Dustin

=**9/13/10**=


 * The Situation**

During "good things" - a time when a couple of student volunteers are allowed to share good things that have happened recently or are happening in their lives - a student raised his hand and said that his football team lost this past weekend but the good thing was that the team learned valuable lessons and that he injured the other team's best player. My CT (coordinating teacher) was taken aback - as was I - and then said something along the lines of it being a good thing from a sports perspective and that it could slide as a good thing.


 * Why Did This Happen, What Does It Mean, and What Are the Implications?**

This happened because of how strongly competition is valued in our society. Due to this, the student believed it to be a good thing that he was able to injure the other team's star. I'm sure this was also reinforced by his teammates, coaches, parents, and peers. However, it means that we value personnel achievement over the welfare of others - a problem found across many different aspects of life in America (and also the key component of the concept of rugged individualism from the Marxist critical theory approach, but I digress). An implication might be that we need to teach that all people are a community, a world community. We shouldn't make our own success so important that we are comfortable harming others in order to achieve. A quote that I've often heard comes to mind, "You are not better than anyone, but you are just as good as anybody." These are things that could have been taught in that given situation, though of course, none of it is as easy as it sounds.

Dustin, I see you thinking critically about the student's comment here, really analyzing it through lenses that you bring from a rich understanding of culture, even Marxist critical theory. Wow. I also like how you are beginning to think about what you would have said were you the teacher in charge. -Lindsay E

=9/20/10=


 * The Situation**

As a rule of thumb, there are very few students in my classes who continuously act kindly, which crates an environment where students have to be more concerned about their peers than their work. Students don't want to be singled out for being "out of the loop" and students want their peers to think that they are cool. Examples of this are abundant in my classes. There is a group of girls who are in seventh grade English/Language Arts for the second year. They are always more concerned over the happenings in each others' lives than they are with the schoolwork and lessons. Anytime a teacher or peer attempts to make this known to them, they shrug it off. They also act as a sort of social hub in the classroom, as everyone around them feels more inclined to talk with them as opposed to listen.


 * Why Did This Happen, What Does It Mean, and What Are the Implications?**

I would have to assume that these girls are uncomfortable themselves seeing as how they were held back. This could lead to them acting the way they do, though I'm not sure how it directly correlates. An implication may be that they need to be separated from each other as much as possible.

Dustin, what are the teacher and the school's expectations for these girls? Are they experiencing the same curriculum for the second time? Are they bored with content and filling the void with their social lives? How might you engage them when you begin to plan activities? -LE

=**9/27/10**=


 * The Situation**

It has become apparent to me as a teacher assistant that students often don't understand what they are supposed to be learning. While no specifics come to mind, there are many times when I approach students during independent work and they seemingly don't have a grasp on what they are supposed to be doing. Sometimes it's the low students, but sometimes it's the high students too.


 * Why Did This Happen, What Does It Mean, and What Are the Implications?**

I've noticed the above situation happens for a wide variety of reasons. Often it's due to the kids simply zoning out, whispering to their classmates, writing notes, or playing around with those darn silly band bracelet things. A little less often, it's due to the student jumping the gun on the assignment - starting to work on the assignment before it's been explained in its entirety. However, rarely is it the circumstance that the student was paying attention and didn't grasp the concept. That happens with one student, who is relatively low student.

The fact that there are so many different reasons for students not knowing what they are supposed to be learning is troubling because it means there isn't just one quick-fix. Instead, there needs to be many different fixes and teachers need to be very aware of what is going on in their classroom in regards to this (as if teachers don't have to be aware of enough things as it is).

Dustin, I respect your close attention to the "why" here, and your willingness to hypothesize that no single intervention will help students know what they are supposed to be learning. Do you think the learning goals are presented to quickly or too slowly? Do you think they should be reiterated by students? Should the instructions be posted somewhere visible for checking oneself if one was zoned out when they were given orally? Any thoughts on how to combine interventions to improve students' ownership of their own learning? -LE

= ﻿10/4/10 =

The Situation
My CT told his students at the beginning of the year that their parents should be expecting a call home from him within the first few weeks of school. This really caught the students' attention for obvious reasons, and it caught my attention too. My teacher then explained that he prefers calling home for good reasons as opposed to bad reasons, and that the first call home would (hopefully) be for a good reason - something positive the student did in class or in an assignment. This caused the students to relax considerably and more or less forget about the statement. I was still curious though, and later asked my CT about it. He told me that it is really important to build good relationships with parents because parents can have a huge effect on students' education. He also said it would help build trust if there were problems in the future. This really stuck with me, because it would definitely take a huge chunk of his time to call home for all of his students, especially since some parents of the students don't speak that strong of English.

