Last week I set two goals for myself: to collaborate with my cooperating teacher to get a sense of the rest of the semester and to work on promoting critical thinking and performance skills in my lessons. I’m not sure I can say I completely fulfilled my first goal as we weren’t able to sit down and work out the whole rest of the semester, but we did get to plan for the next couple of weeks and talk about other chapters we’ll get into later on. This week we are hoping we won’t be as busy and will be able to sit down and collaborate even more. As for my second goal, I feel like I have started to challenge my students into using their critical thinking skills as I have been talking more and more Spanish in the classroom. We just started a new chapter in our book this week, which gave me a good opportunity to step up the Spanish in order for my students to get more accustomed to thinking in and hearing Spanish while they are in class. They have been taking to it quite well and some students are starting to ask questions in Spanish, which is exciting.
The new goals I would like to set for this week are to set up a mock interview with the superintendent in my district and to work on calling on some of the more quiet students in class and making sure that they are participating and feel involved. I believe this second goal is extremely important, because often the students who are more shy or quiet can get overlooked with a class of so many students. By involving them more in classroom interactions, they may start to feel more comfortable and realize that I value their input.
Now, I’d like to take some time to reflect on this past week. One word that best describes this past week is whirlwind. This week absolutely flew by, as I mentioned earlier. We started out on Monday, celebrating El Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Day) with the students in class. We finished painting the calaveras (skulls) and talked more about how the day of the dead is celebrated and why. Then, on Tuesday, we had an Institute Day in which we talked about standards based grading and incorporating a global perspective in the classroom. When we had time to branch off into our different groups, the Spanish team met to plan the curriculum for the new 5th and 6th grade Spanish program. This was exciting and it was fun to have some input and share ideas. Then, we finished up a chapter with our students on Thursday with a chapter test. Students had some trouble with this test, because it was their first test on a full chapter of new material. Miss Ricotta said that this is typical of the first test on new material and that they usually do better on later tests. I also noticed that students didn’t do as well on their very first quiz in the year, but seemed to do better on later quizzes. Friday, we took started a new chapter entitled En el Mercado (In the Market) in which students will learn about different things that are sold in a market and how to bargain. I started talking in mostly Spanish with my students as well, which they have been doing a pretty good job with. I try to repeat things a couple times so that they can understand. It’s fun to see them put things together and comprehend as I speak Spanish.
While at my placement, I have found there are school policies and procedures that I have to abide by, as there are in every school. With students, I reinforce all of the policies and rules the school has set in place, in a professional manner. For example, the school has a zero tolerance policy for bullying. Although I have not witnessed any of my students bullying another student, I would report it I did see it going on. I have heard about students that have been punished this year for bullying other students already. I also like to keep an feeling of mutual respect in the classroom. I want students to know that I am serious about what I do, but also show them that I am a real person and that I care about them.
I haven’t had a ton of interaction with my students’ parents as of yet, but when I do, I make sure that I am professional and show them how much I care about their childs’ education and well-being. This coming week, we will be having parent-teacher conferences, where I will be able to interact with a lot of my students’ parents.
When working with the other teachers in my building, I try to act professional so that they see that even though I don’t have teaching experience, I am well qualified and have been trained well. I also make sure to listen to their advice and what they have to say in meetings. When we meet with our team each week, it is a good time for me to see how they deal with problems in the school, so that I will know how to do so when I have my own classroom and am part of a team myself.
Not only are there policies and procedures that need to be followed at a school, but there are codes of professional conduct and legal directives that need to be adhered to as well. One legal issue that we dealt with earlier this year was about a student whose parents didn’t want their son to be in the special education program, even though he qualified for, and was previously part of the special education program. In order for the school not to supply the student with special education help, they had to get sign permission from his parents saying that he was not supposed to in the program. It’s pretty sad, because we have seen him struggle in some of his classes and he’s not getting the help that he really needs. It may be hard for some parents to admit when their children need help, but it can really do a disservice to students when they don’t receive the help then need. This student started out in our Spanish II class, but dropped down to Spanish I, because it was a better fit for him. We have seen him do a lot better in Spanish I, but hope that he is doing just as well in his other classes.
Although I am not a part of it, the school I am at is dealing with some other legal issues regarding the building of the new school. In order to use some of the bonds they have, they have to connect the new school to the existing elementary school somehow, which is posing some problems. They are also running into some problems with the community because they have not kept them informed throughout the whole process. It’s interesting to hear about all of the legal issues that go along with a school.
There are also identification and referral procedures for students with disabilities at each school. As of yet, I have not had to follow these procedures at my placement, but I do know that a lot of documentation needs to be done beforehand. For example, if you suspected a student of needing any special education, behavioral, or any other kind of services, you would have to monitor the students behaviors and reactions so that you would have documents of specific examples when the students’ disability was inhibiting their progress and/or others’ progress in learning. Once there is documentation, professionals can start working on an IEP, 504, or behavioral plan for the student. Having these sorts of plans set in place can help the teacher better serve the student with the disability, as well as, the other students in the class. When I run into this sort of situation in the future, I will make sure that I figure out the best ways to help the student with the disability succeed in school.
In middle school, you will often have to deal with social justice issues as students don’t quite see the seriousness and harshness in some of the things they say. Sometimes they think something is funny, not really realizing how what they are saying might hurt someone else. Whenever I see this going on, I ask students to stop and try to explain to them that what they are saying is offensive and how it is disrespectful. For example, a few weeks ago my students were doing a project where they had to choose a relationship between two people and interrogate one of the people in order to practice forming and answering questions in Spanish. Two of my students had asked if it was ok if they pretended they were a lesbian couple fighting over another girl. They thought this would be funny, but I told them that I didn’t think it was appropriate because it could be offensive to some people. They had a hard time understanding, so I told them that we just never know, so it’s best not to choose this kind of relationship in case they step on anyone’s toes by doing so.
Although it was not in my class, there was also a student who posted some sort of racial comment on google docs just because he was trying to be funny. It ended up offending someone of that race, though, so the student who wrote it was suspended for three days. At this age, it can be hard for some middle school students to see how their words and actions, especially when they think they’re saying it in a joking matter, can be hurtful to people. By showing them that it unacceptable, it will hopefully broaden their awareness and keep them from saying some of the things they do and/or to think before they say them.
Currently, at my placement, I don’t really need any help from my supervisor. Things have been going really well lately, besides feeling a little under the weather. I hope that this coming week will go well and that I’ll learn a lot from the parent teacher conferences.
In my reading in Schmidt’s book this week, it focused on social justice, not only in a small scale as the things I was mentioning, but in a worldly sense. It talked about different things that go on in the world and how important it is to teach our students to be involved in helping create social justice. I liked the example that was given about pretending that your in class one minute and the next thing you know there is an earthquake. It says that before it even ends, you realize that “you’re in new territory” and are going to have to deal with some things you never even thought about before. This kind of project is a real situation in which children can take away a lot while learning from it. The chapter also mentions that students develop a vast amount of skills while experiencing and practicing social justice in class: application of knowledge to a real-life problem, critical thinking skills, problem solving and decision making using multiple intelligences, openness to new experiences and roles, realistic ideas about the world, awareness of community needs, and belief in the power of the individual to make a difference just to name a few.
I'm glad your week went well. Your blog shows strong reflection.
ReplyDeleteYou have a good sense of rules and policies from your school.
I hope you feel better.