passion.

For awhile there I was getting concerned about my apathy in the classroom. I was having a challenging time with my Algebra I 9th graders and I just was not feeling was was happening in the English classroom. I had never thought I would feel unmotivated about teaching (especially so soon).

BUT then, my mentor teacher allowed me to plan the poetry unit and my passion came back again. Hw fun is it to design a unit that could possibly ignite students' creativity and curiosity? Man, there's power in it. But not the type of power that lords over people, but rather the power to motivate, to encourage, to engage.

So far, the plans for my classes have worked and not worked, which is great, yet humbling to witness. I am thankful that I get to try out my ideas in the classroom because I will be more prepared for next year.

One activity that went very well centered around the concept of literary devices. I had students building things with K'Nex and Legos to connect with how a poet may use certain tools to construct poem. Then students broke off into groups. Each group was given a sheet with three sets of lyrics on it, all three sets exhibiting the same literary device. Students had to "discover" and construct a definition of the literary device demonstrated by their sets of lyrics. After they had constructed their definition, teams were split up to teach people from the other teams. I assessed student learning based on the definitions they wrote down along with how they were able to apply their definitions to another poem. It was fantastic! I saw students collaborating and teaching themselves the definitions of literary devices. I struggled somewhat with certain devices and students not being able to see the common theme among lyrics. I always am motivated to learn more questioning techniques so that I am not just tempted to tell the students the answer. But all in all, I was impressed with my students. And I found a lot of great music while picking out lyrics. My favorite: On to the Next One by Jay-Z. Check it out.

Live bloggin'!

good question.

During the commute back from my placement, my "carpool buddy" and I usually either get pretty riled up about what happened during the day or we feel like we are going to be eternally depressed. On one of these commutes last week, my bud asked disturbing, yet thought-provoking question, which I am sure has been asked before:"How do you teach those who do not want to learn?".

I find myself still pondering that now. My thoughts cannot help but be influenced by my faith and here's why: one of God's greatest acts of love towards his children was to give them free will. If there is no free will within a society, there cannot be love, since love is a choice. It is a choice whether you return someone's love or not. It is and always will be a choice for me to love my students (because let's be honest, they don't always earn it). 

So since love is the very reason I find myself in the classroom today, how do I allow my students to have free will while I am teaching them? How does this mesh with the fact that I am the authority in the classroom and there are boundaries that cannot be crossed especially concerning respect for classmates? Can I force my students to learn even when they do not want to?

In my classroom, as of right now, I seem to naturally take the "I'll try to convince them lovingly to learn" approach. I'll kneel down next to an unmotivated student and communicate that what they are learning is valuable to their lives and their future, that I teach because I care about them, not because I want to torture them. But this gets old coming out of my mouth real fast. I mean, it's true, but it gets old.

And I know the easy answer is that students do have a choice whether to learn or not, they just have to suffer the consequences to failure, which is true in all parts of life. But unmotivated students sometimes affect my teaching and other students' learning. And if they choose not to learn, it is so hard to watch them fail. 

I am out of thoughts, do you have any?

dealin' in the D.

About a week ago, I visited the classroom of a math instructor, Mr. Boehm, that I know from Wayne State where he teaches in the Honors program. He is also the co-founder of Math Corps, a summer camp that reaches out to Detroit Public School students; I worked for this program for three years and it's the reason why I want to be a teacher.

For one hour, four times a week, Mr. Boehm teaches math to a class of sixth graders as Thurgood Marshall Elementary in Detroit. He has always wanted me to visit and watch him interact with "his kids". So I finally took him up on it...

All I can say is when the bell rang signaling the end of class and the students filed out of the classroom, I began to weep. I has just witnessed such a beautiful thing within the confines of that little crusty classroom. Students were engaged in learning; they couldn't get their hands up fast enough. Sixth grade students were discovering the rules of exponents from patterns, and they were into it! 

I wish I could attribute what I saw happening in the classroom to magic, but I just don't believe in that stuff. Reflecting back to that day, I can recognize some teacher moves performed by Mr. Boehm that must have created a safe enough classroom for students to explore the realm of mathematics:

Nicknames: Mr. Boehm relates to his students enough to nickname them. There was a Beyonce, and Destiny's Child, a Muffin Man, a Sir Robert, and he even nicknamed me--Princess Leah! The nicknames added a sense of warmth to the room and a sense of community among students. Muffin Man is no longer sitting by some girl, but rather a girl worthy of the name Destiny's Child. The nicknames obviously add some fun to the mathematical mix as well.

