How to Talk to Students: A Beginners Guide

GR2

Breath. Absorb the atmosphere around you. Take in all you see. Exhale. Formulate your words carefully in your head. Refer to all the knowledge entrusted to you that will ultimately not save you. Breath. Say something completely different than how you thought it. Stand awkwardly swaying side to side as they slowly process the mess of words you attempted to order correctly. Exhale. Circle back to the start of the conversation. Revise and edit your brain in order to publish your final draft. Breath. Second attempt at getting what you need to say out of your mouth. Exhale. Let your words sink in. Second guess everything you have ever heard in your life. Pick out the next Netflix series to sink your sorrows into when you get home. Breath. Exhale. Try again tomorrow.

That's one small step for Mr. Ames...

       As we draw closer to the end of another semester I am left with a sense of satisfaction. I not only survived another year of academic pursuits, but I also grew as a teacher in ways I never knew I could (and some that I never knew I needed) and I have learned a lot through the semester. I would like to reflect a little bit on my first week of teaching on my own and discuss a few of the things that I thought went really well, and everything that went really badly. First of all the students were excited that I would be their teacher full time for this week (and even more when I told them about how next semester would go!) and we had a lot of fun going through windows panes and running seminars about our readings and whatnot. But there was a couple of crucial mistakes I made along the way, and because I had extra pairs of eyes on me, be it my mentor teacher, my recordings, or my university supervisor, I learned how to deal with my errors and correct them in a positive way. 

       First off I felt that I handled the mistakes pretty well other than the emotional jitters of being observed (I am really bad about being to critical on my own performance as well, but I feel like that only strengthens how strongly I come back from them) because I was able to gain crucial details and helpful tips from my peers. I had designed a lesson plan that I thought was going to go amazingly and that everyone would love it. Turns out the lesson was too confusing and students were divided in such a way in the classroom that managing all of it all at once became way too overwhelming for me to handle. I bit off a little more than I could chew and the worst part of it all was that I had come up with a solution just before class had started and instead of going with my gut and altering the lesson and explaining to the students that things would be a little different than what was written on their assignments I chose to just take the risk and teach the lesson as is. Big mistake. After the lesson I took the rest of the day to decide how I would handle class the following day and I decided to bring everyone together and work as a team and to only do one of the assigned tasks at a time rather than splitting them up into two separate environments. I also positioned myself in the classroom more appropriately to best observe the entire room and let me tell you it went 1000% more smoothly than it had originally. Everyone had those “AHA!” eyes when I took the time to explain just the first half of the assignment and took more time to focus on everyone focusing on the same thing. This also helped because students could assist each other when I wasn't close enough in proximity to help them myself. 

       I was amazed at how willing students were to work for me as well which is something I had a lot of trouble with at the beginning of the year, but thanks to the tips from my peers and sheer determination I was able to get everyone engaged and on task. All of the students were even sad that I was stepping down after the week was over to go back to co-teaching. This made me feel even more confident when I feel like diving into lessons with my mentor teacher. All in all I am very happy with the success of my year with the students and I think they would say the same thing.

KATE Conference Breakdown

       My favorite keynote speaker was definitely Bill Konigsberg, though I did find Stacy's lunchtime keynote on diversity in literature to be a rather perplexing topic for discussion. When Mr. Konigsberg started speaking I was immediately hooked in by how gracefully he composed himself. A lot of the things he had to talk about were also very personal to me. From a very young age I found myself constantly being bullied so when he said "when I meet what I see as hatred with hate no good can come of it" that connected with me in a powerful way. If Mr. Konigsberg and I could both think something like this then there are others out there who do as well. And it is up to people like us to spread the understanding to everyone. I strive to teach my students this attitude of positive thinking and understanding of peoples uniqueness. Another point he made during his keynote that I found particularly interesting was his talk on over correcting behaviors. I believe that most of the time when we hear certain microaggresions, as Mr. Konigsberg calls them, we tend to ignore the fact that they might simply just be ignorant of their actions and that is something that I never thought of. By correcting their microaggresion incorrectly we are inadvertently shutting them down from expressing their own opinions, and that is no good. So to hear this being brought to the surface for all of us to hear it really helped put the issue into perspective because it is something that I think all of us in the profession are constantly wondering how to go about doing.


