No room for embarrasment or shyness

Last week we had our micro teaching day.  Our table groups were sent off to other rooms where we presented a 20/25 minute long lesson to the rest of our group.  We were taped and now we are supposed to watch the video and reflect (OMFG - another reflection!!!!) on the experience. 

I think that watching the video is one of the hardest things I've done so far since I came back to school.  It took me a whole weekend of building up my courage before I could bear to make it play.  I've always hated being taped.  I'm not sure why, but it triggers an incredible feeling of embarrassment for me.  I worry about looking stupid.  Or maybe, finding out that I did look stupid.  But thanks to an incredible husband, I was able to watch the video feeling loved and safe. 

I've also been noticing lately in my classes that the general distribution of shy/outgoing people hasn't really changed since we started.  Knowing that each of us has been in a school twice now and in a couple weeks we're going to be full time teaching, I figured that people would be coming out of their shells by this point.  But, it seems like that's not the case.  The same people are willing to volunteer and the same people do their best not to make eye contact with the person asking for volunteers. 

Which brings me back to my own shyness and feelings of embarrassment.  I want to kick them to the curb, but I'm starting to wonder if that's possible.  Is the best I can hope for some kind of mastery over those feelings so that I can teach? 

About to start the last full week

I can't believe how time has flown.  Tomorrow starts my last full week.  That's insane.  The week after we have a couple days of classes and then 2 finals on the Friday and one final exam the next Monday. 

Right now I am so overwhelmingly tired and stressed.  I spent all weekend working on a paper.  It's been along time since I had to write a real paper.  I got stuck so many times.  It took a good 4 attempts to even get started.  I finally got into the groove and hammered it out.  Once again, I'm being hit by the "I actually care" bug...  I think it's obvious that I ran out of steam at the end.  That really bothers me right now.  But there's nothing that I have the energy to do about it. 

It's also the right time in the semester to be hit by that horrible cold.  It's creeping in.  Just in time for the crush of final assignments and studying for exams. 

I'm making plans to sleep and sleep and sleep once I've written my last exam on the 7th.  But...  Then I have to start preparing lesson plans for student teaching.  However, I'm really excited about that.  In fact, I'm all done with these papers and assignments and I want to just get on with the teaching part. 

Sadly, it doesn't work that way and I have to get through the next 2 weeks.  Here's to coffee brewed fresh and hot!

Observation Day 2

Today was my 2nd day in the school.  It was far different from my first.  It was slightly less overwhelming and yet more serious.

Let's see.  The things that were better today centered around feeling more comfortable in the building.  In the past, I've only ever been in large schools when using the gym and I've always felt a slight panic about being somewhere where I'm not supposed to be.  This morning I walked into the staff room (behind very non descript doors) and hung my jacket.  I had a chance to chat with a few teachers before easily finding my classroom.  My mentor teacher had an exam in Block 3 - so I went for a walk around the school.  I saw some amazing art hanging on the walls, I saw alot of kids late for class, and some who seemed like they weren't planning to get there.  But it felt good.  I'm not sure why, but I felt alot more like I belonged. 

The more serious things centered around again the idea that the students are really in the hands of their teachers.  If the teacher doesn't teach them something (either does so badly, or not at all) then the kids don't learn it.  I had a chance to talk with a new teacher who had a spare, and she was working through the issue of thinking that her tests might be too hard.  I think I still find that slightly overwhelming.  The prospect of in 2 or 3 years, I'll be the one making decisions about stuff like that.  And my mentor teacher had someone in to give him ideas about how to improve his class.  He asked for that because he feels that one of his classes is struggling.  I'm still thinking about why that's overwhelming.  I guess it's having the confidence in your own abilities to recognize that you've reached a point where you need help and that isn't a negative on you. 

But it was a good day.  A long day - 7:30 to 4:30.  But - I had fun.  I was even brave enough to get off my ass and walk around the classroom and lurk near the front to help with demos.  That was a big step.  I think I was getting too comfy at the back of the room.  I had to break out of that.  So I did. 

