because they use a program through their grade book that makes seating charts. Once students were placed in their newly assigned seats on the second day of classs, one girl’s hand shot up. Brooklyn asked if she could move to a desk closer to the front because she “couldn’t see.” She specifically named which desk she wanted to move to even though there were a couple open desks near the front. My CT allowed her to move and I feel like I was the only one who noticed that her assigned seat was exactly where she had CHOSEN to sit the day before and that morning when se walked in, before they were given assigned seats. I also noticed when she moved to her new desk, that she smiled and giggled the whole way there and now talks constantly.

I believe that this happened because my CT was trying to be fair and respectful to this student. If the student really did have issues seeing from where she was originally seated, then, by all means, the student should be moved closer so that learning can take place at the utmost level. However, this now raises the question of fairness. If Brooklyn got to choose her seat, why doesn’t everyone else?

Does the teacher have favorites because she lets certain students pick where they want to sit? Maybe it happened because the teacher didn’t notice that Brooklyn was assigned the same seat she had chosen herself. Or perhaps she is trying to develop the responsibility in Brooklyn needed to sit next to her friends and still be respectful and engage in learning. However, what if that plan backfires and Brooklyn can’t control herself and her actions around her friends. Is it too late to change her seat because she’s already gotten away with choosing?

I think that when I teach and have my own classroom and if I choose to use a seating chart, that I will do things a bit differently. I will ask students before assigning seats if anyone needs to sit in a certain location due to eyesight issues. That way I can be fair and respectful towards my students needs and yet still assign seats effectively. I think if I was in this situation I would have allowed Brooklyn to move but not to the seat she had pointed out. Instead I would have placed her at a different open desk near the front.

Deanna, I look forward to hearing how Brooklyn behaved this last week and how your CT responded to her. -LE

Brooklyn has calmed down a bit but every once in a while she does get caught up with her friend and does not stop talking. Now that we've gotten in to teaching some real material, as opposed to just procedures and review, my CT has been more strict when it comes to talking when she is talking or when others are talking. Therefore, I think Brooklyn is getting the message that just because she got to sit next to her friend doesn't mean she gets to talk to her all the time...but I guess time is the only thing that will tell if that's true or not.

9/20/10

This last week as the kids were walking into class, I paid particular attention to one boy, Spencer, as he entered. He entered the room loudly, drew attention to himself, so I watched as he walked over to his assigned seat. He slammed his book down on his desk and said to the boy who sits next to him, “Tim, I swear to God if you say one word to me today, it’s over. Just don’t even say anything.” Tim looked at him, unsure of what to do, and then he turned away and opened his independent reading book. Tim had always been talkative in group discussions and contributed during class, but over the last few days since the incident, I have noticed that Tim doesn’t talk nearly as much during class or to anyone around him. This was the first act of “bullying” I had seen at the school I’m in. Spencer, the “bully”, is new to the district this year so maybe he feels a little threatened and is trying to show people how “cool” he is.

I think that Spencer was bullying Tim because he needed to feel a sense of toughness and show his peers that he is tough and not to mess with him. Perhaps, since he is a new student, he has been bullied and is trying to show those people not to mess with him because he can handle himself. I also think he chose Tim because Tim is seen as a “weaker” or “nerdy” kid and is very non-confrontational which would make him a good target for Spencer because he’s not going to stand up for himself.

If I see this happen again, I will be sure to stop it. I would first talk with Spencer to hopefully find out what caused him to do this and what I can do to help him. The “bully” is often to one who needs the most help and is screaming out for it by picking on someone else and I think sometimes we overlook that and focus too much on the “victim”. However, the bully is most likely also a victim. I would also make sure that Tim is okay and encourage him not to listen to Spencer and to continue contributing in discussions because I really value his voice. I would also try and get the two together and have a conversation together in which hopefully Spencer would apologize for his actions towards Tim. Bullying can be seriously detrimental and needs to be stopped so that students feel safe in school and their optimal learning can occur.

[Deanna, you paint such a vivid narrative here that, once again, I'm sincerely interested in hearing what happened the rest of the week. Have you had a chance to begin forming relationships with Spencer and Tim? Have you seen any additional bullying behaviors from Spencer or being-bullied behaviors from Tim? Is the instruction in your room conducive to community building that would begin to make Spencer feel included and valued? -LE ]

There hasn't been any direct bulling against Tim since then, however, Spencer has been very obnoxious and bordrline rude to a multitude of students. Tim has started to open up again and the other students who Spencer has bullied just ignore him. He is slowly loosing connections to his peers. I have tried to talk to him but he is closed off to me...we don't have a good enough relationship yet. Hopefully he will open up soon.

