New Year, New School, New Everything

Honestly, until now, I haven't had much of an opportunity to update this because I haven't had a chance to catch my breath. Here's the happenings since mid-August:

Aug. 22 - Went to the new teacher fair - what a waste of time. The only thing I really went for was my placement. I got the info and went home, excited to discover where I was placed. At least I was until I found out that I was assigned to an elementary school in the East Bronx. I'm not an elementary teacher, and while I am certified for elementary theatre, I doubt that's why I was being sent there. I let my recruiter - a wonderful woman hailing from Texas who helped me immensely - know what was up and she was on the case.

First days of Sept. - The DOE sent out our new assignment information and while I was being sent to a high school, it was still in the East Bronx. SuperRecruiter was on it again, trying to get me switched to Region 10 or 1 (I'd signed up for Manhattan - coming in from Jersey, anything else was a pain). Yet, I still had to report to the school in the Bronx on the 6th to get paid.

Labor Day Weekend - Last blissful days where I forced myself to have fun on a mini vacation.

Sept. 6th - It took me four trains and almost 2 hours to get there, but I showed up for work at 8am. No one knew what to do with me or where to put me, so I spent most of the day standing around. I met the English Dept. and they were really great. A waste of a day mostly.

Sept. 7th - I showed up at the same school with the instruction to go to the Brooklyn recruiting fair that afternoon to get everything straightened out. I really liked the school. I met the principal and was asked if I would consider Special Education. I have experience in Spec Ed, so I gave it some serious thought that afternoon. I emailed my recruiter to let her know that I had opted to stay at the UberHuge High School in the Bronx - the whole "devil you know" thing.

Sept. 8th - I left the afternoon before thinking I knew what was going on, but when I got there, the region transfer I had requested two weeks before had gone in overnight. So, again, I waited as everything was sorted out. The first class I met was my 5th period class. I also had a 6th period and an 8th period ESL that was going to be switched off my program shortly.

Sept. 9th - Met the rest of my students, did some "getting to know you" activities. One student in my 6th period class actually told me, "Miss, school is not for games." He was dead serious. Ugh.

Sept 12th - I finally figured out (mostly) what was going on and had a decent day. The ESL class was moved to someone else, and I was given another English class 1st period. I now had 5 Freshman Self-contained Special education English classes.

Sept 13th - I met my 1st period class for the first time - they were a little rough because they liked their teacher and all of the sudden she was gone. The tested me at every turn.

Enough for now... I'll write about the rest of September and October next time.

Reflection 3/28/05-4/1/05

I had the best class period and the worst class period this week. On Monday, we started the poetry unit. I was nervous because some of the initial reactions to poetry were negative. I handed out and read one of my favorite pieces - a slam poem by Steve Colman entitled, "I Wanna Poem." The students were very receptive. It was like someone replaced my class with kids I had never seen before. We actually had a class wide discussion about what poetry was. Granted, a few kids still did not participate, but many did. It was exciting. Their enthusiasm has actually made me more excited about teaching poetry.

On the other hand, 5th period Thursday was a low point in all of my teaching experience. A fight broke out in our classroom between two students. It had been building for some time and one of the boys snapped after the other said something to him yet again. I ran to find security, but they were gone. We got another (large, male) teacher to pull them apart. Both boys were banged up, but mostly okay. It took me well over an hour to calm down. I wish I had known more about what to do in this situation, but rarely does a student teacher get that information. I am not upset about what I did - it made sense - but I wish I could have done more. There was no way I could pull them apart, so I concentrated on making the other students safe and getting help. On Friday, many of us were still shaken up. The boy who said the comment was in our classroom again, although we had been promised he would be suspended (it is not his first infraction.) But, there he was. Fortunately, the other boy was not in school that day, although he sent a note to Ms. Summers, apologizing for what he had done. The student has been switched out of two of his classes to keep them apart and hopefully this will help the situation.

Another school shooting or why am I doing this?

There was another high school shooting today, this time in upper Minnesota where a kid shot his grandparents, then went school and killed three of his classmates, a teacher, a security guard and himself. They say it's the worst shooting since Columbine. It's disheartening that this happens, but after working in a couple of different high schools, I can see how it does.

