“You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.” - Babe Ruth
Here I am again.
I am happy to say that my classes from last week have improved. This week there was no violent occurrences and no instances of nasty nicknames for either teacher in the classroom.
As I stated last week, my coteacher and I had a long meeting that resulted in this plan:
1- Watch a bullying video
2- Reflect on bullying video
- How does the bully make you feel?
- How does the bullied person make you feel?
- What would you DO in this situation?
3- Discuss the answer to questions, focus on question 3.
4- Give the students strategies for how to help as a community in bullying situations.
5- Move on to new rule for bullying situations: 3 strikes and you're out.
- First warning
- Second warning
- Student goes to homeroom (or little room, depending on homeroom teacher) and completes a paper (depends on homeroom teacher and coteacher's previous decision for the lesson)
- When the student finished the paper, they come back to the class.
6- What can get a strike, discuss and explain questions that can't be asked and what sentences can't be said.
- Had to focus this as an American culture unit to satisfy the administration part of paperwork.
- Age, weight, money, politics, appearance.
7- Why we learn English
- Due to students complaints about why we learn English I made a PPT about why we learn English and had them follow along filling in reasons on a worksheet. Then they glued the worksheet into their books.
- When they complained about why they learned English at all later, I could tell them to reference the sheet.
I had to spend an entire 40 minute lesson doing this. It was very interesting to see the student's reactions to question three.
Most students said they would do nothing or ignore it. They said it was none of their business to become involved. Some students said they would tell a teacher, but not talk to the bully or the bullied person, but they were a minority.
I talked with the class and I discussed how the classroom is our community and we should help one another when there is a bullying situation.
The students seemed very shocked that they should be held responsible for each other. I told them what I would do if I saw something bad happening outside. I would call the police or offer help if it was safe.
The student's were also shocked at what I would find offensive. It was a large discussion and many questions were asked to me about it.
I told them that constantly asking the weight of a person was seen as very rude AND that offering "advice" was also seen as rude. (You should cut your hair. That skirt is ugly.)
During the why we learn English part of the lesson, students where extremely surprised to see how MANY people speak English in the world. They also learned of all the different jobs that require English.
One of the most surprising and asked about was the fact that K-pop stars usually know a good amount of English. (Even if it is scripted)
Many of the students seemed to enjoy the lesson and many students had their preconceived notions challenged.
I did have to use the strike system for 2 of the students, and the first time it was interesting, but once the student was out of the classroom for a short time, it gave the rest of the class time to reset back to normal.
The next class I had with my biggest challenging class was much better!
The students told my co-teacher and I that they decided to assign someone to "be in charge of" the biggest bully in our class. If the bully hurts another student then the one in charge will scold them and take care of it in the homeroom after class.
I was shocked they discussed my class in their homeroom and decided to do that on their own.
As I said to Kevan "I put my faith in them, but I was worried my risk wouldn't pay off."
My faith in myself and my classes ability has been renewed and I couldn't be more proud of my classes.
Now that I have tackled the beast that is classroom management. I will move on to the next challenge of ever changing paper work in my admin. work. But that is for another blog.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
A rock and a hard place
Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.
- Rene Descartes
This week has not been a good week.
I write this blog reflection, because as much as I try to write about other things in a reflection blog, I simply cannot.
My first dilemma in my classroom is the relationship between my students, my co-teacher and me.
One class this year has been especially difficult in teaching this year. To put this in perspective I teacher about 440 students a year with 8 classes in fifth grade and 7 classes in sixth grade.
One class, we will call it class A, is not a bad class all together, but 3 students in it, actively try to disrupt the classroom. In class A, these students come in and immediately try to change their seats so that they sit next to each other. Then when asked to move back, they will argue with my co-teacher in a very aggressive tone.
I don't understand the exchange, but it is very loud and very angry sounding. When they do go back to their seats, they will then try to grab or slap any student who sits near them. When I move them away from others so they can't reach they will leave their seat and yell or insult me. ("You smell! Big nose!")
I wait for them to stop yelling and I give them a choice, they can either finish English time now, or at lunch or break time. They will agree to finish it now and then sit back down and listen for a few minutes before they try to hit or grab other students.
When they are trying to grab or yell at other students this riles up the class. I usually have the students put their heads down at this point and wait for them to be calm for 30 seconds before we resume.