Why Did This Happen, What Does It Mean, and What Are the Implications?
Well, this happened for the reasons that my CT explained to me: the fact that it is so important to build relationships with the parents of students. When one takes the time to think about this, it's fairly obvious that these relationships are so important, however I really feel as if it's rare for teachers to be proactive about creating positive relationships with parents. So I thought it was really cool that my CT takes the time to do that. From what I can tell, it seems like that is a common procedure for all of the teachers at my school and that phone calls home for good reasons are strongly encouraged by the administration. I think this is awesome as it holds teachers accountable for something that they typically probably wouldn't make the time for - and that's understandable seeing as how many other things teachers have to be constantly worried about.

Dustin, How inspiring to hear about such effective school administration. You're right, while teachers know intellectually how important parental support it, then may not add those phone calls to their workload independently. I hope you're able to make time to continue the practice even if you aren't supported to do so at your first job. -LE

= 10/11 =

The Situation
Last week we spent a good part of each day covering word choice. Two of the lessons really caught my attention. The first was where my CT brought in a bunch of different reviews - of movies, food, music, television shows, books, and more. The students were asked to think about how reviewers have such limited space typically in order make their point and how their word choice is made all the greater because of it. This was followed by the students writing their own reviews. A second lesson wasn't even presented to the students as being a word choice lesson, instead my CT said that since it was Friday and that they had just taken a test the day before, that they would have a "fun" lesson as long as they could behave during it. In this lesson my CT discussed how his phone has been acting up (which is true) and how he is now looking for a new phone (which is not true). He told students about the things that he would like in a phone, and then asked the students to give him ideas and to tell him why the phone would be a good choice. After this, he played some video reviews on a couple of different phones and had the students take notes and then debate which phone would be better suited for him. The students had no idea that they were practicing word choice!

Why Did This Happen, What Does It Mean, & What Are the Implications?
These lessons were obviously designed in an effort to help the students recognize how word choice is relevant to their own personal lives and impacts some activities they do on a regular basis. The lessons also modeled how adults use word choice in their everyday work and functioning. Just like William Glasser talked about in the article in chapter 21 in our text, I think it is essential to have this type of quality curriculum. Students need to know how the things they are learning can be applied to their own lives, or else it is unfair to expect the students to have an interest in what they are learning.

Yea! Engaging students in activities that honor their interests and prior knowledge. How fun to see you noticing a couple of Mr. Large's techniques. -LE

=10/18=

The Situation
This past Friday, I found myself teaching a lesson without proper time to prepare. This was due to my CT being out the past week with pneumonia, and being unable to give me the plan ahead of time. The one thing that I had known was that I would come up with a prompt for my students' sacred writing times, so that was what I spent time on Thursday evening preparing for. Later I received an email with the rest of the lesson: I had to review what the sub covered the previous day to make sure that the students had comprehension of the unit (an introduction to informational text features), then I had to go over compare/contrast vocabulary worksheets and give them a homework assignment, then introduce them to the Big Potato Lead and then there would be sacred writing time. Looking back, it comes as no surprise that I didn't even get past the compare/contrast assignment with my students. However, I was a pretty stressed at how little I got through with each hour. This was largely due to my students struggling to focus after going through MEAP testing the previous three days. So, a long story short I found myself... fighting (for a lack of a better term) against my students all day.

Why Did This Happen, What Does It Mean, & What Are the Implications?
The main thing I learned from all of this was that in order to teach the way I would like to, which is to make sure the material connects with the students any way I can, I simply need to prepare a decent amount for lessons. While it wasn't my fault that I wasn't prepared, I decided that I needed to still spend more time preparing. This is essential to any kind of curriculum where one expects to really help students get meaning from what they are learning. I relate this back to the idea of caring that was covered in the textbook, and showing students how people care about subjects and what it means in the big picture. Doing something like this is rendered almost impossible when a teacher isn't properly prepared for the lesson. Had I been more prepared, here are things that I may have done with my students in order to help them connect more with what we were learning and to save myself from fighting them:


 * Mentioned the school newspaper that 7th hour is working on and how that is an informational text.
 * Given examples of when I've used compare/contrast to figure out words in things that I was reading

Dustin, It was a pleasure to observe your teaching on Wednesday. Wow, you do have groups of students with very high social needs and desires. As you wrote above, preparing well for teaching is paramount for these students. I empathize with you getting the lesson plan the night before and struggling to keep up, to "wrangle" the students' interests towards the curriculum that you didn't have a hand in making. That sounds tough.

I've been thinking the last few days about how one might work with rather than against the social energy of your students. Clearly they want to talk to one another. They want to think and talk about something. What are their notes to each other about? How might, as Dewey wrote in our homework for today, the classroom be "a form of community life" that is "a process of living and not a preparation for future living" (217, 216). How might these young people see the classroom as a place to work together to achieve their own ends rather than having their ends (talking to each other and writing notes) be at odds with the teacher's ends (reading and writing). Might a reading and writing workshop allow them to read and write with each other and for each other? But (and this is a big but) how do you counter the perception that going along with what the teacher wants is uncool (and their goal is coolness)? And how do you make the classroom safe for students to share (when their goal is coolness)? Big questions I don't have easy answers for. Thanks for getting me thinking.