       The first break out session that I found to be very useful was "Student Teacher to Teacher: Navigating the Metamorphosis" ran by Keely Tolbert and Holli Boyd. This session answered literally (not literally) a metric ton of questions I had about the next big step into transitioning into the real world scenario. In my previous reflections I tend to talk about my existence within the classroom and they couldn't have said it better: "it is a lot different being in your own classroom rather than conforming into the space that someone else has already laid out" is a really good verbal representation of my feelings regarding that issue. Getting to see how previous student teachers were transitioning into their roles as educators helped get me prepared for my future and it allowed me to gain a sense of calm in the raging storm of graduation.


       The next breakout session I went to was "Student Learning Through Visible Thinking" lead by Tara Martin. This session was so much fun (we played with Play-Doh!) and very thought provoking. She started us off by asking us to make a Play-Doh model of someone that has a special meaning to us and represent them any way we see fit. This was an introduction into ways we can see our students learning in a visual way. We get to break down their individual thought process by watching them create their sculptures. Another tool I picked up for my arsenal of visual learning skills is an app called Seasaw. This app has many cool features such as a drawing app, the ability to record videos or edit photos, and even a place for links to go in case you need to show your class a YouTube video, or even link them there own copy of the PowerPoint for note taking. With this app we recorded ourselves talking while we drew out a story model for Goldilocks to demonstrate how we can monitor each students individual styles of learning and keep a running record for them to show us how they arrive to the conclusions that they arrive to. The reason I chose this session over the other three that ran this block was specifically to understand how to spot visual thinking in my current and future students. I learned how to determine whether or not my students are gaining what they need out of lessons through the use of the Seasaw app and feel like I will be integrating it into my classrooms from now on.


       The final session that I attended was "Using Graphic Novels in the ELA Classroom" lead by Caitlin Doolittle. I am a big advocate for the use of graphic novels in the classroom and have seen them used, whether correctly on incorrectly, in several classrooms so I wanted to attend this session to gain some more useful tips on the best approach to teaching with one. Needless to say we weren't even 15 minutes into the presentation when an epiphany came out of the room. Using the panels in a graphic novel as multiple choice questions, or even providing panels with no text and just the pictures so that students can predict what the scenes are about or vice-versa; the possibilities for the graphic novel are endless.


       As far as networking is concerned I didn't get the chance to meet with many people outside of the kiosk vendors in between sessions. Although I did get to have a micro-conversation with Bill Konigsberg during the book signing (yes it was awesome) so that was very cool. I plan on keeping in touch with him through twitter. I also connected with Tara Martin through twitter after having a conversation with her about all of the different ways I wanted to implement her strategies. She was even interested in hearing a strategy of my own and wants to keep in touch to see how it works out.
Seeing how this was my first KATE conference I felt that I was going to learn a lot of new information. While this is true there were so many sessions I wanted to go to but couldn't since they happened at the same time. Luckily I had classmates there with me to divide up the load in order to get as broad of a picture as possible. So it's not so much a point where I wanted to attend something that I couldn't rather it was a scenario where each of found something different a little more interesting than the others so we all went to each and came back to share notes. As far as I am concerned the KATE conference has everything layed out perfectly.

Failure IS an Option (Sort Of) - Genre Reflection #1

       Failure is one of those necessary parts of life that we all inevitably have to endure, but never really get the chance to see coming. Sure with some forethought and an ample amount of planning failure can be pushed further and further out of sight, but it is always a possibility looming menacingly in the shadows of our minds, lying in wait for its opportunity to strike. For Mr. Howard, however, he didn't even see it coming.

       The day had started just like every other had: violently lurching from the comforts of sleep, “I should have picked chimes,” he thought out loud to himself before wrenching his phone off the dresser and muting the shattering death knell emitting from it. Shrugging off the blankets that had provided him comfort he began preparing for the day ahead all the while dawning a cheery grin. He felt more elated than usual since today was his first big day of the semester. Mr. Howard was a second year student studying education and his first assignment was to design and teach a unit of his own creation. He had spent his entire weekend preparing one of the lesson in this unit with some advice from his mentor teacher. After several hours looking through every conceivable lens, after checking, double checking, and even triple checking, he felt that this work was better than anything he had done previously. He simply could not wait to see how the lesson unfolded.