From what my co-teacher says, this gets worse when I am not there. The 3 students take to insulting each other and the teacher. They also run to the open windows to scream out of them during class at other students.
From what my co-teacher has told me, they insult her appearance and her English ability, to the point of giving her a nick name that mixes the words b**** and her name together. They also ask her increasingly private questions and complain if she doesn't answer.
The reason I call it a dilemma is because at the moment I can only see two solutions: changing students relationship to the classroom and/or changing how I teach the classroom. (spoiler: the answer is probably both)
I have talked with other teachers in the school on how to best handle the situation with this class and these students, most of teachers just tell me they are a lost cause. Or that they are like that with every teacher in the school.
I had a meeting with my co-teacher. It was extremely productive, we talked about how we both viewed the student's actions, what we believe could be done about it and what options could be done immediatly.
She said that she didn't want to be a harsh teacher, so she wanted to open up to the students when they asked questions, but felt more and more upset when they asked things like "How much do you make?".
She also thought that if we reduced the amount of tests in the classroom we could make them stop complaining.
I discussed the tests we were doing with the students and why. We decided that the students level of writing was too low for the writing tests we had, so we decided to reduce the amount of questions and refocus what we emphasized in the lesson for writing.
Once we handled why, we then discussed what we could do.
I wanted a way to remove the most seriously offending students from the classroom when they got violent or started yelling insults. I offered two suggestions. The one I wanted was to have have student go to the counseling room and write a reflection or do some sort of written work to give them a chance to calm down and come back to the classroom.
The only problem was the fact that the counseling room, due to budget cuts, didn't have a counselor this year. So, the student would not be able to be attended to, and might destroy things in the room or leave the room and wander the school.
The second suggestion was to send them back to the homeroom teacher. I didn't want to bother the homeroom teacher too much, because most of them are extremely busy with other activities and wouldn't want to have one student to watch for a whole class period.
So, my co-teacher, the homeroom teacher and I all came to a compromise. We would send the student to the homeroom teacher with a little packet of material. (this is to be decided by my co-teacher for the lesson) Once the student finishes the material, they can come back to the classroom to try again.
As a teacher, I will be having a reflection time on Monday with the class. We will be discussing what is okay to ask and what is okay to say in class. We will also be discussing what is NOT okay to say in class and what is NOT okay to ask.
Most of the students probably know this, but this will eliminate the "I didn't know not to ask that." excuses.
I also plan on having a reflection time on bullying. We will watch a short video and have the students reflect on each character, what character they want to be like and why.
The biggest thing I am finding from this reflection is that I can be very forceful in what I believe to be right. I didn't know I could be, but my co-teacher was very passive when she talked to me and every time she suggested something, she would immediately back down from it if I even asked for clarification.
Some of the other teachers have said it is because of my "western voice" but I am unsure of how to change that. I want to be equal with my co-teacher in these decisions, but it feels as if I am taking charge of whole decisions and she just agrees with me.
How can I encourage her to take charge and build her own confidence in the classroom?
Those are the questions I will ponder this week because they are the heaviest on my mind.
- Rene Descartes
This week has not been a good week.
I write this blog reflection, because as much as I try to write about other things in a reflection blog, I simply cannot.
My first dilemma in my classroom is the relationship between my students, my co-teacher and me.
One class this year has been especially difficult in teaching this year. To put this in perspective I teacher about 440 students a year with 8 classes in fifth grade and 7 classes in sixth grade.
One class, we will call it class A, is not a bad class all together, but 3 students in it, actively try to disrupt the classroom. In class A, these students come in and immediately try to change their seats so that they sit next to each other. Then when asked to move back, they will argue with my co-teacher in a very aggressive tone.
I don't understand the exchange, but it is very loud and very angry sounding. When they do go back to their seats, they will then try to grab or slap any student who sits near them. When I move them away from others so they can't reach they will leave their seat and yell or insult me. ("You smell! Big nose!")
I wait for them to stop yelling and I give them a choice, they can either finish English time now, or at lunch or break time. They will agree to finish it now and then sit back down and listen for a few minutes before they try to hit or grab other students.
When they are trying to grab or yell at other students this riles up the class. I usually have the students put their heads down at this point and wait for them to be calm for 30 seconds before we resume.
