Reflections from Down the Road

Dear Lara (2010 edition),

It's been a long three years. More has happened and changed than you could have possibly predicted and more change is on the way. But, guess what? Life is good. No, life is great.

When you began this journey to become a teacher, you knew it would be a challenge. In fact, the program itself seemed like a nearly insurmountable challenge. I'll be honest. It didn't get any easier. Those concerns about everything seeming like an unnecessary roadblock? They were valid. It definitely took much longer to get this second degree than it should have. The coursework itself often seemed to be built simply as hurdles, not as something meaningful and useful for a career in teaching. At times, it seemed that all this schooling would prepare you for was the paperwork and hassle part of teaching. We certainly got practice in working within the system. I still don't see the value in that.

But there were definitely bright spots. The educational psychology class and the child development class were both incredibly informative in surprising ways. Not only was the class content useful for actual classroom practice (and for the PLT), the delivery method and the classroom community were wonderful examples to follow in your classroom in the future. The final year of your schooling has been very useful, as well. Working within your content area with other English teachers-in-training has been fun! I believe we've built a support system we can continue to call upon throughout our first year teaching. We must keep in touch with at least a few of these classmates, colleagues, and friends. One very useful thing about these last few semesters has been the chance to teach each other lessons and to share our resources. The writing lessons shared in the class on theory of composition were often new, interesting, and engaging. The grammar lessons in our pre-student-teaching seminar were better than any grammar teaching I've seen in schools. I'm excited to put them to use and get my students engaged with grammar and writing.

I think the program would be more effective if it would get us into these real, practical, content-specific areas earlier. We could skip the entire class on literacy strategies in which all the content areas are mixed. We would all get more out of a content-specific class on literacy strategies. In fact, we had one of those, too. Why the repetition? It makes me think the university is just trying to stretch the program out and get more tuition money. We could use an entire methods class on grammar and the teaching of it. The program should do that instead.

Aside from the program itself, Lara, just keep believing in yourself. Keep doing your best. The challenges in your personal life these three years are going to be possibly the hardest thing you've ever gone through, but you can do it. You will do it. Take care of yourself while you're taking care of your kids and your responsibilities. Carve out an area wherever you are to focus and work. I wish I had always done that. You know we need a space that is orderly and clean. Make it for yourself even when it seems like everything else is in a shambles. You are important. Treat yourself like it.

You know what's the most amazing? It will all pay off in the end. Life is better than you can know it will be. You will learn much more than you are taught. Take it in and savor it. It just keeps getting better.

Much love,

Lara (2013 edition)

Cool prompts, bro!

I found this great book yesterday and thought I would share it with you.

It has some really creative writing prompts. Some are short enough to use as bell work and others would be good for journal entries. I'm planning to use some with my sophomores the next couple of weeks when there isn't another bell work prompt related to the reading. Should be fun!

Child labor? Yes!

A few weeks ago, I was having the students play a vocabulary review game in preparation for a quiz they would be having the next day. It was a version of the game Concentration, or Memory, in which players turn cards over and try to match them. In this case, the students would put cards with vocabulary words face-down on one desk and cards with their definitions face-down on another desk. They would turn one of each over and try to match the word with its definition. Now, I certainly didn't want to spend hours preparing cards for this game, so I was having the students make their own cards. I also reasoned that the process of making the cards would be a bit of review on its own. (Besides, I had kind of changed my mind on how we would do the review that morning and wouldn't have had time to make the cards, anyway.) As the students were making the cards and laying out the game, I was walking around monitoring their progress. As I passed one group, a student looked at me and said, “Ms Engle, I think you're using us as child labor! This is a lot of work!” I responded with a smile, “Yes, that's exactly it! Child labor is my goal every school day.”