       Now Mr. Howard, being in his infant years as an English teacher in training, would usually arrive to his assigned school about half an hour before needing to in order to account for any of life's mishaps. Today, however, in the midst of his excitement he had inadvertently arrived an hour ahead of schedule. Upon realizing this he decided to spend 30 uninterrupted minutes of his free time to go over his lesson and try to spot anything in it that would require some last minute polishing. After being satisfied that his plans were fool proof he made his way to the classroom.

       After arriving and having his usual pre-class conference with his mentor teacher the bell rang signaling that lunch had ended. Soon enough students began to enter into the classroom to find their seats. Mr. Howard was given an introduction by his mentor teacher and began to lead the class. He followed the classroom procedure with the utmost of ease. He carefully observed that everyone had out the necessary tools for the day, and that everyone was accounted for and ready to begin. “All right class last week we finished our discussion of The Wise Old Woman and today we are going to be doing a choral read of The Rules of the Game,” he paused for a moment as students began pulling their textbooks from under their seats. He could almost see the dust being kicked loose from their covers as the books were being disturbed from the weekend of silent slumber.

       The lesson started out as Mr. Howard had planned. Everyone had their books out and, for the most part, on the correct page. After stating the page number a few more times, and eventually writing it on the board, everyone was ready to begin. But before he could start off the choral reading the classroom phone began to ring. The silence audibly pounded in the back of his ears as the lone ring was the sound to be heard. All eyes shifted over the the desk at which Mr. Howard's mentor teacher sat. After a few brief moments and a receiver slam Mr. Howard was snapped back to reality. His mentor stood up and excused himself from the room to attend to the phone calls message. At first this was not that big of a deal to Mr. Howard since he had already spent the weekend and plenty of time before class going over what he had planned to teach, though he was a little nervous about handling behavior without the assistance of his mentor. After the teacher had left and the door clicked shut behind him the students immediately lost focus and conversations started up all across the room. Trying to assert himself as the adult in the room he quickly succeeded in getting the students to quiet down by modeling his own mentors method of counting down from 5 on his hand. Witnessing this level of cooperation caused a small flutter of excitement in him as he started the class in their choral reading.

       After he had read the first paragraph aloud he started reading the second paragraph knowing the students would join in and read it together just as they had done the week before. They didn't. He stopped reading and asked the class to join alongside him. Half of them did but the rest of the class started their conversations again. Not knowing what to do he kept reading with the half of the class that was following along. Eventually everyone started to read at different intervals and before long the room was a chaotic medley of white noise. Nothing up to this point in Mr. Howard's life could have prepared him for the terror he was struck with as the class dove deeper into the fray. Several times he made an attempt to stop the class and try to regroup but by this point the situation was too far gone. Those who were reading had stopped due to the overwhelming level of disjointedness and resigned to talking to the students who were already off task. Mr. Howard froze where he stood incapable of doing or saying anything for what felt like an eternity even if it was only a few seconds. His perfect lesson had one flaw: the one person in the room who had the best grasp on student behavior was no longer there to mitigate this exact situation from happening. He had read several different chapters on how to deal with these types of things in his classwork, but nothing prepared him for when it actually happened to him. After attempting to model some of the techniques he felt completely helpless and alone in the room as he watched his efforts fail.

       A moment of relief came as the door to the room slowly opened and his mentor had returned. He took on look at Mr. Howard and then at the class. Slowly he lifted his hand into the air and without a word started takings fingers away reaching zero. Almost as swiftly as it had started, the noise died out. Mr. Howard grimaced awkwardly as he looked his mentor directly in the eyes. He could feel the disappointed gaze burrowing into his skull and his face burned red hot with humiliation at the scene that was unfolding before him. He couldn't understand how his mentor was so able to stifle them noise with such ease. The stern lecture that his mentor started giving the students about respecting any “teacher” that was in the room only made him feel worse about how easily his lesson fell apart. After his mentor had finished redirecting the students he took over the lesson and finished out the rest of the class while Mr. Howard sat defeated in the corner of the room, not wanting anyone to see his face for fear he might start crying in front of them.

       Once the bell rang and class let out for the next period Mr. Howard worked up the courage to go talk with his mentor about the situation and try to gain some insight on how to handle it more appropriately. Before he could get a word out of his mouth his mentor took charge of the conversation.

