Poetry Contest

I started out the day of April 12 realizing that I had lost my wallet. I still went to my observation time, but in a somewhat bad mood. Well, every day after lunch the kids in the whole school watch a news report that's made for junior and high school students--this one had a portion about the war in Iraq. A couple of students were messing around during this, and the hairs on my head flared up. I wasn't mean, I don't think, but I had a clearly offended tone while I told them to watch because this is an issue dealing with the war that their country is in right now. That it's kind of important. It was all in the tone. Once that outburst was done, I was better, but I feel a little bad that I said it while in a mood. Self-control is very important when dealing with Junior Highers.

The rest of the day went well, though. They had a poetry contest in the school or county or something, I don't know. So, kids were working on poems to enter and all of them could have entered, too, they did so well on their poems. Mrs. Garcia said that she starts poetry during CSAP week because it's funner for the students after taxing their brains for hours. I was very impressed with some of the poems, most actually, and had a good time reading them. I organized the entries and graded some other papers that day, too.

Truancy Court

On March 20, I got to attend a session of truancy court. They held it in the school because it was CSAP week and kids couldn't be in both morning court and testing at the same time. It lasted for only an hour and it was very interesting. There were quite a few teachers there who came to speak on behalf of students whether to confirm their truancy/behavior or to affirm that the students were doing well.
There was one particularly serious case in which a young man was in danger because of gang action; it was very hard to see; this young man was in the middle of a mess that his parents put him in--and what can we as teachers do? I wanted to take him home with me and adopt him, but of course that could never happen with all the students that need a good home.
Overall, the court was very challenging and eye-opening to another facet of a teacher's job.

I really enjoyed taking the Meyers-Briggs test. I like learning about myself, but I'm an intrapersonal learner; I also already knew all that about myself. I had my boyfriend take it over the phone. I am an ISTJ and he is an ESFJ. I would like to see how compatible the author of this test would think our types are, but he seems to put weight on SJ's and NJ's or NP's and whatever that other two-letter type is; so I figure that if we have that in common, we're probably in good shape. I don't really put much weight on the test, but it is a glance at certain tendencies one might have, including knowing what kind of people one might not get along with.

As for the Multiple Intelligences, I am three different kinds of learner: logical/mathematical, musical, and intrapersonal. I was the only logical/mathematical, but being that really explains how I am able to learn in almost any learning environment--I'm really lucky that way. But I learn best in an organized atmosphere, otherwise I can organize it myself and still learn, just not as efficiently. I really hope to integrate the MI methods of teaching into my classroom, especially if I'm teaching English Language Learners overseas--you have to make language fun!

How do you teach 8th graders literary terms? Onomatopeia, personification, metaphor/simile, and the list goes on. I hardly remember the terms sometimes. How do I teach them these terms so that they can retain them? It takes repetition--do I cycle through my entire curriculum four times a year? That would be ideal, but not realistic. Then I'm supposed to teach them grammar, plus writing, plus reading? And half of them aren't even at 8th grade level: there are ELL's, lazy students, transfers, etc. And I have to get them to the point where they can pass the CSAP? Oy! I think I'll stick with teaching them to think. Maybe that's the strategy I need to start with. If a student can think, s/he can do anything.

Over the last two weeks, I have been faithfully observing Mrs. Garcia and the kids in her classroom. The majority of her students are hispanic, some are ELLs, some aren't. Their heights range from 4 feet to 6 feet. At 12 and 13, they already have swearing habits; most don't like to listen and most don't like school, especially reading and grammar. Mrs. Garcia consistently challenges these students to expect more of themselves. I haven't observed a day where she didn't give them homework. She separates the students who need to be separated and does a pretty good job of keeping most of the engaged, which still requires that you repeat yourself two or three extra times.
I am challenged mostly with the kids' attitudes. They especially don't want to listen to me because I'm not the teacher. When they say that I usually shock them by saying that they are correct--I'm not the teacher, but I do want to see them learn and not distracting to themselves or to others. I constantly think about what I would do if I was the teacher, though. The students don't have to listen, but if they don't what am I supposed to do? There are few consequences for trouble-makers in the classroom. That is the #1 thing I'm going to have to figure out before I start teaching--discipline. I have to know the rules, follow through with them, and not be intimidated; plus I'm supposed to teach! I don't know how some teachers do it.

My first week of observations

I am observing an 8-grade Reading/Language Arts classroom. As I am from Washington State, I don't know a whole lot about the Colorado public education system, but Ms. Linda Garcia (my classroom teacher) has enlightened me on a few things and also on a few "tricks of the trade."

The state, it seems, has really buckled down on getting kids to read, so they have this "Accelerated Reader" program with certain novels the kids can read and computerized tests to assess their comprehension. Very interesting. Ms. Garcia has her students complete one book and a test every month--a big feat for an eighth grader, but very good for them. The state has also mandated that Junior highers read the book, "The Outsiders," as it deals with many of the social issues that students daily deal with. I haven't read it yet, but I hope to borrow one and read it soon.

The kids seem to respect Ms. Garcia quite a bit, so I'm glad that I got put in her classroom. She also has a lot of strategies that I can learn from. She gives the kids cartoon vocabulary and has them write down the words and make sentences out of them--that exercise includes many different learners from visual to kinesthetic. A simple strategy she suggested, also, is to write down the names of students, who have missed a class(es) and subsequently have missed homework, on the homework sheets so that I don't have to remember later on what homework they missed. It's little things like that that are good to know ahead of time.

All in all, observation is going well. I definately like the kids and they definately have multiple struggles from English-language learning to attitudes, but that's the challenge of the job!

On "Tough Choices or Tough Times"

I really enjoyed this article, I have to say. For a while I have been thinking that the structure of the public education system needs to be torn down and rebuilt and all of the sudden this article comes into my hands. I don't know how much math the author's done or how much research he's done, probably a good amount, but he makes some big claims so I'm not completely convinced. But I liked it enough that I sent copies to a teacher ed student, a college professor, and the director of Upward Bound, all in Omak, WA. The college professor said that she might have her students read it in her Social Problems class - I think that if we spread the message it will multiply because people are ready for change. I don't know how perfect the plan is, but it's a start to trying to better our educational system.