The Star: At the beginning of the class, Mr. Boehm draws a star on the board. Throughout the period, whenever a student does something honorable, like allow another classmate to answer a question, Mr. Boehm will put the student's initial on one of the edges of the star. If the class does something well as a whole, he will put the letter "C" on an edge of the star. He is praising the kids in a simple way. Even though there is no gift such as candy or extra points involved, the students respond to Mr. Boehm's offer of encouragement.

Non-verbal: In Mr. Boehm's classroom, when someone is answering a question or offering something to the class, all the other students are supporting their fellow classmates by rotating one forearm around the other. If the students agree with the statement, they shake their hands in the air. If they don't agree, they move their arms like an ump does to signal a runner is safe. If they are confused by the statement, they wave only one hand. The movements build a community and provide space for students to respond to and support one another.

Respect: Before even answering a question or providing a general statement, the student must address the rest of the class with: "My esteemed colleagues...", and when I was their they addressed the class with: "My esteem colleagues and my esteemed visitor...". Students honor and respect one another. 

Discovery: This is what drives Mr. Boehm's students. He does not simply provide students with the formulas and rules necessary to get math problems right. Students discover the rules by looking for patterns. While I was there students discovered that any time you have a base with an exponent and you multiply it by a a number with the same base but different exponents, you add the exponents. And students were so excited that they had discovered something of this magnitude. 

The atmosphere of Mr. Boehm's classroom did not just happen on accident. He set up his classroom deliberately for an effective learning experience. I can't wait to try some of his ways in my future classroom.

Ohhh, the things we learn in tech class...

We learned how to make claymation movies in our tech class today! You can tell we are novice claymakers...Enjoy! WARNING: the last scene is graphic, if you need to close your eyes please do so.

blog it up.

My methods instructor began our class on Tuesday with journal prompts. I needed to tae the quote below and explain what it had to do with teaching English; since I have been mulling over the purpose of teaching English as a high school subject I picked this prompt and the words overflowed:

“To speak of mere words is much like speaking of mere dynamite.”

Neither exists, mere words nor mere dynamite. (They could exist merely but they would not be worth much, if anything.) Dynamite is nothing except for its power, and the same goes with words. When we teach English, we teach students the power of words—their power to communicate, to bring forth emotion, to encourage, to wound, to inspire, to defeat, to manipulate, to relate to or with people, to connect, to ruin. As teachers, we do not merely teach words or the order of words or the interpretation of words, but how to use them to the benefit or harm of people, to the growth or atrophy of society.

Would kids be as disengaged as I have witnessed if this is what we communicated as the goal/philosophy/adventure/purpose of teaching and learning English?

why oh why?

I got myself to thinking during my prep hour...

Watching my teacher do her thing up front could easily get myself in a trap. She makes it look so easy, like I could just skip on up there, open my mouth and let good things pour out. And kids would ace their tests, pass their standardized exams, graduate, and go to Harvard. I know that is not the case though. My mentor takes time to prepare her lessons; she has the whole year planned out and is very organized. 

What guides her planning though? I know that Romulus is given curriculum guidelines and standards to meet due to being branded with "D" for their AYP. How does my mentor plan her lessons knowing her students must live up to state standards and that if they don't, Romulus will lose more money? What are her objectives as an English teacher?

My methods class shed some light on why I may be thinking the way I am...we took a test that determines the way we learn and I came out as an abstract random learner Oh how I love tests that tell me about myself! I say this sarcastically as well as literally because the outcome was actually right on...I think of things in terms of the whole. I need to know why I think English is an important subject for students to learn in order to teach on a daily basis. What is it that I want my students to leave my class with? What tools, what ideas, what passions will they need to take on the world that I can supply them with as an English teacher? 

When I know the answers to these questions (and I have a feeling they will evolve) I will better be able to lesson plan. One of my worse nightmares is that my teaching, my time, my work will be futile. I mean, I know that one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher was and still is to pour into students' lives, to love them, believe in them, help them to see their value and worth but I could have done that as a youth pastor or as a social worker. Why do I think education is so important?

I would really love to read some of your thoughts on how this pertains to your subject matter. Why do you think it is important for your students to study language/math/social studies/science? What do you want to equip them with for their lives? What legacy do you want to leave as a teacher? Why did you choose education as a career?

Give it to me.