I'm sure I'll think of more later when my brain starts to dump what I saw and learned.  But this is enough for now. 

"Best" is relative

At the beginning of the term, "doing my best" meant being on top of my readings, working on assignments and papers well in advance of when they were due, and thinking through my term papers.  Slowly that faded until "doing my best" became skimming papers on the bus, finishing assignments the night before they are due and procrastinating on those term papers.

Now?  If I print the articles and bring them to class I'm doing better than 1/2 the students. Some of my assignments are getting more than their fair share of attention, and others are being neglected.

So that makes me remember that all things are relative. 

This stuff is relative for me and it will be for my students. The class I teach them will compete for attention with their other classes, sports events, and their favorite TV show.  Do I have the right to expect more of them than I am giving my teachers?  Or is that one of the egotistical traps that teachers can fall into? 

Is it ever reasonable to demand to be at the top of their priority list? 

Is "best" what should be expected from students, or is "good enough" ok?  Is that what we should all aim for?  Or is achievement relative in that it will be some percentage of expectations?  So - if we started to expect less, students would do even less.  So then is it the role of the teacher to be that egotistical figure, acting as if his class is the most important thing in the universe, demanding to be the highest priority????

Maybe I'll just "do my best" and hope that the level I end up at meets other people's expectations for my best...

That was enlightening

So I spent my first day in a public high school.  It was fascinating.  Here are some incoherent ramblings about stuff I noticed.

1) They are just kids1!!!11!!  Wow!  They aren't adults, they aren't mythical creatures.  They are just kids.  Some of them were really sweet, some of them were trying really hard to be cool, but at the end of the day they were just kids.  My main fear about doing highschool was based on my own memories of taking the bus home from school and having to battle the teen crowds at the bus stop and stuff.  They seemed like weird scary creatures then.  Now?  Not so much.

2) Teachers don't really get a break.  My mentor teacher teaches 4 blocks.  Each is 80 minutes long.  He has 4 blocks all term.  So, none of those reputed "prep blocks" or spares.  They get 45 minutes for lunch.  Between helping kids with questions from their assignments and arranging make up exams and things like that, he ate about 1/4 of his apple.  He says that sometimes he's able to make it down to the staff room to eat there, but not often.  he at his lunch at 3:15 once school was done.  I stuck around to help him with students and his work for the next day.  I eventually left at 4:45 and he still had stuff to do. 

3) It's LOUD and crowded.  Between the 1st and 2nd class I briefly considered going to the washroom.  The women's staff bathroom was at the far end of the hall.  I battled my way about 1/3 of the way there before I decided that I didn't actually have to pee that badly and turned around and went back. 

4) Some of the kids just don't care.  My textbook on classroom management identifies that "motivation" problems are out of the realm of standard classroom management and generally require a long term approach and the book doesn't want to talk about it.  Yet, that seems like it is very prevalent.  Students got back progress reports and watching their faces showed that they didn't seem to care at all if they were failing or doing well. 

Tomorrow is the day!

I have my 1st in school observation day tomorrow. I'm nervous, scared, and excited all at the same time.

I emailed my mentor teacher a few days ago to ask him what time I should be there. Instead of an actual answer he simply told me that he arrives between 7:30 and 7:45. And, as an aside, classes start at 8:35.

So I'm assuming that I should be there at 7:30 or so. ?

But really? I can't wait. I want to meet my mentor teacher. I want to get a feel for the school and what I'll be doing. And maybe most of all, I want to meet the students.

Then it will be back to my immediate reality of working on my numerous assignments and papers that are all due by the 1st week of November.

Please explain the curve to those who must use it!

We're graded on a curve. They tell us that's university policy and each class has gone over how it's going to work in their class.  (Not that they actually help explain what a curve is and how it works - so many students are still completely mystified by the concept, but I digress)

The basic premise is that our grades are compared to the mean - and thus we are compared to each other rather than some other standard. This is supposed to help even out the difference between the sections caused by different teaching ability and grading of exams and assignments.  Fine.  I accept this, I almost even like it. 

