Mrs. Walsh was once again absent from school during one of my observations, and her husband was filling in for her. Her husband is a county sheriff, and it was very interesting to see how he interacted with the students and the way in which they responded to him. With the boys, he was a bit "rough," but it was easy to see that they respected him. I could see that there was an overall relationship of trust between him and the students, and I think that was due to the fact that they realized that he would not abuse his position of authority - both as their substitute teacher and as a sheriff. It made me think about what kind of persona I naturally give off to students and what kinds of things I may have to work at in order to encourage their respect and cooperation.
I went around the room to see what the students were working on and to offer any help I could give. Most of them were working on math, again. They almost always understood what they were supposed to do; the problem was getting them to actually work diligently at it. One girl said that my sitting beside her made her self-conscious, so I moved over to a table where two boys were working on a report that they were writing about heavy metal music.
Yes. Heavy metal music. That was their topic. I had seen them working on it in previous weeks but had never actually seen any of the content of their report. They kept saying that they wanted to wait until they were finished with it to show it to me, but when I pointed out that I might not still be around by the time they were completely finished, they agreed to let me see what they had so far. They had written a brief summary of the history of the genre of metal music, and they had also listed sub-genres and described what kind of content each sub-genre generally included. I was actually very impressed with how well written the report was, overall. They had included varied sentence structure, and it generally flowed well. The thing that I started to question, though, was the wisdom in allowing students to focus on a topic that may include highly inappropriate material.
The boys showed me some lyrics and album covers for the metal bands they were research, and I was honestly horrified by many of the images and the content of the songs. When I asked the boys why they enjoyed that kind of music, they defended the music and pictures by saying that it was simply "poetry" and that was what made it "beautiful." When I asked them if they thought singing about the things included in the lyrics was appropriate, they concluded, "Whatever makes a person happy is okay." They also told me that they did not think that the lyrics affected their thinking at all. At one point, one of the students told me, "You know, you're pretty cool, but sometimes you can be such a Christian."
Well, yes, being a Christian does influence my opinion and reaction to this kind of thing, but I am also fairly certain that many teachers would discourage the idea that students should be permitted to research anything in their area of interest. The big question is, who gets to determine what is considered "classroom appropriate"? How will I determine that when I teach in my own classroom? I suppose it will be a combination of the school's policies, explicit instructions from my administrators, and my own discretion. And that's the hard one.
There has to be a line, though, between encouraging the students to take initiative in their learning and promoting explicitly violent or sexual content - things that are highly prevalent in many of the lyrics I which was shown by these boys. I believe students should be allowed to study things that are interesting and immediately applicable to their lives, but I certainly do not embrace the idea that they can simply choose a topic they find "relevant" and deem it "academic."
It's another of those hard judgement calls that it seems teachers face in many, many aspects of their teaching.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Unplanned Subbing
Last week, I got to spend the entire day at Beacon Academy. My day started at 7:30 a.m. at Christo's, a nearby resturant. The teachers meet there every Monday from 7:30-8:30 for breakfast and a staff meeting. I went with another girl from Purdue who is also doing teaching observation at Beacon. It was nice to have someone else there who was new to the experience.
When we arrived, we were directed by the waiter to the table where the staff always meets, and they all arrived shorly afterwards - all except Mrs. Walsh, my supervising teacher. She was sick that day and wouldn't be coming at all, which made me slightly more nervous about the idea of spending the whole day in the school. The principal told me that it would actually be good if I could stay, though, because I could help them. There are only four teachers there (and about 60 students), so having one teacher gone makes things slightly more complicated.
Margaret, the other Purdue student, and I asked some questions about how the school operates, which was helpful. The teachers talked about the relationship they have with their students, with one teacher explaining how she had recently taken one of her students out to dinner because his family forgot to celebrate his birthday. Things like that make me impressed with the level of care the teachers show for their students. However, it also makes me realize that a similar kind of relationship will probably not be possible for me to have with every student, if I teach in a "regular" public school, where classes are bigger and "professional boundaries" seem more defined.
When I arrived at the school, the principal asked me if I would like to do "Advisory Circle" with the students. This involved the students sitting in a circle and talking about whatever topics came to mind. I simply started by asking them how their weekend was and if anyone had done anything exciting. One girl answered, but the other students seemed less than excited to participate in any discussion. However, once I started asking them some questions about their internships, which they do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they were more engaged. One student told me that he wanted to do "teen court" for his internship because he wanted to be a lawyer. We then had a discussion about lying and its implications on society. That led to a discussion about morals and, more specifically, about Christianity. I was amazed at how engaged the students became in the discussion. I simply kept asking them questions and provided very little of my own input or opinion on the matter. The student who talked about wanting to become a lawyer, who had previously seemed completely uninterested in having any discussion, was suddenly transformed into a very opinionated, passionate speaker. He spoke of his own experience in reading the Bible seven times and his understanding of who God is and the significance He has today. Several other students put out their opinions, as well, and though I wanted to say more about my understanding of the Bible and the gospel, I wanted to be careful not to "force" my opinion on any of them. So I asked a few more questions until one student said he was tired of talking about religion and that we were not supposed to talk about it in the classroom anyway. I told him I didn't want them to break the rules, and that was the end of the discussion and of "Advisory Circle."
The students then got out their laptops and got to work. One of the other teachers came in periodically throughout the day, but I was mostly left to handle the classroom myself. It was basically like I was a substitute teacher for them. While I enjoyed getting to know the students better and working with them one-on-one, I found that it was very difficult for them to stay on task with their individual assignments. I tried to spend one-on-one time with each student, and I found that some needed more guidance than others. I actually ended up teaching more algebra than English (which I will discuss more in my lesson presentation reflection)! It was amusing to think that I was helping students with the subject that I struggled with most in high school.