       “So what do you think went wrong with your lesson?” He started.

       “Not having a clue how to get the students to stay with me on the assignment once they started getting off task. I even tried several things from my textbooks, and still nothing worked.” Mr. Howard replied.

       “How about this, when you go home tonight I want you to find your own way of regaining their attention and from now on I want you to stick with it.”

       Upon returning home that afternoon he spent the rest of his day perpetually reliving the horrifying scene over and over again as if he were in a waking nightmare. Hours and hours crept by and his mentors words bounced around his brain to the point of spilling out into reality. And then suddenly, as if the crashing tides of his mind had vanished, all was quiet. At that moment he knew what failure was and he was determined to not let it win. He would rise above it and conquer it at every turn and better himself for the benefit of those that look up to him now and for many years to come. He decided on that day that who he was and what he accomplishes won't be decided by his failures, but by how he surpasses them and succeeds through them.

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Checking In - Reflection #2

October is coming together in full swing. Though the leaves haven't really started changing to their wonderfully diverse colors the mood is certainly starting to take on the docile tone I am familiar with. Already I have been to my placement school around 20 more time than either of my last two, and the result has been staggeringly different. At this point I have begun to exercise more of my behavior plans as I previously digested from Sprick's Discipline in the Secondary Classroom and the advice from my professor and peers. The result has been incredible, and I am surprised at just how quickly the relationship has developed for the positive. Students are now responding quicker (or in some cases at all) to my redirection and are actively involved with including me in their classroom environment which I am absolutely excited about.

Just the other day we had our second visit to the library so that students could browse the selections for their next book report and I had students flocking to me in order to ask me questions about certain books and whether or not they would find them interesting. I even had an impacting conversation with two particular students about their book selection because I had also read the series. I took their interest and gave it a direction for them to look for so that they could get the best result out of the text and they couldn't get enough of it: because I could relate to them on a personal level and they looked for that approval from me. That one moment between these two students is something I will carry with me through my years as a developing English teacher because of the impact it left on myself and them.

As my relationship with the students is progressing in this positive way I have been also found myself diving into the situations I had previously been unsure of, or simply didn't know how to best insert myself into the equation and because of that I am starting to gain more confidence when it comes to my actions as the “teacher” in the room. Mostly all of this boost to my confidence and self-esteem has to be attributed to my mentor teacher during our weekly debriefings after school hours and my classmates allowing me to chew over my thoughts out loud in a safe environment free of judgment. Being able to openly and freely express my concerns about the issues I am facing with a group of people has proven to be a valuable tool that I hope can exist in my future schools, but that more heavily relies on having a good support system which I hope to create if one doesn't already exist.

As the year rolls by I am always finding myself looking forward to showing up to school and getting to have another day with the students because it is helping me get over some of my shortcomings as well as getting me involved with their lives easing me into the transitions to come next semester. In just a few short days after gaining the knowledge from my peers I am already starting to see improvement, so this begs the question: What new challenges will I be faced with next? No matter what the challenge is I have many resources and friends to help me along the way, and that is the best feeling.

Getting my foot through the door - Reflection #1

 Today was a definitely a major milestone in my steps to becoming a fully developed English teacher. Simply put: I failed. Throughout my life I was taught in school that failure was something to be avoided and that I should always strive for perfection, but the harsh reality of life is that no one can be perfect and that we are going to fail from time to time.

I was put in charge of leading the class through a choral reading of a short story while the teacher conducted a test for the district on the few remaining students that couldn't take it last week. Because the content of this test is sensitive information the teacher took each student out into the hallway in order to administer the test. She was just outside the door and within earshot in case anything went horribly wrong so I wasn't too worried about being left completely alone, but even still the students were largely off task while I was trying to get them to focus on the assignment at hand.

I started becoming frustrated that they were not listening to my instructions or following along with what I was trying to teach them about the story so I thought back to my discipline course last semester to see what my options were. My mentor teacher already has a few disciplinary strategies in place so I went with these to try and get the classroom under control. First off I tried her method of counting down from 5 on my hand to signal that when I reach zero all voices should be off and eyes should be on me for further instructions. This initially worked, but shortly after we resumed choral reading students started to get off task again. Since this strategy had failed I moved to my next available punishment: a group contingency combined with the time owed strategy from Randall Sprick's Discipline in the Secondary Classroom (122). I reminded them that their teacher wasn't the only person in the room who could administer punishments for misbehavior and added 30 seconds (she does increments of 30 rather than 15 in order to curb behaviors at a quicker rate and allows the students to earn their time back before class ends) to their final time and still they chose to ignore my instruction.