However, no one has explained how it works to one of our profs.  The whole point is to differentiate the grades so that you can rank people. 

We have a class that has 3 assignments each with multiple parts.  The weighting of these add up to 100.  that's pretty normal. But I'm going to explain how the 1st assignment has broken down.  There were 5 parts each worth 5 points.  The 1st was a survey about our feelings towards various topics that were to be covered in class.  He finally decided that if we had done it - we'd get 5/5 and if we didn't we'd get 0.  But he was "generous" with the deadline so that people had a chance to hand it in after he made this decision.  Then he released the "rubrics" for the other 4 parts.  There were options for 5/5, 4/5 and 3/5...  If you fucked it up, but still handed it in - you get 3.  If you did the assignment completely you get 4.  And if you have one of those "shining stars" "blow his mind" assignments - you *might* get a 5.  But, he seemed pretty skeptical that any of us lowly peons could achieve such a thing. 

If you've been following along, you will see that if you did the 5 parts you will end up with 21/25 for assignment #1.  If you were a COMPLETE idiot - you might end up with less.  If you failed to hand one part in - then you're fucked! 

What he's effectively done is have an assignment that does NOT differentiate the students in the class.  If almost everyone gets the exact same grade - then the assignment us useless for creating a curve.  It's a spike!  And that assignment was pointless for the purpose of assessment.  You could argue that we learned from it - so it still has value - but then you've likely not read the assignment.  It was simply a fap fest where the same questions were asked in a variety of ways. 

So - now we have a class that's out of 75 points.  Fine.  But - then why not state that at the beginning.  This has increased the weighting of all the other assignments.  The ones that are group work and worth 60/100.  So the massive group project has gone from being worth 60% of our grades to  80% of our grade.  And our meta-reflection (does that term make anyone else giggle?) has gone from 15% to 25% of our grade. 

Assignments that don't create a range of grades are pointless on a curve.  Well...  I guess they mean that the poor sap who missed one is going to get a D in the class.  So I guess that's good. 

Can you tell I'm frustrated?  At least they've now all been graded 3 weeks after they were submitted... 

How do they make email so complicated?

Email has been around for along time. When I did my science degree it was pretty basic. There was a web based client and detailed instructions on how to forward your university email to your preferred address. Pretty easy right?

Now they've moved to gmail. That sounds fantastic!!!!! Surely no university could fuck that up...

But they have!!!!!! They have managed to fuck up gmail.

You go to gmail.com. Then type in your full email address. Easy so far. Then you get the same gmail log in screen except your email address is in the box already and, depending on your browser, the "sign in" has changed to "continue". You need to click that without reentering your password.

Now you get sent to a new page where you have to enter you username and password all over again.

This wouldn't be too bad, but there's no way to have it save your info. Also, their gmail doesn't play nice with regular gmail. The "switch" account feature doesn't work.

I'm all done ranting now.

I've become one of those...

When I did my science degree, I had a pretty good time and used to watch those super stressed out, always in a panic, never looking like they are enjoying themselves students and laugh.  I never got it.  I was in the same classes doing the same work and I had it easy.  I played soccer, went out with friends and had alot of time left over to play Age of Empires online.  They never had time to do anything and were frantic.

Well...  I've become one of them.  I feel almost paralyzed by how much work I have to do.  I spend all my time editing essays, reading papers, and planning my other projects.  I feel like a wreck.

What's the difference?

This time I care.  It's ridiculous how much of a difference that has made.  I don't want to just get a B, I want to do well.  I want to actually learn the material.

So I should probably apologize to my fellow students who are happily walking down the hall while I rush past because I *need* to get to the library right NOW!  Or my group mates who want to chat for a bit about their weekends, and I'm cracking the whip because we DON'T HAVE TIME!!!!!!!!

Mainly, I'm laughing at me.  It's so strange to think about who I've become.  I bring all my books to class every day.  I'm the person who has last week's reading when someone in class is trying to remember something from it. 

Now I need to go stare at my paper for awhile before I panic and go back to reading Facebook!