I may have been joking with him a little, but the truth is that I do believe that students should be working hard every day. This exchange came to mind immediately when I read the article for our student teaching seminar this week, a piece by Robyn Jackson entitled “Never Work Harder Than Your Students.” The article basically talks about making sure the students are doing the bulk of the work in the classroom so that they can be learning in the process. Spoon-feeding them is way too much work for us and doesn't benefit them the way more intense, involved learning activities do. As I read the article, I started thinking about ways to help our students learn about their learning, meta-learning, if you will. Students learn better when they know how they learn and work from their strengths. They can also use this information to try to build up their weak spots methodically. I think most of us teachers are familiar with learning styles and multiple intelligences, but I know that when I was a high school student I didn't know anything about these concepts or how they related to me. It could be worthwhile to spend a little time at the beginning of the year exploring these ideas, especially with freshmen. We can also explicitly point out learning strategies the students are already using, helping them expand on these methods. With my sophomore language students this week, we practiced some of this when they were doing a web quest. Some of them were having a hard time finding the information they wanted on the websites, especially when there was a lot of text to wade through. I'd ask them how they were looking. Several of them were trying to read everything to find one little piece of information. This was a great opportunity to help them learn some skim and scan skills. I'd ask which word was the most important in the question they were trying to answer, then have them skim over the text looking for just that word. When they found it, I had them read that one sentence to see if the information they were looking for was there. It was always in that sentence or the one after. They learned something about how they can find information and learn more on their own more easily.

As we teach, we can also engage in a little meta-teaching, teaching about our teaching. Having transparency in purpose and intention with our teaching increases student engagement. We've all had the dreaded question, “Why do I need to know this?” Letting the students know exactly what they're supposed to be learning and why it will benefit them helps them figure out how they want to approach it and hopefully helps them find some purpose of their own for learning it, as well.

Learning is hard work. These skills are not inborn. We learn what we practice, so let's form good habits and help our students form them, also. Most of all, use child labor! Make them work. It's how they learn.

A New Level

I believe I have reached a new level of exhaustion, which is really saying something, because I am accustomed to a very high level of “tired.” These last few weeks with the KPTP deadline and grading, teaching, etc. have been a challenge. Luckily, I also had a birthday, which means I leveled up, right? I wonder what new powers I gained?

One way I've been working on gaining new powers is through reflecting on my teaching and adapting. After I finished teaching my Romeo and Juliet unit, I gave my students a feedback form to fill out about the unit and my teaching. I felt like I had nothing to lose by asking for their input. The worst that could happen is that I spent a little time and paper and didn't gain much useful information. I found that the students were very honest in their responses, which was exactly what I wanted. Admittedly, most of it was predictable; requests for less work, shorter study guides, and easier projects dominated. However, I gained some very interesting insights, also. A few students asked for me to come down harder in my discipline. One even stated, “It's OK to yell at us. Sometimes we need it.” While I don't intend to ever become a yeller, I will definitely take this feedback to heart and consider when I need to react more definitively to distractions from students. Even the requests for less work gave me something to think about. While I don't think the amount of work required of the students was excessive for the amount of material we covered, I do think it was a lot crammed into a short time frame. Also, while the study guide was just right in my opinion, it was a lot all at once. I think in the future I will break it up into smaller chunks so the students don't look at it and get overwhelmed.

I also really loved the personal responses from students. Some of them thanked me for really letting them think and express opinions. Some of them said they thought I was funny and they looked forward to coming to class. Some even thanked me for giving them a short answer/essay test! They appreciated the chance to explain their thoughts rather than just having to fill in letters on lines. Only one student expressed dismay at the test. I had already spoken to him personally, so I knew his concerns, but I was glad to have them outlined on paper so we can address them. His concern was based on a learning disability, and I have no problem making adaptations to accommodate his needs. It may be as simple as letting him type his test answers rather than write them, or allowing him to spread out the test-taking into a couple days instead of him having to process it all at once. Getting to know my students better as people and hearing their thoughts on their own learning and my teaching has been a wonderful experience!

I'm including my feedback form here so any of you who would like to gather this same kind of input from your students can just use this instead of having to make your own. I was able to fit two of these on one sheet of paper and cut them into half sheets. I recommend soliciting feedback like this. I will certainly do it again in the future!

Feedback Form

Please fill out completely. This is to help me evaluate my teaching and what I should modify in the future. You do not have to put your name on the sheet. Thank you!