There is a student that I work with who has some serious issues. He is crying out for attention in very unhealthy ways. My supervisor has reported the incidents to the administration and the guidance counselors, but they refuse to do anything. This is going to be the kid that hurts someone. I don't see him opening fire on the schools, but he's more likely to hurt one or two individuals and himself. Yet if he could get some help now, we may be able to prevent this.

My dad asked me why I want to teach in NYC with all the violence in schools these days. My answer to him was that the most violent incidents have happened in the nice suburban schools, not the intercity. Nowhere is really safe, and if I can reach out to that kid, maybe I can help prevent more violence.

Reflection 3/14/05-3/18/05

Not a lot happened this week. I'm still not getting a lot of assignments, but because of the end of the marking period (which fell on Wednesday) and few kids turned in their late work. Late is better than never. It frustrates me how many of the students come to class regularly, yet don't turn in the assignments. I've given them time in class to work on them, seen that they are producing pieces in peer editing workshops, but I never see the final draft. I don't know what more i can do.
I have one student who I am having a problem with. One girl in my creative writing class gives me a lot of attitude every day. When she needs help, she goes to Ms. Summers for it, blatantly passing me. I also don't know what to do about her. Monica says that there really isn't much I can do. She said she had a student like her last year and it is annoying, but it's up to her. As long as she isn't hurting anyone else, I should just let her go or give her attitude back. I'm not sure which approach is better. I'm wary of the attitude idea, but if it works, then it's good. I think I'll play it out and see what happens.
Other than that, it was a quiet week.

Reflection 3/7/05-3/11/05

Last week, I began using peer editing in the classroom. Most, if not all of the students had done some sort of peer editing before, so I gave the class a few guidelines, told them to exchange papers, and let them go. Very soon, however, it disintegrated into social time or time to work on their piece. depending on the student.

I tried to figure out how to keep the students more on task and engaged in the editing process. The first step I took was to add two things to the week's assignement: they are required to turn in a draft and a peer editing worksheet with their final paper. I did this primarily to make sure the students understand that I feel more than one draft and peer editing are important.

On Thursday, we had our peer editing workshop. I developed a worksheet for each students to fill out while working on their partner's paper. On it were items like, "What was the main point of the piece?" and "A brief summary of the piece." I also included something positive and about the piece and something the author could improve. I wasn't sure how this would work - I was afraid that the students would interpret this as "busy" work, but I briefly explained the sheet and turned them loose.

It took a couple of minutes for the students to settle in, but everyone was taking the editing workshop more seriously than last week. After the students filled out the sheet, I overheard many students discussing the pieces and what they wrote on the sheets. I was very happy with the outcome. It seems that they simply needed a little more focus to the workshop and the editing sheet provided the direction. I will definitely use this in the future!

Reflection 2/28/05-3/4/05

My first assignment was due this past Monday - the character sketch which I had assigned before break. I was a little disheartened when only four students turned it in on time. Two more came in later in the week. I went by Ms. Summers policy and late papers were dropped a third of a grade per day late (B+ became a B after one day, etc.).

Monica let me do all of the grading and I was a little nervous. I had only given checks for their daily assignments - I only want them to write each day, and I don't feel it is fair for me to evaluate it. To grade the character sketches, I reviewed the assignment sheet and underlined all of the requirements for the paper. This way, I created a rubric to evaluate the papers.

The biggest issue that arose from the papers was a severe lack of editing. It was obvious that most students did not even reread their papers. Tenses didn't match, sentences were missing words, wrong words were used (the type that spell check would catch. I was a little worried about this and brought it up when we did peer editing this week. I told them what to look for and hopefully it will help. I'm not holding my breath though. For our next assignment, I am including much more specific editing guidelines on the assignment sheet. I know that these kids know this stuff - they've proved it to me in other pieces they've written. They just aren't taking an extra moment to reread their work and move their paper from a B to an A. I will continue to look for ways to motivate them to do so.

Reflection - week of 2/14/05-2/18/05

Right on schedule, we hit the third week of the semester and I took over the class. I am the primary teacher for the 12th grade Creative Writing class. My first lesson was on Tuesday and I focused on characterization. I gave them a handout listing 34 traits that a student could think about when developing their character sketch, which I also assigned. The lesson was okay - not bad for a first lesson, but there was a lot I could improve on. First, I need to develop a structure that works for me - one that I can use often and that the students will learn to expect. My main problems and with the beginning and end because neither are clear enough.