More personal reflections and a dream of a comprehensive program

I am writing yet another "reflection" for one of my classes.  I have now written 6 of this type of thing.  They all share themes and are connected and intertwined.  As I fight the urge, yet again, to say "See my reflection from 2 weeks ago paragraph 3" I start to dream of an education program where the professors actually talk and coordinate their assignments. 

There are half-hearted attempts to do this.  Some of them say vague things like "using the lesson plans from your other course, write a reflection on the following" and stuff like that.  But that's not super helpful when the reflection is due weeks before the lesson plans (or your prof is doing something different from lesson plans).  But, generally, I find myself doing almost the same assignment in 3 different classes. 

It seems to me that there must be a better way.  This is a preset professional term.  There are specific classes that we must take since they are all condensed to 8 weeks to allow for the 5 weeks of student teaching.  Do they have to set it up as distinct courses each with it's own syllabus?  I'm sure there's a reason, but why can't they have it be 1 course with 1 set of assignments that align with each other without being repetitive? 

But that seems like an unobtainable dream.  It makes too much sense for them to do it.  They can't even manage to have all the profs add the assignments and exams to e-class so that we can use the calendar feature for what it's intended. 

I guess I'll just count my blessings that I managed to create a group to work together in 3 classes and we are able to use the same basic lesson plan for those assignments.  And I'll feel sorry for the people I know who have 4 classes with 4 different groups working on 4 different units/subjects. 

Getting ready to go into schools

I had my orientation for my student teaching today.  It was 30 minutes of being told things we should already know followed by 30 minutes of not being told what we want to know.

It was necessary for them to state that we should either lock our FB accounts all the way down or remove our drunken party pictures...  They also felt it was necessary to tell us not to bitch about our mentor teachers at the bar where another teacher from the school could over hear and get us kicked out of the practicum. 

But, they couldn't tell us what time our schools start their day, or what the dress code is...  You know, things that are actually useful. 

However, there was alot of reassurance that they would be there to hold our hands.  I guess I feel relieved that there is a whole team of people who's job it is to make sure that I feel good about myself and build confidence when things get tough.  Somehow, it seems like an extraordinary amount of support for the teachers of tomorrow.  Almost too much...

I am often stunned by the questions my fellow "pre-service" teachers ask.  The presenter could have recorded himself saying "it's on the website" and saved himself alot of trouble.  I swear that many of them never even try to find the information for themselves.  And they are questions that by themselves seem reasonable, "How will we be evaluated?" except that there have been a good 6 e-mails that have gone out telling us exactly where to look to find the answers to such questions.  I think the best one was "How do they determine our letter grade for the course?"  Sure - that one wasn't directly answered on the field experience website. But - it's a pass fail class.  It's labeled as such in the calendar.  There are many more examples daily that make me cringe. 

Now I just need to survive the next 4 weeks.  That's all that's left.  My last final is on Nov 7th!  Between now and then I have 8 papers due, 2 45 minute long presentations, a taped "micro-teaching" experience, and 3 final exams.  And I now lose my Fridays, which had been free to work on stuff, to in school observations.  I think my family isn't going to see much of me for the next little while.  

Building Community and Relationships

We had a guest speaker today who talked about the importance of building a community for students so that they feel like they belong and then to create relationships with those students.  He approached the topic from the standpoint of working with aboriginal students.  However, I think that all of what he says, applies across the board.

I think that too often we expect students to conform to our standards and to align with what we think is important.  We fail to recognize that the value we place on things is not universal.  I would guess that my fellow student teachers value education.  That probably is universal.  But we also see the benefits of it.  I am reminded again and again that we are in the minority.  Many more people do not see education as necessary or required for success.  They grow up with parents who aren't educated, and yet succeed.  They see older classmates get jobs and move on without graduating or going on to post-secondary.  That is their frame of reference.  So, it's no wonder they have no ambition to keep going.

