A Road Less Traveled?

I just finished the last chapter of John Spencer’s book A Sustainable Start and I am both inspired, comforted and terrified all at the same time!   The letter he wrote back to his new teacher self reminds me of the letter a professor had us write a short time ago to our future certified teacher selves.  By the way, it is hard to believe how close we are getting to that day – less than four months now. 

I am inspired by Spencer’s transparency in sharing all of the ups and downs of his teaching experience, comforted that he has been through so much and still loves teaching, and terrified that it will soon be me who will be worried about all the details of a new classroom (what to put on the walls, how to build classroom community, what procedures to put in place, how to develop an authentic PLC, how to differentiate lessons to challenge each student at their own level . . . the list is endless). 

Maybe his best piece of advice in this chapter is to not “forget everything you learned in college.”  Although we will not be able to apply all of the great strategies and theories we have been learning about in our certification program (at least not all at once!), keeping them in mind will help continually stretch our practice as teachers.  I hope I will continue to take risks trying new things, as we have been pushed to do in our student teaching program, even if things will often not turn out how I had planned.  I hope I will continue to be open to learning from my mistakes and that I will be able to share mistakes and successes alike transparently with other teachers so that we can help and learn from each other.  Public, vulnerable, transparent, risk-taking – that all sounds rather scary, but I hope my future new teacher self will embrace these traits and will be able to look back one day at the forks in the road we will all face as we start our careers in teaching and see that taking this road will have made all the difference.  

The Power of Observation

This school year I have had the opportunity to work in three different classrooms and observe five others.  I have seen teachers that are immaculate planners and teachers that plan much more loosely (while not “winging it”), teachers that stick pretty close to the curriculum scope and sequence and teachers that only use the curriculum as the bones on which they build their own lessons and also a few who have the freedom to implement their own curriculum as long as standards are being met.  I’ve seen teachers who rely heavily on technology and teachers who eschew it, teachers who retain pretty tight control over their students and teachers who trust their students with a lot more freedom, teachers who like to talk and teachers who prefer to listen. 

I admire each and every one of these teachers.  They all have different preferences and styles, but they all care deeply about their students and are effective at pushing their students forward in their own ways.  Seeing so many different (and successful) styles of teaching is encouraging.  It is good to know that we can grow into many different types of teachers as we take on our own classrooms.  It has been fun to “try on” different ways of teaching based on ideas I get from visiting these different teachers' classes and to figure out which fit me and grow me as a teacher and which just aren’t going to be my style. 

It has also been encouraging to see that visiting other classrooms can be part of an ongoing effective teaching practice.  This quarter I have witnessed teachers visiting and giving feedback to their peers both at the elementary school where I student teach and in our university classes.  It seems teachers are really making an effort to break out of the old isolationist mindset and are proactively working together to share ideas and stay sharp.  This is the kind of school community of which I desire to be a part.

New(er) Math

The way we are learning to teach math today is very different from how I learned math in the 70’s.  It’s even quite different from what we called “New Math” when my children were in elementary school ten years ago and new inquiry-based mathematics curriculums were being introduced.  Parents (including me) who had learned math the “old way” were perplexed by the new methods and wanted to just show our children “how to do it” (i.e. via memorization and algorithms).   It wasn’t until I started substitute teaching in a class that used an inquiry-based curriculum that it began to make sense.  It still seemed difficult for some children though (including my younger daughter), as this particular curriculum left the investigation tasks very open-ended and mentioning the algorithms seemed almost taboo.   It was possible for a student to do the activity and not grasp the underlying concept.  It seemed that the pendulum had swung a little too far away from direct instruction.  

The newer math curricula that I am seeing in schools now (and I presume is being widely used across the country) are a nice blend between the two extremes of "old math" and "new math".  These curricula have something for a wider variety of learning styles – those who learn best from reading, seeing, hearing and/or doing – and combine direct instruction (mini lessons) with independent practice and investigation.  I like that the algorithms are no longer ignored, but instead are introduced as a “short cut” or "more efficient method" after the underlying concepts are understood.  This not only helps the students to remember how to use the algorithms, but also when to use them and why they work.  In addition, understanding the underlying concepts of algorithms helps students gain a sense of reasonableness when using them. 

