Lost in Translation

Last week I attended several parent-teacher conferences at my dyad placement.  One was with a mother who spoke no English, only Spanish.  My cooperating teacher made sure that a translator was present, but the dynamic of the conference was palpably different than the other three.  The mother was clearly concerned about her son's academic performance, but also appeared to be very intimidated and overwhelmed by the process.  Time is short with only 20 minutes per conference.  It's a challenge to cover all aspects of a child's progress in that short time period in the best of circumstances, but with a translator, each question and response takes twice the amount of time.  As the conference proceeded and I sensed the teacher feeling pressed for time, I saw her focus turn from the mother to the translator.  I'm sure she did not do this intentionally, she was making eye contact with him to make sure that he could translate what she was saying accurately, but the mother looked more dismayed as the pace picked up out of necessity.  I understand enough Spanish to know that as the pace picked up (as the teacher attempted to cover all her points), information was literally getting "lost in translation."  

Driving home that evening, I found myself wishing that I had spoken a few words in Spanish to this mother to make her feel more comfortable, although as a student teacher I felt that it was not my place and, besides, that would have taken up even more precious time.  I also made a mental note to remember that when I am in this position as a teacher, to try to make even further accommodations -- for instance, allowing extra time for a translated conference so that those parents get the benefit of the same amount of information and question-asking time as the others who speak English.  We need to be aware of the imbalance of power in such a situation and the feelings of vulnerability these parents must have.

These thoughts returned to me again as I read the article "When Learning a Second Language Means Losing the First" by Lily Wong Fillmore for our Social Studies class.  My heart breaks for the parents  who not only are unable to communicate with their childrens' English-only-speaking teachers but, in some cases, more tragically, also are no longer able to communicate with their own children as these children learn English in school and lose the ability to communicate effectively in their native languages.   According to this article, this is especially likely if the children start learning English in preschool when their knowledge of their native language is not yet cemented. This is, as the article points out, a serious situation that needs to be addressed.  I believe that it is important for people living in the United States to speak English as this is the language of our society and our economy (and our schools), but I also believe that it is important for people of other cultures to retain their own languages.  Clearly, this is a very complicated problem to fix.  We want small children to learn English before starting school in order to get a strong start, but according to this article, this practice is highly detrimental to children's ability to retain their native language.  I am wondering, at what age is it "safe" to start teaching ELL children English?  

Bloggers Block (Valuing the Struggle)

In the past couple of weeks, we have been exposed to some excellent resources on writing by Regie Routman (Writing Essentials), Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird) and Stephen King (On Writing).  And yet, here I sit, wondering how I would model writing to students in this moment -- staring at a blank screen with no idea of what to blog about this week.  It's not that I haven't taken in any new and interesting information.  On the contrary, I think I have taken in so much that it is hard to sort it all out in my mind enough to reflect on it in any meaningful way.  This is when I should take Anne Lamott's advice to just start writing.  I love her advice to just get a bunch of ideas on the paper (what I like to call a "brain dump") and sort through the mess later, but I have procrastinated and "later" has already arrived.  I love to journal (when I have time to be more reflective), but right now I find myself empathizing with the many students I have encountered this year who I have found sitting at their desks staring at a blank page trying to get started on a writing assignment.  They tell me "I don't know what to write about" and I dutifully respond with encouragement and a few prompting suggestions to get their creative juices flowing.  They sigh and continue to struggle to put pencil to paper.  This is how I feel right now -- and I have no one to encourage me or prompt me on.  But wait, I do -- I have my fellow teachers-in-training who are struggling alongside me (not physically at this moment, though I'd bet that the majority of us are sitting in front of our computers right now working on one of the many assignments due this week).  I am encouraged by their support as we all struggle through our heavy-work load this quarter.  I am encouraged by their enthusiasm and their dedication.  I am encouraged (and inspired) by their thoughtful blog posts!  I have what I need to get writing -- an audience (my cohort) and an authentic purpose (sharing my learning).  And look, it may be what Anne Lamott lovingly refers to as a "sh---y" first draft, but I actually have something written!!  

Joking aside, I'd like to share two of my favorite "On Writing" nuggets that I have uncovered the past few weeks.  From Anne Lamott:  "Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.  That thing you had to force yourself to do -- the actual act of writing -- turns out to be the best part . . . the act of writing turns out to be its own reward (p.xxvi)."  And from Stephen King: "At its most basic we are only discussing a learned skill, but do we not agree that sometimes the most basic skills can create things far beyond our expectations?  We are talking about tools and carpentry, about words and style . . . but as we move along, you'd do well to remember that we are also talking about magic (p.137)."  

This blog post is a far cry from "magic," but the act of writing, of "sharpening our pencils" and grappling with how best to transmit our thoughts to our audience in a coherent and meaningful fashion, is hard work worth doing.  I look forward to learning more about how to effectively teach students to embrace and value the process (the struggle) of writing as much as its end result as I also learn to do this myself.