It feels like such a huge and overwhelming problem.  He brought up stats like 30% of the kids on the reserve he worked on graduate from high school.  In a previous presentation, the presenter said that just over 50% of FNMI across Alberta graduate.  That's not ok.

So then the question comes up - what can we do about this as new teachers?  And it all seems to come back to building relationships with our students so that a community forms and they feel like they belong.

Easy eh?

My question falls more along the lines of "if that works - why haven't they (schools/teachers/admin) been doing it all along?" or "if they've been doing this all along, then why isn't working?"...  It seems like such an obvious solution to the problem.  Is it simply too hard to put into practice?  Do too many teachers just not care?

Anyone have any thoughts they would like to share?

The brain detach

One of the most interesting/bizarre things about my classes is the distinct disconnect between what we are learning in some classes and the practices (by our profs) in others. 

What's an example?  How about grades.  I'm taking an assessment class which is hammering in the various way to make sure that grades are fair and valid.  We're learning that grades should be based on achievement NOT on behaviour aspects.  Yet, our other classes all have policies where you lose marks for each day late you turn in an assignment.  10% seems to be common.  This is something explicitly argued against in our assessment text.  We're also learning that grades for an individual should be based on that individual's achievement, and yet group work is required in all our other classes.  So much for "practice what you preach".


What about the curriculum class where none of us have any clue what the curriculum is...  I'm serious.  It's a class where the description is, "IPT Curriculum and Teaching Course for General and Physical Science Majors" and yet he told us on the first day that we were not going to be dealing with curriculum at all.  Other students in other sections are going through their curricula...   Other classes we're in say things like "using the unit you were assigned in your curriculum review class" when talking about their assignments.  

There is no communication between the courses.  There are 4 required courses for the IPT (Introductory Professional Term).   Something that seems like it should just happen.  I don't know...  Maybe a group meeting at some point where the profs *gasp* talk to each other???

Anyway, this doesn't take away from my enjoyment.  In fact, I think it adds to it.   It really appeals to my smart ass side where things like this make me giggle. 

One midterm down

I wrote my 1st midterm today.  It was both a terrifying and empowering experience. 

I was scared that I'd forgotten how to study.  And I think, in many ways, I had.  Looking back, I don't think that was a bad thing.  My exam was in classroom management.  I remembered my trick for the M/C and circled my answers on the booklet and then transferred them to the answer sheet at the end as I reviewed my answers. 

Then I hit the long answer.   I used to breeze through them.  I used to write and be done in no time.  I started and wrote and wrote and wrote.  Suddenly I realized that a couple people were getting up, handing in and leaving.  I'd only done 2 out of the 5 long answer.  I had an hour left, so I didn't panic.  It was hard though.  For the first time, I actually thought about my answered and planned them out.  I made notes on the test booklet and looked back at it.  I was the only one who needed as second booklet...  So - either I rocked it, or I totally missed the point and bombed. 

In my previous life as a university student, I was always one of the first "serious" students finished.  There are always students who realize they don't know anything and finish super early ("the first wave").  And then the other people start finishing up.  This time?  There were 3 of us left in the room when I handed in with a couple minutes to go. 

In then end?  I think I survived.  It was a good trial by fire.  It was a hard exam - so I guess we'll see how I do. 

A new beginning

I'm not sure what possessed me to do this.

But, after 7 years of working/being a SAHM, I'm back at university. I'm taking a 2 year after degree in education. There are 4 semesters. I'm in my 1st right now. It's the Introductory Professional Term... It's a condensed term (4 classes for 8 weeks) followed by 5 weeks of student teaching.

What an introduction to being back in school. Holy shit! It's like being thrown in the deep end and being expected to remember how to swim perfectly. We've been in class for 31/2 weeks and I have 2 midterms next week. That's right, 2 midterms. I've mostly forgotten how to study, and entirely forgotten how to study boring shit. The assignments aren't too bad. They are kind of like projects at work, but studying is so foreign to me.

It's also exciting. I found out my student teaching placement last night. It's kind of like the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait to actually get my feet wet. It's going to be the test to see if I like teaching and if I should continue with this.