By misskprimary on Flickr

This week I had a direct experience in which my old ways of thinking about math collided with the newer math methods I am learning.  Our math methods textbook asked us to solve 76 x 89 in our heads.  The old me would have started visualizing the algorithm in my head “6 x 9 = 54, write down 4 and carry the 5 . . . “ but the new, enlightened me first thought “the answer will be about halfway between 6300 and 7200 because I can round these numbers and see that 70 x 90 is 6300 and 80 x 90 is 7200.”  Next, I started breaking the problem up in a way that I never would have done before taking Math Methods classes this year.  I converted the 89 to a “friendly number” and multiplied 90 x 70 to get 6300 from which I could easily subtract one group of 70 to get 6230 and did the same with (90 x 6) – 6 to get 534 and could now easily add these two numbers to come up with my answer of 6764.  The funny thing is that I then quickly did the algorithm to "check" my work and the answers didn’t match.  Taking a second look I realized I had made an error with my old reliable algorithm!!  Good thing it’s not too late to teach this old dog some new tricks.

Teaching Requires Diplomacy

This past week our school conducted mid-year student-led conferences and I learned that teachers must be skilled at diplomacy.  I already knew that our class was filled with a very diverse set of students, but what I learned this past week is that their parents are a magnification of that diversity.  Some are supportive, others critical; some want to know what they can do to help their child at home, others believe that it is a teacher's job alone to help their child (academically and socially); some are open to seeing issues that need to be addressed; others deny problems even when presented with clear evidence.

My cooperating teacher is usually a "tell it like it is" type of person, but I saw her become a skilled diplomat during these conferences.  I paid close attention and wondered why she chose to emphasize certain strengths and weaknesses ("areas for growth") while ignoring others, watching as she pushed some and pulled back with others.  It wasn't because she was intimidated by them, she clearly had an agenda in mind.  At the end of each day of conferences, we would debrief and she would explain.  Her reasons were often rooted in prior knowledge of dealing with this particular family, but she also told me that she had learned the hard way during her first year as a teacher to "kill them [parents] with kindness" and to pick battles carefully.  She reminded me that it was not our goal to prove ourselves right and the parents wrong (which ends up alienating them in most cases), but instead to do the best we can to get each child what they need, which often requires a working relationship with the parents.  She reminded me that we may not be able to get everything a child needs, but if we can get and keep parents on our team, we are likely to do more for the child with them than without them.

My CT also did a great job modeling how to sandwich bad news with good news -- another important diplomatic skill.  Every conference began with the student sharing his or her "top 3" best pieces of work from the first term that they had self-selected to include in their learning portfolio.  She prompted them to explain not only what it was but why it was important and why they had picked it as an example of their best work.  Students then presented their "goals," "glows," and "grows," for each subject area, including life skills.  "Grows" are areas where they are still working toward their goals and it was during this part of the discussion that my CT would skillfully insert her views of which areas needed improvement.  She used very positive language however such as "my goal for you in this areas would be . . . " or "my hope for you to grow as a learner would be . . .," always asking if the student and parents agreed before pressing forward with a proposed plan of action and often enlisting their suggestions.

Because she ended each conference with an "I am proud of you because . . ." statement, each child left with a smile on their face despite some hard conversations that had been skillfully sandwiched in the middle.

The bottom line . . . always keep it positive and always put the child's needs first.

Teachers are Scientists!

Science has been a recurring theme for me today.  This morning I spent time trying the rock cycle experiment (modeling the cycle with bits of crayons) that my science methods group and I are planning for our 3^rd grade science buddies, this afternoon I spent doing my own experiment for our science methods assignment, and I just read a few chapters of A Sustainable Start in which John Spencer compared his teaching to a science experiment.

 Several take-aways:

• Teachers should put themselves in the shoes of their students more often. 

• In trying out our 3^rd grade experiment, I was able to identify aspects of the procedure that needed to be modified to suit our students and the timeframe of our lesson.  I was also able to feel where our students might be tempted off task or where they might want to stop and linger to notice and reflect.
• In doing my own experiment, I felt a student’s frustration of things not going as planned, taking longer than I expected and having to repeat procedures that went awry.  On the other hand, even though my hypothesis was proven incorrect, I was able to practice what I have been preaching, which is that in science there are no wrong answers, just new discoveries!  This shift in attitude about science is critical for our students to adopt. 

