I have been extremely fortunate this summer to attend various professional development conferences and conference-like events. Each professional development has left me feeling like my brain was going to explode from all of the ideas produced from the ideas and methods presented. Processing all of the great information and figuring out how I will implement them into an already packed curriculum had me feeling stressed. Many of the great English teachers who are also researchers and leaders in the methods/ideologies of English education are teaching in environments different from my own and it's easy to scoff, as I often have, that they're afforded certain privileges because of who they are. The thing is, I think they are afforded privileges because they have pushed the envelope and doing so has proven time and time again to be effective teaching and they aren't going to stop being themselves for any reason. If students are excited to read and write and growing as citizens of the world, the circumstances surrounding this learning doesn't really matter. That teacher has taken an interest in their students' individual success and that means more to the students than "following the curriculum guide" ever will. There's an element of risk in throwing out the rule book completely though. Others will question rationale, motives, and may even perceive one's actions as a threat (I will never understand this one, by the way). I do not think what my plans are for this school year are worthy of the word "risk" but I think they are worthy of taking a deep cleansing breath. My intention this school year is to change the way I work with my freshmen classes. I'm planning to use more of a workshop approach to teaching them reading and writing (Think a combination of Penny Kittle's Book Love and Linda Rief's Writers Readers Notebook). I think this method will allow me to successfully blend all the elements required of me as a teacher in regards to piloting reading materials while fostering a love of reading and helping students developing their voice as writers. Penny Kittle structures her classroom time like this: There are block days built into the schedule she follows but Linda Rief is working with 43 minute periods and she follows a similar schedule. This made me think, well, why not try it? Maybe I won't be able to fit everything into every class period every day but trying won't hurt anything. What I like best about the workshop model is the conferencing. With 39 students in a class, freshmen classes are usually packed, it seems like there isn't enough time in a day to meet with everyone, however, after listening to Kelly Gallagher speak at CATE this year, it seemed possible to meet with a few students during the silent reading period students are given during class. Students get 10 minutes of class time to read silently each day and I know you're thinking, that's it?!, because I was too but I swear it works. We have to remember that 10 minutes of reading for one kid will feel like an hour depending on their reading fluency and if each conference lasts about 2-2 1/2 minutes that's way more students than I was conferencing with before, which was almost zero. I will have to learn more about my students and possibly have to tweak the schedule here and there to accommodate every students need and my own. The idea of getting to know all of my students better is what most excites me about implementing the workshop model.
I have spent too much time worrying about what other people think of me, especially when it comes to my teaching, and there was a time when that mattered (though I can't think of a reason why). It's time to stop worrying about that and start making a bigger impact in the lives of my students and I'm optimistic this is the first step on a journey from trying to be a good teaching to just being a good teacher, maybe even a great one. I'm always excited (anxious) for the first day of school, and even with all the piles of stuff on my plate this year, I'm looking forward to challenging myself as an educator, challenging my students to become better communicators, and sharing the trials and tribulations with those of you who read this blog. In the words of my favorite Chris Farley character Tommy Boy, "Let's do this, it's go time!"
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I don't know what prompted it but somewhere along the line we started to turn on each other. I've been reading a lot of posts on Twitter and blogs lately from various educators that I find alarming. We keep reiterating the fact that not all students are the same and we need to honor them by meeting them where they are. I believe this is important for students to grow as learners, I really do, but shouldn't teachers be allowed to grow on their own time as well? Are we pushing good teachers out of their comfort zone for the right reasons? Are we allowing them time to develop as learners as well? I'm reading blog posts that talk about how asking students to be compliant is a detriment to their learning but aren't we also building citizens of the world? Isn't compliance, to an extent, necessary to achieve goals in our lives? I didn't want to buy another binder to submit my portfolio for my master's degree but I had to comply if I wanted to finish my program. Maybe that is a rather facetious example but I think you'll understand my rationale.
Homework has become the route of all evil (which is honestly how I felt about it while in school) students don't do it, teachers don't give it out, but the needs of the elementary level educator and the needs of the secondary level educator are different. I don't know enough about how elementary teachers are required to structure their day to speak to that and maybe I need to learn more, but I do know they see their students for hours every day, so it makes sense to eliminate or limit the amount of homework being assigned. However, in the secondary classroom, we only see our students for a block of time. Some schools have 47 minute classes, others have 57 minutes (this is the time we are given at the school I work at), and some have the block schedule which, depending on the school, can last anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes to two hours long, but teachers do not see their students every day. It's complicated but hopefully every teacher does their best to fill the time with meaningful activities. The problem that stems from this structure is a lack of sufficient time to do everything during a class period, so homework is necessary. It should be reasonable for me to have my students read a chapter of a class novel or work on their essay independently at home because I shouldn't have to read every word of a book to my students in order to get them to read it. I have done it, I admit it, but I did not like how much time it took to get through it. Nor should I have to sit next to a student while they are typing their paper. We want our students to go on to college after high school is over, can anyone remember a professor reading an entire book to them in college? I cannot. And if they had, then I would have probably laughed at them for bailing me out of my responsibility of doing the work. If teachers want to assign homework, then they should be able to do so. If a teacher wants to assign a consequence from a student not completing said homework, then they should be able to do so. Do we have a right, as their colleagues, to put them down and call them bad teachers just because we don't support their process? We have expectations and compliance obligations we must meet as teachers as well. Using technology has always been important in education. If at the end of the school year, more teachers are collecting work using digital sources to do so, shouldn't we celebrate that rather than admonish the teachers for using the technology the "wrong way"? Couldn't we make the argument that the country school teachers in the one room classrooms back on the prairie were misusing the technology of pencil and paper by having students produce work using those when a glance at the slate would have been suffice to see if the student understood the concepts being taught? All hyperbole aside, if a teacher who was against using technology two years ago is embracing it now, then we should celebrate that. Telling them they are using technology incorrectly could have an adverse effect of them not wanting to use the it at all. It's like we forget that we are all life-long learners or something. I don't want those who read this to feel like I think all teachers are beyond reproach. What I do want those who read this to remember is that the only way teachers are going to improve themselves is with the support from one another. |
AuthorMy name is Sarah Todd and I teach freshmen and junior English in Southern California. Archives
August 2018
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