I Think I Can, I Know I Can

This week has been an important part to my growth as a teacher. I started off this week feeling anxious.  I was confident in my lessons, but afraid of how well they would carry out with seventh graders. I was afraid that the students would not be receptive to Lucy and I taking on the role of the teacher in the class. We had everything planned out, but what if it did not turn out the way we imagined in our heads?  What would we do? 

Figure it out. That's what. The first day of teaching went extremely well. The students were super engaged and excited to work with our new proposition. They worked diligently in groups to come up with supporting arguments for each side of the debate topic and stayed on task for almost all of the class time. I left Coventry Monday feeling like we had planned extremely well and taught to the best of our ability. 

Wednesday was a different story. The lesson we had planned was taught to two different classes. The first time, not so good. We had way too much time at the end and did not feel like students had a grasp on the vocab words. The second time, better but still not great. I drove home feeling like I needed to do something different. Something that would make it more interesting for the students. 

Friday we had the opportunity to teach the same lesson to a different group of students. Using our CT's feedback along with our professors, Lucy and I lead the lesson with confidence. I have to say that we succeeded in making the lesson better than it had been on Wednesday. The students were working until the last second of class, the exit slips gave meaning to our group work, and they were thoroughly prepared for the next class where they would begin to construct their arguments. 

This week has taught me a lot about being flexible, having confidence, and reflecting on my teaching after every class. I can honestly say that I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to teach in the middle school setting. It was a challenge, it was something new, and it taught me things about myself as a teacher. 

Touched My Heart

Last period before Thanksgiving break, you can imagine the atmosphere in the classroom. Ms. Martineau classifies this class as the rambunctious group. It is the class that she has the most behavioral problems and IEPs in and she has a hard time keeping the class on task for more than five minutes at a time, I give her tons of credit for her patience! There was so much going on in the classroom that she ignored. because she didn't give the students who were misbehaving any attention or reaction, they eventually stopped on their own. It was genius! Not sure I could do that myself.

After an hour of commotion it was time for Abby to leave the class five minutes early. (Side note - Abby is a student with special needs who is included in the class. She has an aid that travels with her to her general education classrooms and they leave five minutes before the bell to avoid hallway traffic.) When she got up to leave the classroom, about eight students (including some of the "bad boys" of the group) said "Bye Abby!" or "Happy Thanksgiving Abby!" HEART MELTED. The stereotype of special needs students being picked on in school went out the window for me in that moment. These students were so warm towards Abby, I couldn't help but smile.

With this I go into this week with an open mind. As rambunctious and out of control middle school students might be, they are still just young adolescents with a sweet side. I can't wait to experience more things like this one!

Week Two: Cue Anxiety

I'm not really sure what it is, or how to describe it, but I sit here writing my blog after a weekend of pondering my experience last week with the middle schoolers and I can only really think of one thing...they don't like me.

I took a back seat for the first week. Literally. Sat in the back and watched. The students. The teachers. The rooms. Just watched and soaked it all in. I'm not exactly the type who sits in the back silent, EVER. So this past week I was excited to get up and move around the classroom. That excitement was short lived.

Tuesday, movie day. Again. The students in Maureen's classes were still catching up with the Great Debaters. Going back to the speeches and filling out their graphic organizers. Not much I could do there.

Friday was a different story. Students in Tonya's class were working on creating their arguments about school uniforms. I was thrilled to be able to walk around the room and check out student work while offering help and answers to questions. But to my surprise the students weren't as excited as I was.

"Can I read what you wrote?"
"NO."
"I guess."

"Do you need some help? Are you stuck?"
"NO."
"I'm fine."

I'm not sure how to tackle this problem I'm having. I feel like I am an intruder in their classroom and they are never going to open up to me. How do I teach students who aren't open to the idea of me being in their classroom? Teacher week is approaching fast and I'm not sure I have the answer to this question yet.

A Whole New World

Walking into Feinstein Middle School for the first time last week was a new experience in itself. Walking through the hallways I noticed the colorful displays, walls lined with lockers, and young looking students carrying binders (or trapper-kepers) bigger than their bodies.

When I got to the room where my first Cooperating Teacher was teaching, I was surprised to find that she (and the teacher she job shares with) work off of a cart and travel from classroom to classroom. Mind boggling. How are they suppose to have their objectives written on the board, bell ringer prepared, or technology set up before a lesson? It's impossible.

The students meet every other day (their schedule is broken up into odd and even days). here lies the problem, there has only been one FULL week of school all year! Mrs. Bilotti hadn't seen her students in almost a week, and she said that this was not uncommon. Similarly, Mrs. Martineau would not see her students for another five days. This has posed a problem with sticking to the curriculum and getting things done in a timely manner.