• Science is fun!  It was a nice change of pace from reading textbooks and planning lessons to be on my feet and actively involved in a hands-on task.  It was fun to wait with anticipation to see if the crayon experiment would work as described and if my predictions for my own experiment would be right or not. 

• Teaching itself is a science.  As Spencer says, “It’s the science of inquiry and observation, of testing new ideas and paying careful attention to the way we interact . . . it’s data, yet it’s creative” (pp. 87, 89).  As student teachers, we are not in the position to stray too far from the curriculum given to us, but I am finding I can be very creative within its constraints, molding it and expanding it to fit the needs of my students and my own style of teaching.  Experimenting, hypothesizing, collecting data and reflecting on how to improve lessons for my students and for myself.

Promoting Self-Management?

This week I am still thinking a lot about the “classroom management” issue.  I had more experience in this department than I anticipated this week when my CT was sick on Tuesday and a sub could not be found, and then on Friday she took a release day and, although this time there was a sub available, my CT and I had already planned out the day and I was left in charge with the sub as support.  Luckily, the sub was a retired teacher who gave me some great feedback and tips throughout the day!  I tried to keep the positive mindset of being their leader, rather than the negative one of being their manager.

Tuesday (the day I was left unexpectedly on my own) was a little rocky in terms of class behavior, but as I commented below on my last post, I ended up calling a class meeting on the carpet in the afternoon and that settled things down quite a bit.  The next morning during our morning routine, the first time I had to pause to wait for their attention I was heartened to hear several students forcefully say to their peers “Guys, shut up, we promised!”  They were referring to our discussion on the carpet the previous day and their own proposal that they would collectively agree to work on following class protocol for respecting the speaker (be it me or a classmate).  

I think part of the issue is that I am new to this classroom (it is not where I had my September Experience) and I am still learning their routines and systems.  What really made an impression on my this week was that it is not so much a matter of threatening or imposing discipline on students (the negative viewpoint), but instead a matter of providing (or reminding them of) the structure they need to succeed.  Teachers need not feel they have to “manage” their students’ behavior if they (the teachers) provide systems within which students can manage their own behavior.

I am reminded of a system my daughter’s 5^th grade teacher had for awarding “Self Manager Certificates” to students who demonstrated certain self-managing behaviors.  Once they had earned the certificate, they were given extra responsibilities and freedoms in the classroom.  The certificate was revoked if the student broke any of the agreed-upon classroom standards of behavior.  I found this form on the internet (from Harry Wong, author of The First Days of School, a book for first-year teachers that has been recommended to me by several veteran teachers) that is probably similar to the one my daughter’s teacher used.  It is an idea I’d like to think more about for use in my own future classrooms.  Any thoughts?

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Management vs. Leadership: The Importance of Having a Positive Mindset

As a teacher-in-training, “classroom management” is a term that gets thrown around a lot (striking fear in the hearts of many).   We are carefully observed in our student teaching to make sure we have it and we hear that it is a guaranteed job interview topic.  Until being prompted by a professor to read two seasoned teachers’ opinions on this topic this week (John Spencer’s book A Sustainable Start and Jenny Orr’s blog, Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It), I had been sinking deeper and deeper into trepidation mode as the question “Will I be able control them?” began haunting my lesson planning, planting seeds of self-doubt and worry where none had been before. 

I see now that I have been slipping into the pitfall of a negative mindset.  The idea of managing students seems to connote that they are prone to misbehavior.  It assumes the worst and therefore makes me feel as if I am going into battle against a room of unruly students.  Simply changing the term “classroom management” to “classroom leadership,” as Spencer does in his book, reframes the situation altogether.  Leadership has positive connotations of students with potential.  My job becomes guiding them instead of controlling them and my outlook is suddenly brighter.  It allows me to view my students through a lens of high expectations rather than low.   We become a learning community that trusts one another, rather than a toxic environment of “me versus them.”  Instead of approaching my work from a position of fear, I can approach it from a position of anticipation.   As Jenny Orr so wisely states: “Show people that you have faith in them, be they students or employees, and the majority of the time they will live up to that faith.”