My first couple of weeks have had its fair shares of feeling extremely hopeful to "I quit." I know, I know...so I'm a little dramatic. : ) The first few days of school, went OK but there were some memorable moments. One I wished I capitalized on as a teachable moment and another that makes me laugh. On the first day of school, I went over school core values and classroom expectations. I did this activity and had students go around to each core value and write what they thought it meant. Under "dress and speak professionally," one student wrote, "acting white." The students were shy and although I thought that was an opportunity to bring about a good conversation, I didn't really know how. I thought about it over the next couple of days but have yet to bring it up again. As the first day seemed to be filled with teachable moments, I thought class was over at 10:15 so I started rushing through my final activity. Thinking, "Whew...1 day down," and saying goodbye to my students, the other English teacher who I share my room with said to me, "Umm...class ends at 10:20." I tell my students, "Whoops! Just kidding" as I try to get them back in class. Then I was called out at the staff meeting for being the teacher who let their students out a bit too early on the first day of school. Way to start strong. : ) Another low I'm having is really a problem I think most teachers wished they had. I'm having a really hard time getting my students to talk. I was going over topic sentences in class and I can't remember the question I asked, but I remember staring at the wall for 10 minutes in silence as all my students stared at me. No one had anything to say, no one had any comments or anything to respond to. I could ask them a simple question like introduce yourself and tell us your name and they would just sit there and stare. My most memorable moment had to be during the first week when I took my students out to the park to do the human knot activity. As I explaining to them the game and said that they needed to put one hand in towards the center of the circle and grab another person's hand across the way, they all looked at me in shock as if to say, "What! I have to hold someone else's hand." When it was their turn, they put their hands in and just stared at each other again. I literally had to grab their hands and force them into other people's hands. The guys especially felt very uncomfortable in this activity. At the end of it, though, they were laughing and I really enjoyed watching some of them open up. Even if it was a short activity, I felt it was very meaningful, especially because none of them had ever done it before. I still remember the smile and sense of accomplishment everyone had on their face at the end of it. This felt great because when we first started, they all looked at me like I was crazy for getting them in a jumbled mess that they didn't quite understand to begin with.
2. What are two things you feel you are doing well up to now as far as managing your classroom goes?
I have been coming to school at least an hour early every day to prepare. Getting up early is a HUGE challenge for me, but I think my nerves have not settled yet, so I've been getting up extremely early to prepare for the day. It helps me get focused and ready to greet the students in the morning. I've made it a point to greet everyone as they come in, even pausing during class to acknowledge the students who come in late. I also make it a point to stand by the door at the end of class and say bye to each of them as they leave. Another thing I have pushed myself to do is differentiate learning with my students. I really have students on both ends of the learning curve and I have tried small groups based on skill level, pair and shares and personal one on ones. I have made time during class to walk around and talk with each student on their work and needs.
3. What is your main area for growth in classroom management? What questions do you have about this area?
I need to integrate routines into my schedule. I know consistency is important in teaching and I feel like I am struggling with setting up a routine. I feel I have so much more to learn both in content and structure. I'm still hung up with the minutes and time and not genuinely feeling like I'm capturing the learning moments. I'm also struggling with giving clear directions and instructions.
3 comments:
What a rich few weeks you have had! What do you feel like you learned from the human knot that you could apply to student reticence to speak?
Hi Phung! Glad to hear that the human knot activity went well, even if it shocked them at first. :) That whole thing about getting students to talk is a tricky one that I've been dealing with in my advisory group. I have a number of students who don't really want to open up about anything. Granted, it's only been a month, and maybe I should give them more time, but it's still a little sad when the most they can come up with for a morning check-in is "I'm bored." (I want to say, "Dude, try working in an office for eight hours a day. You have no idea what being bored is!" :)
That comment about how "being professional = acting white" definitely jumped out at me. Talk about major cultural misconceptions! (I wonder if any of these kids realize that the second richest man in the world is Mexican?) Hopefully you'll get a chance to revisit that attitude and help them to replace it with something healthier.
Phung, I think your reflections on the first two weeks put this experience into words really nicely.
Integrating routines into the classroom is an area of improvement for me as well. I conceptualize routines, but my follow through is weak. This seems like it might be a place where we could benefit from setting small, incremental goals and holding one another accountable for them week to week. I am going to try out the goal of writing an agenda on the board every day and going over it at the beginning of class (this is a practice that falls through the cracks on my less organized days). It sounds like your personal organization and level of preparedness is great. I wonder if you could implement some of your own personal strategies in the classroom to help your students achieve a similar level of organization. Binder checks? Writing down homework in an assigned place? Carving out a specific time each day to do homework and reporting out that plan in class?
Congratulations on Week 3 and let me know if you want so set goals together.
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