9/27/10

This week a few of the boys in my homeroom – Adam, Ethan, and Sam – were quite distracted when it came to their quiet reading time. Homeroom is about 25-30 minutes of silent reading time. This mean no other homework, no talking, no music…just reading. Usually the class is quite good about sitting down and reading and not making too much noise – after the first couple minuets when they are all just excited to see each other. The other day was different, however. The three boys were shooting imaginary guns, bows and arrows, and cannons and then blocking them with imaginary shields or just grabbing them and tossing them away. Sound effects were included as well. After a few seconds of this, my CT told them to stop and start reading. The boys listened…for a moment…and then started back at it again. This time, though, was different. This time they were silent and using their books as shields. This went on periodically for quite sometime between my CT or myself reminding them that this is silent reading time and they need to actually read.

 I think that this happened because of the enormous amount of time most kids, especially boys, spend playing video games. At the middle school age, the video games are become more violent, if they haven’t already, and the kids think they are cool. The kids at this age are striving for self-confidence and self-esteem so perhaps they feel that if what people do in the video games are cool, then they will be cool if they copy that. I think that this needs to be addressed because it could be very damaging to those kids who cannot separate fantasy or play from reality. If the kids really see this as cool and their self-confidence and self-esteem are just getting beat down at school then who’s to say they won’t bring a gun to school and shoot some people because they think that will make them cool because the people in the video games do it.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> I believe that in my classroom, video games could play a part in lessons. And we could discuss the differences between fantasy and reality, real and make believe and why it is so important to separate the two. I also think that lessons could be enhanced by the use of video games because it is something that interests the students. Having their interest will definitely help keep their attention during the lesson. And we should try and relate our lessons to our students lives as much as we can and make as many connections as possible.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Deanna,

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Have the air-wars continued? It seems like these young men enjoy each other's company, and are starting their day with playground play. Do they like the books they are reading? Perhaps they need more interesting narratives to grab their attention away from playing with their friends. I like your ideas for bringing this playful activity into instruction somehow, helping students think critically about when their violent acting-out crosses a line into reflecting social pathology, too.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The air wars have not been present lately. I would hope that the like the book they are reading as they can pick thier own for independent reading.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">10/4

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">One student in my 8th grade class, Devon, came from a school where it is apparent that high expectations were not maintained for all students. The first few weeks of class, Devon would not do any of his homework or “forget” that he had homework. This doesn’t fly at my school – we don’t just give these students a “0” and move on. If students do not complete their homework, they get a Core Plus which is where they go into a classroom on their lunch period and the Dean of Students has them complete it there.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Devon would often say things like “Who cares if I do it or not?” or “I can’t do it, this is for smart people.” We have been encouraging Devon, helping him and not backing down on giving him Core Pluses. Devon said last week that he hadn’t had a real lunch period since the first week of school. After he said that, my CT looked at him and said, “Well all you have to do is your work at home. You’re going to do it here or there, it’s your choice.” Devon then begun turning in his homework more frequently and today he walked in and said, very proudly, “I don’t have a Core Plus today.”

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I think that this system the school has in place is phenomenal and I hope that wherever I get a job at has something similar. Helping the students and not giving up on them – not accepting failure – is so beneficial not just to their learning but to their self-esteem and sense of accomplishment as well. If we, as teachers, accept failure from them then they will accept if from themselves and that what they will become – failures. We need to do everything we possibly can to help students and get them to succeed and that is fully what I intend on doing.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Yea, what a success story. I feel very encouraged to read this, and only wish that every school were as well run and well resourced. -LE