It will be interesting to see how this feels from the teacher perspective as I begin to take over the class with my teaching partner, Lucy, within the next week or so. I am sure that it will be both frustrating and challenging, but a obstacle that will add another notch to my belt!

Uncertain About the Unknown

As I anticipate my new beginning at Feinstein Middle School in Coventry, my nerves are taking over. I have never worked with middle schoolers before. All of the crazy stereotypes about the age groups have my stomach in knots. What if they are true? What if I can't handle them? 

The one thing I keep telling myself is that I just finished working with high school freshmen in their first quarter of high school. So it can't be too different, right? I am going to go in there with what I know and be open to learn more along with way. I will still need to use my teacher voice that I have established over the past year or so as well as my classroom management skills. 

I may have to switch my teaching persona a little bit in the middle school classroom. I enjoy smiling and joking around with students, but I am not sure how perceptive middle schoolers will be to this. I am eager to get to know my students and learn about the differences between high school and middle school. I am not sure what to expect of a middle school classroom. I am either going to be pleasantly surprised because I am prepared by working with freshmen or surprised at hope different it actually is. Hopefully my nerves will be calmed after observing this week. 

Sad To Say Goodbye

Friday Afternoon. Driving out of North Providence High School. First thought, "I really hope I'm back here for student teaching."

I can honestly say that I had an amazing experience this semester at NPHS. What I thought was going to be a difficult and daunting experience was exactly the opposite. I learned more in the past four weeks with Mrs. Bachini than any other experience I have had in the field thus far. I learned more about classroom management, how to handle students of different levels in one classroom, and most importantly about myself as a teacher.

Out of all the lessons this week, my mini lesson on thesis statements was by far my favorite. students started the class with a chalk talk where they brainstormed everything that they knew about the word "thesis". Next we created a definition based on the key words students had come up with and then created a general thesis statement that students could use as a guideline to writing their own thesis that fit their paper. Then it was time to let their white board markers fly! Students each had their own whiteboard where they could write a thesis, erase, and change as Mrs. Bachini and I walked around the room. I never thought this would be so affective! Each and every student had a thesis when they walked out of the room that day which made the rest of the week of drafting papers that much easier.

The fact that Mrs. Bachini emulates everything that I want to practice in my classroom is what made us a great pair. She was not the stern, by the book teacher. Instead, she smiled and joked with the students while still maintaining the respect of the students. She managed to have the students get work done while keeping a comfortable environment. This is one of the things I admire most and can not wait to practice in my own classroom!

I am excited to continue on my path to becoming a teacher and I hope there are a few more stops at NPHS along the way.

Working with a Common Task

This past Friday I taught my first lesson at NPHS with my period five freshman. When I found out I was going to be teaching a common task, I was a skeptical. I had horrible experiences with common tasks when I was in High School and was also a little disappointed that I would not be able to create my own lessons and teach something that I came up with. However, with a little reworking, my cooperating teacher and I turned the static common task into a scaffolded assignment that helps students through the process of the poetry common task.

Day one was not much of a "teaching" day but more of a "facilitating" day. I presented the first piece of the assignment to the students. they would be researching poets from the list on the common task. Since my TC and I decided to scaffold, we decided to only introduce the first part of the assignment. With the instructions "find a poem from the list of poets (or another teacher approved poet) that you can find poetic elements and a theme/meaning in" the students got to work on the computers.

It was interesting to see the different dynamic floating throughout the room. There were a group of boys who immediately gravitated towards Tupac's poetry (surprise!) and a group of girls who looked to their childhood favorite Shel Silverstein. Some were done quicker than others and even began analyzing, as we had done in class the day before. There were some students who needed suggestions and the extra push. But by the end of the period I collected a poem from each student and am excited to get to work with them in tomorrows class!

The Light At The End Of My Tunnel

After a long, stressful week of trying to work around my class schedule, my cooperating teacher’s schedule, and the NECAP craziness, I was FINALLY able to come up with a solution that not only worked, but worked out to my full advantage. Because my CT only teacher two English classes (the other two are reading classes specific to testing) I was not able to see her two classes every time I was available to be at NPHS. However, the solution ended up working to my advantage. During Mrs. Bachini’s prep periods, she has been kind enough to set me up with other teachers in the English department so I can observe their classrooms.

At first I was a little skeptical. How was I going to learn about the class I was going to teach if I was spending so much time in random classes during my observation and assisting time? Truth is, bouncing around different classroom and seeing different methods of teaching has actually given me the feeling that I could stand in the front of almost ANY classroom and teach a lesson. I have seen the period five class that I am going to teach about 3 times now (and will see them once more before I teach) and that is sufficient enough for me. I have learned their names and have learned that there are no extreme modifications that need to be made and I am willing to challenge myself to teach students that I don’t know all that well. That is what teachers do in the beginning of the year anyways isn’t it?