I learned a lot in this experience about how to try to motivate students to do work. When one student asked me, "When will I ever use this in life?", instead of telling him that it would help him get into college (which I always found to be a VERY unsatisfying answer from my algebra teacher!), I told him it would give him lots of patience and perserverence, which he would need a lot of in life. That got a smile out of him, but I don't think he was fully convinced.
Another thing this experience made me think a lot about is where the line is between sharing my beliefs and opinions on a matter and simply guiding the students in discussion and letting them share their own opinions. Obviously, there were things the students said that I disagreed with, but I did not feel like I have the freedom, especially in a classroom that was not "mine", to confront those things. It makes me wonder where the balance is between speaking of the things that define who I am and how I view the world and letting students decide on their own ideas about those topics. How can I present them with truth in a way that is appropriate for the classroom and according to administrative guidelines?
This also gave me a bit of a taste of what having my own classroom might be like. Of course, I realize that the charter school setting is very different from the typical public school setting. It was good, though, to have the chance to have some authority in the classroom and to be able to lead them in discussion and help them with their individual work. I hope that in the future I have opportunities to work with students one-on-one, because that is what I find most rewarding and appealing about teaching. It was good to have an experience that made me feel a tiny bit closer to being a "real" teacher because I am realizing that whether I am ready or not, student teaching is about to come...
When we arrived, we were directed by the waiter to the table where the staff always meets, and they all arrived shorly afterwards - all except Mrs. Walsh, my supervising teacher. She was sick that day and wouldn't be coming at all, which made me slightly more nervous about the idea of spending the whole day in the school. The principal told me that it would actually be good if I could stay, though, because I could help them. There are only four teachers there (and about 60 students), so having one teacher gone makes things slightly more complicated.
Margaret, the other Purdue student, and I asked some questions about how the school operates, which was helpful. The teachers talked about the relationship they have with their students, with one teacher explaining how she had recently taken one of her students out to dinner because his family forgot to celebrate his birthday. Things like that make me impressed with the level of care the teachers show for their students. However, it also makes me realize that a similar kind of relationship will probably not be possible for me to have with every student, if I teach in a "regular" public school, where classes are bigger and "professional boundaries" seem more defined.
When I arrived at the school, the principal asked me if I would like to do "Advisory Circle" with the students. This involved the students sitting in a circle and talking about whatever topics came to mind. I simply started by asking them how their weekend was and if anyone had done anything exciting. One girl answered, but the other students seemed less than excited to participate in any discussion. However, once I started asking them some questions about their internships, which they do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they were more engaged. One student told me that he wanted to do "teen court" for his internship because he wanted to be a lawyer. We then had a discussion about lying and its implications on society. That led to a discussion about morals and, more specifically, about Christianity. I was amazed at how engaged the students became in the discussion. I simply kept asking them questions and provided very little of my own input or opinion on the matter. The student who talked about wanting to become a lawyer, who had previously seemed completely uninterested in having any discussion, was suddenly transformed into a very opinionated, passionate speaker. He spoke of his own experience in reading the Bible seven times and his understanding of who God is and the significance He has today. Several other students put out their opinions, as well, and though I wanted to say more about my understanding of the Bible and the gospel, I wanted to be careful not to "force" my opinion on any of them. So I asked a few more questions until one student said he was tired of talking about religion and that we were not supposed to talk about it in the classroom anyway. I told him I didn't want them to break the rules, and that was the end of the discussion and of "Advisory Circle."
The students then got out their laptops and got to work. One of the other teachers came in periodically throughout the day, but I was mostly left to handle the classroom myself. It was basically like I was a substitute teacher for them. While I enjoyed getting to know the students better and working with them one-on-one, I found that it was very difficult for them to stay on task with their individual assignments. I tried to spend one-on-one time with each student, and I found that some needed more guidance than others. I actually ended up teaching more algebra than English (which I will discuss more in my lesson presentation reflection)! It was amusing to think that I was helping students with the subject that I struggled with most in high school.
I learned a lot in this experience about how to try to motivate students to do work. When one student asked me, "When will I ever use this in life?", instead of telling him that it would help him get into college (which I always found to be a VERY unsatisfying answer from my algebra teacher!), I told him it would give him lots of patience and perserverence, which he would need a lot of in life. That got a smile out of him, but I don't think he was fully convinced.
Another thing this experience made me think a lot about is where the line is between sharing my beliefs and opinions on a matter and simply guiding the students in discussion and letting them share their own opinions. Obviously, there were things the students said that I disagreed with, but I did not feel like I have the freedom, especially in a classroom that was not "mine", to confront those things. It makes me wonder where the balance is between speaking of the things that define who I am and how I view the world and letting students decide on their own ideas about those topics. How can I present them with truth in a way that is appropriate for the classroom and according to administrative guidelines?
This also gave me a bit of a taste of what having my own classroom might be like. Of course, I realize that the charter school setting is very different from the typical public school setting. It was good, though, to have the chance to have some authority in the classroom and to be able to lead them in discussion and help them with their individual work. I hope that in the future I have opportunities to work with students one-on-one, because that is what I find most rewarding and appealing about teaching. It was good to have an experience that made me feel a tiny bit closer to being a "real" teacher because I am realizing that whether I am ready or not, student teaching is about to come...
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