Wednesday was a significant improvement. I tinkered with the structure a little and the lesson felt better. I still feel awkward about the beginning of class, mainly because we rarely have more than four students at that point. The rest come in late, making an obvious beginning hard to manage. The middle of the lesson was fun - the class completed sentences describing age through actions or various traits. They were reluctant to share however. I finally got a few to share a sentence that they wrote and I was happy about that - gotta start small.

On Thursday, Michael joined us. My main issues were the same as the day before - beginning was weak and because of timing, there was no closing. Michael and I discussed what to do about the introduction to the lesson and I suggested the idea I got from a colleague. Each day, the "do now" is a journal entry. Each student is required to write five pages a week. If they show up only two times, they can write 2 and a half pages a day. This way, the time isn't wasted, the students are writing, and I have something to help begin my lesson. I just have to clear this with Monica.

Friday was independent reading day, so not a lot happened. The students are required to read at least one book each marking period and do a project which Ms. Summers had assigned. Overall, I think the week went fairly well. It wasn't perfect, but if it had been, I wouldn't need to do student teaching. I've been able to narrow down a few things to work on - beginnings, endings, and overall lesson structure - so now I have a direction for my future lesson planning.

Reflections - Week of Feb. 7-11

There is a big difference this week compared to last week in terms of student behavior and responsiveness. Last week, it was as if Ms. Summers was a new teacher meeting her students for the first time. Since she was absent for much of the fall semester due to complications after surgery, her students had a number of substitute teachers who took over her classes. When she returned last Tuesday, she had to start from scratch. In many of her classes, the students adapted to the change well and there were few problems when Ms. Summers returned. Yet one class, the 9th grade ramp-up class, had a harder time. Several students in the class have discipline issues already and the inconsistency of teachers led to a lack of focus in the class. Last week was rough - the students seemed to be testing Ms. Summers and pushing the limits as much as they could. After seeing issues the first afternoon, Ms. Summers took a step back and reviewed the rules and procedures on the second day. The students did focus and little more, but still spoke out and came quite late.

On Friday, I wasn't around for the 7th period class (the second half of the ramp-up curriculum is split due to scheduling issues) but Ms. Summers went off on the students. While not a method she or I would normally encourage, the students seemed to respond to the verbal lashing and Monday was amazingly different. A large chunk of 5th period is spent on Independent Reading. On Monday, the students came in, and with only a little encouragement, got their notebooks and read quietly for almost the whole period. Tuesday was the same thing, and it has been ever since.

I'm not sure I would have gone about it the same way, but obviously something worked. Ms. Summers has much more control over all of her classes this week and it's been much more productive because of it. I know one of the problems I had last semester was that I had a hard time being tough on the students, but I have a feeling that part of that was the age of the students (they were 4th and 5th graders.) While I usually believe that if you have to yell at a class, you've already lost control, it can show that you are serious and lead to significant change. Another former supervisor yelled at her unruly class the day she returned from an absence and heard that they had behaved badly for the substitute. Consequently, the class was much better behaved when she was again absent. I think it depends on the class and how well the teacher knows that class. Ms. Summers knew that it was what her class needed, so it worked.

Student Teaching, Part II

Here we go again - student teaching time. I spent last semester in a fourth and fifth grade classroom, but I feel that this is the placement that will count, since I want to teach high school.

It's been a hectic process, though, to get my placement. I was originally assigned to Legacy School on 14th Street. I met with the AP and two teachers who were both excellent. I was excited about working at that school, but felt that I wasn't wanted. It turned out that they only wanted someone with a subbing license because the one teacher was pregnant and they wanted someone to take over for them. Therefore, Jerry got the placement and I was moved to Humanities High School.

Humanities is very interesting - it's undergoing some major transitions, so it's a little unorganized. Basically, the larger school is breaking down into four smaller schools - International School of Business for ESL and ELL, Math and Biomedical Sciences, Media and Writing, and the Arts and Music Academy. I was assigned to an English teacher in the AMA and I love it there. My cooperating teacher, Monica Summers, is in only her second year of teaching, but she seems to have an innate understanding of her students and how to make the classroom work best. I've learned a lot already from her, plus we get a long well, which is nice. We actually talk, which is more than at my placement this fall. Here's to a good semester!