From what my co-teacher says, this gets worse when I am not there. The 3 students take to insulting each other and the teacher. They also run to the open windows to scream out of them during class at other students.
From what my co-teacher has told me, they insult her appearance and her English ability, to the point of giving her a nick name that mixes the words b**** and her name together. They also ask her increasingly private questions and complain if she doesn't answer.
The reason I call it a dilemma is because at the moment I can only see two solutions: changing students relationship to the classroom and/or changing how I teach the classroom. (spoiler: the answer is probably both)
I have talked with other teachers in the school on how to best handle the situation with this class and these students, most of teachers just tell me they are a lost cause. Or that they are like that with every teacher in the school.
I had a meeting with my co-teacher. It was extremely productive, we talked about how we both viewed the student's actions, what we believe could be done about it and what options could be done immediatly.
She said that she didn't want to be a harsh teacher, so she wanted to open up to the students when they asked questions, but felt more and more upset when they asked things like "How much do you make?".
She also thought that if we reduced the amount of tests in the classroom we could make them stop complaining.
I discussed the tests we were doing with the students and why. We decided that the students level of writing was too low for the writing tests we had, so we decided to reduce the amount of questions and refocus what we emphasized in the lesson for writing.
Once we handled why, we then discussed what we could do.
I wanted a way to remove the most seriously offending students from the classroom when they got violent or started yelling insults. I offered two suggestions. The one I wanted was to have have student go to the counseling room and write a reflection or do some sort of written work to give them a chance to calm down and come back to the classroom.
The only problem was the fact that the counseling room, due to budget cuts, didn't have a counselor this year. So, the student would not be able to be attended to, and might destroy things in the room or leave the room and wander the school.
The second suggestion was to send them back to the homeroom teacher. I didn't want to bother the homeroom teacher too much, because most of them are extremely busy with other activities and wouldn't want to have one student to watch for a whole class period.
So, my co-teacher, the homeroom teacher and I all came to a compromise. We would send the student to the homeroom teacher with a little packet of material. (this is to be decided by my co-teacher for the lesson) Once the student finishes the material, they can come back to the classroom to try again.
As a teacher, I will be having a reflection time on Monday with the class. We will be discussing what is okay to ask and what is okay to say in class. We will also be discussing what is NOT okay to say in class and what is NOT okay to ask.
Most of the students probably know this, but this will eliminate the "I didn't know not to ask that." excuses.
I also plan on having a reflection time on bullying. We will watch a short video and have the students reflect on each character, what character they want to be like and why.
The biggest thing I am finding from this reflection is that I can be very forceful in what I believe to be right. I didn't know I could be, but my co-teacher was very passive when she talked to me and every time she suggested something, she would immediately back down from it if I even asked for clarification.
Some of the other teachers have said it is because of my "western voice" but I am unsure of how to change that. I want to be equal with my co-teacher in these decisions, but it feels as if I am taking charge of whole decisions and she just agrees with me.
How can I encourage her to take charge and build her own confidence in the classroom?
Those are the questions I will ponder this week because they are the heaviest on my mind.
A A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/difficulty.html#SV0PekFbBr8tUzYj.99
Winston Churchill
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/difficulty.html#SV0PekFbBr8tUzYj.99
Thursday, March 13, 2014
We are all in this together
As a public school elementary school teacher, I will always be teaching with a co-teacher. So this video is hers just as much as it mine.
For this lesson I wanted to teach the following things:
1- Underlining reading for key ideas
2- ability to find and read ordinal numbers
3- Foster use of partner for understanding and checking.
I was able to accomplish the use of underlining to find key ideas, every student was able to find and underline the key idea in the reading. Though some of the students did require extra help when it came to reading the words on the page. (some of the students are still learning the letters or how sentences are put together.) These students required their partner to speak aloud the word and point to it, or have a teacher match the number and the word ("Fourth" and "4")
Not all of the students could find and read the ordinal numbers. When answering "Read more", out of 36 students in this class, 2 of the students couldn't identify the difference between fourth and floor. (These are two students I worked with during the partner reading and answering time, there could be more that didn't understand, but I didn't catch any more at that time.)
Fostering the use of partners was very successful for this class. I want to encourage the students to ask each other questions about the reading or point out the key ideas to each other. Some of the students were shy about asking their partner for help, but the more proficient of the pair would usually point out the key words on the page and help the other students.