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">10/11

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">With MEAP testing coming up, I have noticed that my school does not focus the curriculum as hard on teaching to the test as other school in the area do. We have not done strict MEAP practice in every class since day one; instead, we have included some preparatory activities into our normal everyday routine. For instance, after reading “Three Skeleton Key” and “Rikki-Tiki-Tavi”, the students completed constructed response activities to help their writing skills and comparing the stories’ themes and making real world connections. They also took a cross-textual quiz (that was not graded) after reading these two stories and an article entitled “Mexicans Resist Flight.” They were instructed to read the questions and revisit the text in order to find the answer that best fits. They have also read short selections, again following with our curriculum, and before were given multiple choice questions. This way, students are taught to look at the questions before reading the selection so they determine their purpose for reading.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I think that these strategies have been helpful in preparing them for the MEAP test while not burning them out before the actual test gets here. We haven’t done these things every day and my CT does not seem too worried about the students’ performances because typically the kids in this district test well and are “ahead of the game.” Perhaps they are ahead of the game because the district does not focus on teaching to the test but just incorporating test skills into the already planned out curriculum. Perhaps they are ahead of the game because the students are fresh when they take the test and not burnt out on test-like scenarios and situations. I think that in order to raise test scores and to help students succeed maybe we need to back off a little bit with the teaching to the test curriculum and focus on a solid curriculum incorporating effective test-taking strategies. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">[Deanna, are you in the building this week during MEAP testing? If so, what kind of atmosphere is there? With students not having had a lot of explicit MEAP prep. do they internalize a message that they are prepared and do not need remediation? Do students enter the test taking situation with confidence or with fear of the unknown? I am wondering now if MEAP prep can backfire not only bc it takes time away from actual quality teaching, but also bc it generates stereotype threat for students--a sense of being expected to do poorly (and that's why they needed the explicit teaching). Again, I'm so glad to hear that schools like yours exist. -LE]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I am in the building during MEAP testing and have heard the usual moans and groans about being made to take the tests but other than that they haven't been too upset by any of the tests and most of them have said they have been easy. Although today they took the math MEAP and some of the kids said they had no idea what some of the questions were about (but that's not English :) hehe). Overall they have done pretty well with the MEAP and have had a pretty good/confident attitude both before and after. I'm glad that our school doesn't do explicit MEAP prep because I feel like it is boring and wears the kids out before they even get to the actual test...when they finally get to the test they are so sick of it they just don't care anymore.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">10/18 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I have seen the last week that themes of human nature and human emotions have been prevalent in our discussions during and after we have read stories. I am not sure if this is because we are reading stories that are huge on human emotion and on caring or if it has been something that has been prevalent the whole semester and I’m just realizing it now after reading the articles. After reading a short story entitled “Ribbons” we had a discussion about why the grandmother got mad at the girl in the story. One student said that the grandmother got mad because she hated her granddaughter and that she liked her grandson more and was trying to point it out. While the story did state that the girl thought her grandmother liked her brother more, the deeper meaning was not picked up by the student. The grandmother got mad at the girl because she was concerned about her and did not want her granddaughter to have the same fate that she did. The students had not picked up the hidden meaning in the story, the meaning about caring.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">This made me realize and wonder if they have a lack of understanding of care or if the story perhaps was too difficult for them to understand and realize that the theme of caring was that large throughout the story. I wonder if the “caring” in the story was too hard for them to pick up. Or perhaps was it too hard for them to pick up because they do not really understand what “caring” is and how people demonstrate it? Perhaps the students are being too desensitized and/or taught that certain emotions are not okay to show or feel. Or maybe, even worse, they aren’t being truly cared for by others. If the latter is the case, and I hope it’s not, then they NEED to be cared for at school even more so that they learn how to care for others.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">10/25 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The assessment I was planning on doing for my paper is nothing formal and it is not even that big of an assessment. I plan on doing my assessment and tracking my students’ knowledge on days one and two of my environment unit, instead of the one at the end of the unit. On day one of the unit I will ask the students to write down what they think environment means, or their definition of environment. The students will do this as an exit pass after examining some pictures of different environments and listening to a song about the world and drawing a picture to represent their visualizations. The following day we are going to have a discussion about what the word environment means and how it can mean different thing to different people. Before we start, I will explain to the students that the goal is to define and understand environment so that we can better understand how we affect the environment and how the environment affects us. We will be using their exit slips from the previous day and I will ask the students to share their ideas about what constitutes environment. I will then be giving them the dictionary definition of environment and placing it on the board. We will then be doing a magnet activity where each student is given a magnet with a word and definition that relates to environment and three subcategories of environment: human environment, environment plants and animals, and environment air and water. The students will be asked to place their magnet under the subcategory that they believe it fits best and explain why they chose that. When all the magnets are placed we will discuss whether some words can be placed under multiple categories and why. After this activity we will discuss changes in the environment, how some of them are due to people (i.e., the affects we have on the environment) and how the environment affects us. Finally, after we are done with our discussion, I will hand back their exit slips from last time and ask them to, again, define environment. I will inform the students that they can keep the same definition they originally wrote, or change their definition. This assessment will hopefully provide some insight into what they learned about the environment during the lesson and how they apply it to create a new “view” of something they have been familiar with for a long time.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">[This sounds interesting, Deanna. I affirm your work to help students discover/uncover their pre-existing knowledge and understandings of environments before providing them with a dictionary definition. According to research on learning, students will incorporate the new definition and understandings better when they not only write about it in their own words at the end, but also compare their new knowledge to their prior knowledge and explicitly see the difference. I look forward to seeing you in action tomorrow and feel confident that you will do a good job. Break a leg! -LE]