Week 3: Nervous for it to be Just Me...

Monday, January 21

Today was bitter cold = indoor recess = both morning and afternoon = crazy, rowdy kids! The students seemed to be all over the place today. They were excited, then sad, then engaged, then lost, then… all day long, the first graders seemed to be a roller coaster! I still enjoyed the day though; it was one where I get to see how intense days can be in the younger grades. A previous cooperating teacher I worked with explained a huge difference between being a teacher in the upper grades vs. the lower grades. In the younger grades, teachers are constantly on their toes, trying to keep the younger kids engaged; their school days are intense, but they are able to relax when they get home because most of the grading goes relatively quick. Teachers of the upper grades experience their school days much differently; they are able to assign work to the students that can last twenty minutes while they set up for another class. When the bell rings at the end of the day however, their school day isn’t over; there will generally be lots of homework that will take a solid chunk of the night to grade. In summary: younger grades teachers have very intense days but can leave school at school; upper grades teachers’ days aren’t quite so intense, but work after school is almost always a guarantee. I have seen this ring true in many placements and have yet to decide what grade is my ideal. Maybe at the end of the semester I’ll have a better idea!

Tuesday, January 22

Yesterday was my first day teaching math. It was a struggle. The focus was Fact Families, and introducing this concept to first graders was no easy feat. I used dominoes to explain the members of a Fact Family, but it did not help. We wrote the Fact Family math problems down together, but it did not help. We ended up going longer than the time that’s set aside for math, yet I still felt like the students did not grasp the material. I was even more distressed about them not getting it because today’s math lesson was on Fact Triangles, which are based off of Fact Families, and I was being observed today for math. Talk about a bundle of nerves!

 

When math rolled around, the students were loud and excited due to yet another day of indoor recesses. Working with the small groups, I used the Fact Triangles to explain what makes up a Fact Family. I explained that you subtract down the triangle, and add up; and that the biggest number is always the one under the dot. After awhile, some began to grasp the concept. I practiced with them figuring out the missing number of a Fact Triangle if one is covered up, and the majority began to understand what was going on. I was thankful they got it, but felt like we had to rush so that math did not take up as much time today as it did yesterday.

 

Something that should be noted is that the class is divided up into three level-based groups for math time. Elaine models Performance Indicator 4M perfectly (creates multiple learning activities that allow for variation in students' learning styles and performance modes). Each day in math, the class does three stations: independent work, math games and a small group session with the teacher. My cooperating teacher generally starts with the lower-level students in the small group session with her, and then ends with the higher-level students. While talking to my supervisor after the lesson, I realized that I gained more confidence each time I taught the lesson, so by the time the higher-level students came to me, I had a much better idea of what would help make sense to the students, and what wouldn’t. Seeing this, my supervisor wondered if it would make more sense to start with the higher-level students, and then end with the lower-level; this way, I would have more confidence teaching the lesson, and would better understand what key terms/strategies are beneficial. I later suggested this to Elaine, and she said she had wondered about that herself also. We agreed that on Thursday, I will try working with the higher-level students first. Hopefully this change will not only help me better teach the lower-level students, but also have a better grasp on time management.

**Update: the math groups on Thursday went much better! Not only did all the groups grasp the material better, but I think switching the order of the smal groups made a large difference. I was able to see what worked and made sense with the higher-evel students, and then modify my lesson accordingly for the lower-level groups. I felt much better with how the lessons went. I'm extremely thankful that my supervisor noticed this; I think I will do future lessons in the same fashion!

Wednesday, January 23

I have mentioned before how indoor recess has been happening regularly lately due to the cold weather. I’d like to explain how indoor recess is done in Elaine’s classroom because I really like it! It varies up, but the majority of the time the students give suggestions for what activity they would like to do during recess, and then they all put their heads on their desks with eyes shut. Elaine will call out each activity one by one, and the students (with heads still down) raise their hands for the one activity that they would like to do. The options usually include games like the Winking Game, Silent Ball, Heads-Up 7-Up, Four Square, or they’ll suggest free time. Silent Ball is frequently picked—the kids love it! For the game, the students sit on their desks with pockets on the top and toss a beach ball to one another. The catch is that they cannot talk at all. They must throw good to one another because if their bad toss isn’t caught, then they are out and have to sit in their chair; if the toss is good but not caught, the receiver sits down. The entire game is silent, except for when the ref (Elaine) calls someone one due to the ball being dropped. No arguing with the ref is allowed either—that’s an automatic out. It is a fabulous indoor activity! The students love it, and yet the room stays quiet. Definitely one I will keep in mind for my future classrooms if I teach younger grades!