Fore!

A metaphor for student teaching came to mind the other day after I declined to join my husband for a game of golf while on vacation.  Primarily, my reason was that I could not justify the cost to golf at a resort given my lack of skill (though I guess it could possibly be considered a good deal if examined on a cost per swing basis).  I have taken several golf lessons over the years that, more often than not, have left me feeling more uncoordinated and more frustrated than when I started.  I think the reason lies with the fact that the golf pros I have had lessons from have swamped me with a long list of requirements to keep in mind every time I swing the club – feet hip distance apart, toes forward, knees slightly bent, head down, arms straight . . . and that’s just getting set up to start the swing!  The number of details to which I am asked to attend before, during and after each swing overwhelms me and takes the joy out of trying.  You may now be wondering where I am going with this.  Let me be clear that I am not saying there is no joy in student teaching.  On the contrary, I find it extremely satisfying and full of joy each day.  What I am noticing, however, is that during the lessons when I am trying to attend to too many new things – using talk moves, asking only open-ended questions, assessing on-the-fly, trying to differentiate for 25 different individual needs and learning styles – my teaching becomes awkward, mechanical, frustrating, joyless and, most likely, less than optimally effective.  We are learning so many wonderful things about teaching every week from our professors, readings and blogs -- from small details to overarching principles -- but the list of things to attend to (including this week’s Top 10 list on "What Does It Mean to be a Great Teacher? (Ten Ideas)," a blog post by John Spencer) becomes like the laundry list of tips from the golf pro.  The advice is all terrific, but I become so focused on micromanaging what I am supposed to be doing that I am unable to “macro-manage” the lesson and attend to the needs of the children effectively.  What I need to do is focus on only a few new skills at a time and practice, practice, practice.  (A lesson I should apply to my golfing as well!)  Luckily, we are being given a lot of opportunities to practice this school year and I know that one at a time, these important new skills will come to feel natural until eventually we will practice them all without even thinking about them.   This is clearly happening already as I find myself unconsciously “channeling” Allison as I say “Who can repeat what Rafael said a different way?,”  “Who can add to what Sadie just said?,” or “Arya, tell me more about how you got that answer?”  Just as I need to relax in practicing my golf swing, not trying to get every single detail right on every swing, I also need to give myself some grace in my student teaching.  I need to relax and enjoy every moment of this safe practice time and trust that all the wonderful details we are being taught are sinking in and will become second-nature in due time.

Stealing Learning

The teacher I am student teaching under at the moment has a great expression she uses with her first graders when they blurt out an answer while a classmate is trying to construct an answer or when they let a classmate copy off of their paper.  When she sees this happening, she admonishes them to “Stop stealing ______’s learning.”  I love that this is an explicit norm in their young classroom community -- that every child is capable of learning and that every child has the right to learn in their own way and at their own pace.  It reinforces the idea that every learning activity is not a race to the finish line, but a journey to be shared.  It is also a journey to be experienced a bit differently for each student.  

The idea of “stealing learning” is one that we, as teachers, must heed as well.  We are learning in several of our methods courses about the importance of posing open-ended questions and fostering discussion of all responses, right or wrong.  We need to create an environment where mistakes and misunderstandings are valued as learning opportunities.  The most important question we can ask in teaching any subject is “Why?”  “Why do you agree or disagree?”  “Why does that make sense to you?  Explain your reasoning to us.”  These questions expand, rather than contract the learning of all involved.  As students are pressed to articulate and defend their thinking, their ideas become clarified and cemented in their brains and the sharing of ideas helps all to extend their thinking in new directions as they consider the new thoughts presented by their classmates.  

As a teacher (and a parent), I often want to jump in to help a child who is struggling, but I am learning that this is stealing their learning too.  It is so hard to give only a vague guiding hint and harder still to answer a question with another question, but I am learning that these are the greatest gifts we can give to a struggling student.  We need to leave them in the struggle, providing only enough scaffolding to keep them engaged in the task. They need to search for their own way to make sense of the problem at hand.  On the other hand, we don’t want to let them get so frustrated that they become defeated and give up.  We must take care to keep them in the Zone of Proximal Development (Zygotsky) -- challenged slightly above their current abilities, but not so far above so as to be unattainable.  I am finding it very hard to find just the right way to nudge students in the right direction without telling them too much.  Also, every student will have a slightly different ZPD so we must carefully consider what types of scaffolding we are providing to each individual student and differentiate accordingly.  We also want to make sure that we aren’t putting students in a situation where they are seeking the one right answer that will please us instead of grappling to make meaning and sense for themselves.

These are skills that I need to continue to work on and also norms that I want to be core values of my future classroom.  I want to foster a community of inquiry and collaboration, one that values different learning levels and styles, and one that values learning over finding the right answer.  I don’t want anyone’s learning to be stolen on my watch!