At this point in time my mentor teacher had finished with the final student and returned to classroom. She immediately had the class under control within a few seconds using nearly the exact same method I had tried to use and gave them a lecture about showing me the same courtesy as they do for her. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I could almost feel my face burning from embarrassment that I was unable to get these students to follow the classroom rules when their teacher could.

After class ended my mentor teacher and I had a brief conference to discuss what I thought I could have done better in order to get the students to listen to me and the only answer I could think of was that maybe I wasn't using a serious enough tone to convey my point them and that I would need to work on my “teacher voice” for the future. After that she asked me if I had a behavior strategy of my own that I could use similar to her counting down method and that if I didn't I should come up with one and implement it in class for tomorrow. As soon as I got home I found Sprick's text and flipped through it looking for a strategy that I could use for myself so that students would know that they were doing something that wasn't conducive to their learning. After an hour of searching I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what technique I choose because the underlying cause of the issue was that the students felt they didn't need to show me the same kind of behavior they showed their teacher. Maybe because they don't think of me as one of their teachers, even though I am. Hopefully when she lectured the students about respecting the adults in the room this can open up the opportunity for me to develop these much needed skills.

In the end it doesn't matter that I failed today as much as what I did afterwards to learn from the failure and how I grow from it moving forward.

My first day...

I intended to write this post on my first day of placement, but I decided that I would gather more information about my placement school before I delved into my initial experience. Day one of my placement was not what I was expecting it to be for a couple of reasons, but my primary experience was going to the wrong school. Now I know what you might be thinking: 'how on earth did you go to the wrong school when you obviously received the name of the school weeks in advance?' Well the answer is simply really: my school is a middle school that just so happens to sit right next to another school of the same name only it is in fact an elementary school. I was wandering the halls of this building looking for my mentor teacher's classroom only to be perplexed when I found that the hallway she designated in emails did not exist. I was told 14, when this schools hallway ended at 9, so naturally I was very confused. When I was asked by a teacher if I needed help locating her room they were stumped by my mentor teacher's name (since they would obviously never communicate with the middle school faculty outside of building planning I would not expect them to know every teacher's name by heart so I understood completely). When we all figured out that I was supposed to be on the middle school side I almost immediately located my placement classroom. Once I found my placement classroom this is when I started to realize that even though my first day of placement was supposed to be the 22^nd the school did not actually start allowing students into the building for class until the 24^th! So I spent my entire allotted placement time assisting my mentor with setting up the classroom and making homeroom binders for incoming students. 

Because I spent my first day without any of the students I decided to hold off on reporting my initial experience and substitute it with one that had actual student involvement. My first live field experience was incredible to say the least. In previous years I always felt like an outsider in the classroom since I was either dropped in on several classes half way through the year or I would be placed in a classroom that had already been established and running smoothly for a month. I could never really bond with the students due to the fact that they looked at me as a stranger in the classroom. I had to take extra steps in order to aid students in these types of classroom situations as well, and every time I would record a micro lesson I came out of the experience feeling a little let down. I remember feeling like these lessons were staged and students were not actually committing to my lessons simply because they felt that the lessons would not pertain to their actual teacher's curriculum (despite my best efforts to coordinate my mini lessons with the actual curriculum so that they would align correctly with either of my previous mentor teacher's flow of events). With my current placement the whole structure of the relationship between myself, my mentor teacher, and our students feels completely genuine and not at all how it was in previous classrooms. I think this atmosphere has to do with two different factors: 1. I was in the classroom day one and this allowed students to get to know me at the very beginning of my time there. 2. I am in the same classroom every day of the school week. This one is huge in my opinion since in previous years I was only in the classroom once a week.

My goal this semester was to engage with students on a much deeper level than  had previously been able to, but since the restrictions of my previous placements have been changed for the better I feel like this goal should be even more manageable than anticipated! Overall this type of model for field experience has been overwhelmingly positive and I have already seen a more positive first contact with students. Definitely looking forward to this year with my mentor teacher and our students.