As for myself...
As I analysed the teaching in my class, I notice that I do a large amount of the talking in class. I dominated the amount of talking in this class. I would like to find a way to include more student talking when it comes to reading and answer, but I am unsure of how to do so.
One of the biggest things I noticed was that I interrupted my co-teacher two times. The first time was during warm up, because I didn't hear her speaking. The second time, my hand with the TV touch pen slipped on the button for the video. I will have to be more mindful of when she is speaking and how she and I can signal when we are done and the other can speak or interject.
I asked her how she feels and what I can do, she said it is something that normally happens between co-teachers and that it is not something that I commonly do in class.
I also repeat myself A LOT!
I will use this to emphasize the key point or word. I feel like I do it too much, but my co-teacher says that the repetition helps the lower level students to have more time to hear my sentence and digest it. She says that is helps the students to focus on the key point when I repeat it.
"Let's go ahead and open your books to page 12. page 12"
The reason I titled this post the way I did, was to bring the focus back on the relationship between my co-teacher and me. While I do lead most of the class and I plan most of activities (I teach 2 out of 3 classes each week and then she teaches 1 alone.), she is extremely important in our classes.
Sometimes it is for the usual reasons, she can translate new or difficult concepts. (examples in video: "Underline" and "Follow with your finger". )
Sometimes it is for her contribution in Korean culture. During the Egyptian part of "Meet the World". She spoke about her experience in a school house in Korea like that. I had no idea about the history of Korean schools and how they had a similar rotation system that was in place due to lack of schools! Her point of view gives the student a personal and deep connection to what they are learning.
Sometimes having her in class is just better in general. With so many students to watch it is extremely helpful to have an extra pair of eyes and hands. If I am taking care of 15 students in one area of the classroom she can take watch over the other 20. If one student needs extra attention during a whole class assignment I can count on her to go over to his/her seat and help that student.
In this reflection, I just want to make sure I remember that while I am learning and growing as a teacher, I have a wonderful resource that many teachers do not have, a co-teacher. While this may present me with different challenges, it more than makes up for it with all the benefits.
For this lesson I wanted to teach the following things:
1- Underlining reading for key ideas
2- ability to find and read ordinal numbers
3- Foster use of partner for understanding and checking.
I was able to accomplish the use of underlining to find key ideas, every student was able to find and underline the key idea in the reading. Though some of the students did require extra help when it came to reading the words on the page. (some of the students are still learning the letters or how sentences are put together.) These students required their partner to speak aloud the word and point to it, or have a teacher match the number and the word ("Fourth" and "4")
Not all of the students could find and read the ordinal numbers. When answering "Read more", out of 36 students in this class, 2 of the students couldn't identify the difference between fourth and floor. (These are two students I worked with during the partner reading and answering time, there could be more that didn't understand, but I didn't catch any more at that time.)
Fostering the use of partners was very successful for this class. I want to encourage the students to ask each other questions about the reading or point out the key ideas to each other. Some of the students were shy about asking their partner for help, but the more proficient of the pair would usually point out the key words on the page and help the other students.
As for myself...
As I analysed the teaching in my class, I notice that I do a large amount of the talking in class. I dominated the amount of talking in this class. I would like to find a way to include more student talking when it comes to reading and answer, but I am unsure of how to do so.
One of the biggest things I noticed was that I interrupted my co-teacher two times. The first time was during warm up, because I didn't hear her speaking. The second time, my hand with the TV touch pen slipped on the button for the video. I will have to be more mindful of when she is speaking and how she and I can signal when we are done and the other can speak or interject.
I asked her how she feels and what I can do, she said it is something that normally happens between co-teachers and that it is not something that I commonly do in class.
I also repeat myself A LOT!
I will use this to emphasize the key point or word. I feel like I do it too much, but my co-teacher says that the repetition helps the lower level students to have more time to hear my sentence and digest it. She says that is helps the students to focus on the key point when I repeat it.
"Let's go ahead and open your books to page 12. page 12"
The reason I titled this post the way I did, was to bring the focus back on the relationship between my co-teacher and me. While I do lead most of the class and I plan most of activities (I teach 2 out of 3 classes each week and then she teaches 1 alone.), she is extremely important in our classes.