 

After school today, all 3 first grade teachers met together to discuss next week. They usually do this every Wednesday but the first week, Elaine had the orientation at Trinity, and last week was the all-staff meeting, so this was my first time going to the team meeting. I have collaborated with the other first grade teachers and have borrowed some of their materials for my lessons, so I knew that the three teachers worked well together. Today though, I got to see the teamwork in action. It was great to hear them bounce ideas off each other, and try to remember what they did last year—three minds are definitely better than one, especially in this case! Meeting with them made me feel like I was part of a team; though each teacher has their own classroom, their missions are obviously similar so the classes run in a comparable manner; this enables the teachers to work together and truly helps make each class so great. Having this support system is huge too. One of the first grade teachers is currently moving homes, and for the last month, problem after problem has occurred with the buyers. Finally today, she was told that it would close tomorrow—an answer of prayer to both her and the other first grade teachers; all the teachers celebrated with her. I loved seeing that the teachers are not just colleagues, but also confidants. I think a large basis of this is being in a Christian school, but I have seen this in public schools also. It is so important to have that feeling of support and teamwork with teachers in one’s buildings, and I pray that I will feel that same sense of partnership in my future school home.

Thursday, January 24

I felt like a true teacher today. I stayed at school from 7:30 am till 8:30 pm. The reason for this was the Winter Jubilee, the concert put on by the whole school. It was an incredible performance—the kids all did so well. It was fun to be a part of, and hear all the children’s voices. Just under 600 kids were in it, and the grand finale was absolutely beautiful. All the students came in and sang the Hallelujah Chorus together. Never before has that song sounded more glorious; I literally had chills and tears in my eyes.

 

However, my excitement and thrill ended rather quickly when I arrived home and had to do lesson plans for the next day and upcoming week. This week has been the most tiring week by far, and the biggest reason for this is all the lesson plans that need to be made for each day. I completely understand the reasoning behind them—to get us thinking through each step of every lesson so that we are fully prepared. However, it is extremely tedious and pointless when we are literally copying points directly from the teacher’s manual. It is impractical and honestly, an interruption to my teaching. Every day I get home from school around 4:45, and then spend the next 4-5 hours writing lesson plans. Throw in eating dinner, and squeezing a workout in, and my day is over and it’s time for bed so I can be well rested for the next day. I am unable to simply browse the internet for good ideas to complement my lessons; my time is shot. And the reasoning is not because of poor time management; I work on lesson plans and the additional assignments from our class every day for a decent amount of time. My cooperating teacher has commented on how impractical and worthless these lesson plans are. I think through each lesson when I talk over the lessons with her, and then later on when I look through the book myself. I would love to come up with new ideas to add to the curriculum, but time is of essence, and rather than spending time looking up creative elements, I am forced to write 3-4 page lesson plans for a 20 minute lesson.

 

I would say I apologize for this ranting, but honestly, I can’t—I needed to get it off my chest. I see the reasoning behind the lesson plans, but I cannot say the reasoning justifies us having to write 15-20 lesson plans for each week (which is about 45 pages each week—well, actually 90 pieces of paper because we have to print the lesson plans twice: first, so they are available while teaching and then again after our reflection has been added and they can be put into a binder).

 

I understand my saying this is not going to change any requirements for me. I am simply throwing this thought out there in hope that future student teachers will be able to spend more time coming up with new ideas to implement in their classroom rather than copying points from a teacher’s manual. As we all know, time is a valuable resource, and I would love to use my time benefitting my classroom and my teaching.

Friday, January 25

School had a late start today because of Winter Jubilee, which I was extremely thankful for due to writing lessons the night before. Last night, the students were so pumped to perform and we expected that their excitement would die down a little bit and today they would be less chatty and rambunctious. We were completely wrong! They were just as thrilled to do the two performances today as they were to do last nights. They truly sang their hearts out and loved the show. Because of the late start, and one of the performances being at 1:30, our time teaching was limited today. I was excited though because math took much shorter than what I was anticipating so it gave us plenty of time to do Bible, which otherwise would not have happened probably. Overall, this week was great and I cannot believe I am already done with my third week at Crown Point Christian. Next week I take over full-time and though I am already drained thinking about all the lesson plans that will need to be written, I am excited to take over! Anxious, nervous, and scared too-- but excited :)

Classroom Confidential

Reading through chapter four, it stuck out to me how passionate Schmidt was about the benefits of having various cultures in one’s classroom. She states that there are two takes teachers can have on their students’ cultures: 1) view their culture as an asset or 2) view their cultures as a deficit. During my fall placement last year, I was placed in an extremely diverse room. Some of the students were first- or second-generation immigrants to America. Of my 29 students, only 6 of them spoke English at home. The rest of the class spoke Lithuanian, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, and some others I cannot recall. Needless to say, the culture diversity of the classroom was huge! I saw though how much it added to the lessons. In social studies, students loved talking about where they came from, and the students liked learning about different places around the globe from one another. During spelling, students loved showing off their knowledge of multiple languages and would write the answer in English, and then the word in their primary language. They would then show off to the other students that they knew two languages, and they all learned from each other various words in a mixture of languages. The diversity truly added to the classroom. Schmidt points out that being color-blind is not a virtue because you can alienate yourself from students without even realizing it; my cooperating teacher that semester was certainly not color-blind—she used the students’ cultures to advance lessons. Seeing this was great for me; her classroom is one of my favorites from my aiding experiences, and I believe that her reaction to culture differences in the classroom is one huge reason why I loved her class so much.