This week I have been lucky enough to sit in on Mrs. Bachini’s English classes a few times each as well as Ms. Masso’s College writing class and Mrs. P’s Writing Workshop class. All of my experiences have given me some great strategies to use in the classroom. In Ms. Masso’s College Writing class, I heard some of the most awesome literacy narratives ever! It is amazing to me how well her students could write. Being that writing is my favorite part about the English classroom, their reading of their pieces was like music to my ears and I did not want the period to be over. Likewise, I heard some journal entries that tenth grade students wrote in Mrs. P’s Witting Workshop class and felt the same excitement.

As I enter my third week and North Providence High School I am excited to begin planning my weeks worth of lessons. Mrs. Bachini and I have been talking a lot about the common assessment the students have to complete and think that it is a good idea to break it up and work on it step by step in class with the freshmen. I am excited to adapt a common task to my own teaching strategies and come up with ways to help students feel that the common task is more than simply something they have to do in order to pass the class. I felt this way about common tasks in high school and wish someone had taken the time to try and adapt them to make them more interesting for me, so that is exactly what I plan to do. 

Good Teachers Think On Their Toes

Ten days. I have to wait ten whole days before I can get back into the classroom and really begin what I have set out to do. The first day was totally observational. I took a back seat (literally) and watched. Period one, reading class. Period two, test and power outage. Period four, reading class. Period five, test. While it was disappointing that I was not able to observe much "teaching time", I feel like I learned a lot about classroom management skills and how to deal with spontaneous situations that you as the teacher have no control over.

Mrs. Bachini took the extended class time due to the power outage and used it as a teaching opportunity for the freshmen. When the lights went out and the students had to stay in Period two for an extra fifteen minutes, I was worried that the classroom would turn to chaos due to the curiosity and unplanned nature of the power outage. However, I was pleasantly surprised that this mishap was used as a teaching experience.

The students sat in their desks intently listening to every single word Mrs. Bachini had to say as if she were telling them how to win a million dollars. Topic of conversation: the lockdown drill. Mrs. Bachini began with going over the general procedure but then (after getting the reassurance from the dean that it was due to a fallen telephone pole) she told her students that if there were an emergency and no way of communicating with each other, they may be in danger. When I say that you could hear a pin drop in the room, I'm not joking. Each and every student sat in their desk with their eyes fixated at the front of the room. After Mrs. Bachini was done with her "this is serious business" speech, the power came back on and the students carried on with their day.

I could not believe how quickly Mrs. Bachini thought to use the time. If she had not had something to say to the students who knows what the classroom would have looked like. I'm excited to see more of her teaching strategies and add to my teacher toolbox.

Beginning a Journey...

Thinking back to my high school experience, one word comes to mind: DULL. Sure I was the girl with an amazing group of friends, good grades, and the extra curricular activities to match, but each day mirrored the next. I would go to school, hang out with my friends in the hallways, make my way from class to class, sit in the same seat, and listen to the teacher. The only exciting things that happened were the things outside of the classroom. A fun classroom activity was rare, even more rare was a fun activity that actually engaged students (myself included). My English classes were just as monotonous as were my days. They were like directions for washing your hair: read, write, repeat. The assignments were generic, the teachers barely varied their instruction from what the curriculum stated. My brother is assigned the SAME books, essays, and common tasks that I was assigned four years ago; I think that says it all.

As I enter North Providence High School for the second consecutive semester on Monday morning, I am sure that I will once again be amazed at how different their high school experience is from what I experienced. I loved everything about North Providence High School the first time around and cannot wait to see what it has in store for me as I begin my new journey. NPHS is a place where the students feel welcomed and are encouraged to try new things that challenge them in hopes of making them better students and over all better people in their community. Because I am a huge advocate for creating classroom community and learning things in the classroom outside of the novels and textbooks, NPHS is a great fit for me. I also strongly believe in student centered learning and engaging student activities. The classroom I was placed in last semester was amazing in all of these respects and I can’t wait to see what my new classroom adds to my teacher toolbox.

I am excited to meet the students that I will be working with over the next month and the new teacher who will be my mentor through out the process. The idea of getting to observe the classroom is also very exciting for me. I love watching the students’ responses to different tasks and questions, seeing what works, and making notes of what to do in my own classroom someday. Having the opportunity to observe someone who is described as "an amazing teacher" is also something I look forward to and will take as a valuable learning experience. A sense of eagerness masks my fear as I begin planning my lessons and start thinking about all of my plans to engage the students. I'm excited to put what I have learned into practice and begin my trial and error process as I create my teacher identity. 

What’s on my mind as I think about going into the schools next week you ask? Excitement is my answer. I can't wait to get back into the classroom.