Sometimes it is for the usual reasons, she can translate new or difficult concepts. (examples in video: "Underline" and "Follow with your finger". )
Sometimes it is for her contribution in Korean culture. During the Egyptian part of "Meet the World". She spoke about her experience in a school house in Korea like that. I had no idea about the history of Korean schools and how they had a similar rotation system that was in place due to lack of schools! Her point of view gives the student a personal and deep connection to what they are learning.
Sometimes having her in class is just better in general. With so many students to watch it is extremely helpful to have an extra pair of eyes and hands. If I am taking care of 15 students in one area of the classroom she can take watch over the other 20. If one student needs extra attention during a whole class assignment I can count on her to go over to his/her seat and help that student.
In this reflection, I just want to make sure I remember that while I am learning and growing as a teacher, I have a wonderful resource that many teachers do not have, a co-teacher. While this may present me with different challenges, it more than makes up for it with all the benefits.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Don't be the same, be better.
"Don't be the same, be better."
As I start the new school year, that is the thought I will keep in my mind as my goal for this semester. I understand that I am a good teacher. I understand that I have some flaws that are apparent in the classroom and that is nothing to be ashamed of in this class. I will strive to be better. I will strive to use reflective practice more in the classroom and that starts NOW.
Warm Up Reflection:
I set out to make an easy to use, and modify, warm up that would be student centered. It consisted of five different questions and answers. The questions and answers varied in difficulty. The first being "How are you?" With the last being "Where are you from?" The objective of this warm up is to have students choose two out of the five questions to ask and answer with their group members before two minutes have passed. I also gave them the choice of using their own questions and answers if they felt the questions were too easy.
I did feel that I completed my objectives with this warm up. Every student in the classroom asked two questions and answered two questions. The one part that proved difficult was the completing the task in two minutes. Some students could finish the objective in 30 seconds, but others needed about 3 minutes to ask, answer and understand. I am not sure if this was due to it being the first time they did this warm up or if they need more time in the future.
For this warm up I used a powerpoint (PPT) with the five questions and answers (with blanks) on the center TV in the room. I also used music (piano cover of "Love is an Open Door" from the movie Frozen) as a timer for the students. I used the PPT because it is easy to see by all the students and it can be easily changed. I used music for the timer, because I wanted to foster a relaxed atmosphere for the warm up.
One of the techniques I used for the warm up was a small role play example. I chose one student and we asked and answered two questions in front of the students. This technique is usually a good one to use, but in this case, it was not very effective. The students where confused by the original directions (out of five questions choose two) and couldn't understand what I was role playing or why I only did two of the questions from the board. After some Q and A with the students and some translation of the amount of questions needed, four students still didn't understand and needed one on one assistance during the warm up.
I believe this was due to complicated sentences I used to explain the directions ("There are five questions, you should choose two to ask and answer with your group"). When I teach this warm up again I will be simplifying the language ("There are five questions. Choose two. Ask and answer those with your group") and doing more periodic checks of their understanding. I will ask every step of the way and then have them explain it back to me. This has worked before with game directions for complicated games.
Another technique I uses during the warm up was to have the questions on the board to be one color and the answers to be another color. This helped the students to look at their partner during the warm up and then easily be able to look back to the PPT for the next question, or the prompt for the answer. In this PPT I used two colors, black and light blue. In the past I have used blue and orange, but I find the contrast hurts my eyes and always pulls the student's eyes away from any text in blue.
One of the biggest changes I want to make it a visual cue of the time as well. The music is effective, but I find that some student's don't understand when it is about to end. So if I had a bar that drained or a visual indicator of the time it would help students to plan their time accordingly.
I got a lot of positive feedback about the music. Some students even asked me what the English name of the song was after the warm up. I plan on keeping the music to instrumental only, so it doesn't confuse or distract them during warm up. Most students seems to enjoy the music over the timer, and I hope to change the music each warm up time to keep them from making it into white noise.
Overall, this warm up was largely successful. It offers a lot of flexibility for the students' levels and gives me a chance to hear them speak when they first come in to the classroom. It is also a good indicator of level and ability when it comes to the key expressions of the lesson.
One of the most surprising things I found was the amount of students that helped each other to sound out or read the sentences. Most groups of four had at least one student helping another. This was a really positive change from how little I see helping done in class. I hope to continue to foster partner and group help in future activities.
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