One thing you liked about the unit –

One thing you would change about the unit –

One thing you learned –

What do you think I do well as a teacher?

What do you think I need to work on as a teacher?

Tests? Who needs 'em?

My abbreviated unit has forced me to really consider how I feel about tests. The fact is, I don't like them. Specifically, multiple choice, true-false, matching kinds of tests. I understand that they are a part of the landscape in schooling today, but that doesn't mean that I need to embrace them. The fact is, I don't have time for one in this unit, and I don't think I'll miss it. But, I do need to have something that will work as a summative assessment. I think the projects the students are doing will be a good measure of their learning. They're a better indicator of their deep understanding of the work. However, when I designed the projects, I was imagining I would also give the students a test similar to what my CT usually gives them after they read a book. His rationale is that the test measures whether they have a basic understanding of the book and the project will measure the deeper understanding. My thoughts are that they must have that basic understanding in order to demonstrate the deeper understanding. So, why do the test at all? I guess I don't really see the point. At the same time, I told the students they would have a test. I kind of need test scores to use in my analysis for my KPTP, also. So, I think I'll be giving a test, as promised. But, it will be open book, open notes, short answer, requiring a synthesis of their knowledge of the book, not just their ability to choose a letter from A to D. They'll be asked to explain a few quotes, find examples of literary techniques, and analyze a character's motives, using examples and quotes from the text. It will take longer for me to grade, but I think it's a better, fairer measure of their understanding of the text.

I will also be giving them a vocabulary quiz, but the truth is that I'm a little wary of that as well. I think use of the vocabulary is a better indicator that they have really assimilated it. But, in this instance, I am going to give in to the fill-in-the-blank test, simply because I want the students to know they really are accountable for memorizing it and knowing it. They have to memorize it before they can assimilate it further.

Ideally, I would like to build my entire year-long plan around writing and projects within a theme, much as has been suggested in our Bomer and Smagorinsky texts. With my student-teaching, I don't feel like I have the freedom, the authority, or the time to do it properly. In many ways, my work this semester has had to fit in with what my CT does. After all, it is still his classroom and the students are accustomed to his structure. But, working within another teacher's structure has really helped me clarify how I would like my structure to differ. It's almost like trying on another persona and realizing that yours is the best fit for you after all. It's nice to have that reassurance. It builds my confidence in my ability to create meaningful plans to create meaningful learning.

Let's go on a quest!

This week, I finally began teaching my focus unit. I had expected that I would begin about two weeks ago, but first my CT's unit ran longer than expected, then we had all those snow days. So, we work with what we've got and move on.

My CT typically presents background information for a new unit with a Power Point presentation. The students take Cornell notes and fall asleep. OK, so that last part isn't intended, but it is often a side effect. I wanted to do something a little more fun and engaging. I considered doing a book pass in groups, giving each group a subject to research, which they would then present to the rest of the class. For Romeo and Juliet, typical subjects would include Elizabethan theater, clothing, celebrations, and food, and Shakespeare's life and language. I still like this idea, but I wasn't able to wrangle up all the resources I needed with the snow days. I was also concerned with the amount of time it would take. While I believe it is certainly worth taking extra time for engaging and effective activities, time was simply not available. We need to get reading! So, instead, we did a web quest. This allowed the students to gather the information themselves in a structured way and enabled us to used some technology they like, which also increases engagement. I had the students work in pairs, both because we only had a limited number of computers and because their comprehension would increase with the opportunity to discuss the information as they discovered it. We used this web quest: R&J Webquest . I started to make my own, but didn't see the point in reinventing the wheel when Ms. Hogue has already done such a great job with it! She has tons of great materials on her website as well as some insightful blog posts from her years of teaching. Check it out: http://www.mshogue.com/

In doing the web quest, the students were much more engaged than I see them with Power Point presentations. I heard them asking questions and finding answers. They were getting excited about Shakespeare and his times. The Shakespearean insults were very popular. A few groups of students even decided to Google what they actually meant in today's English! I love to see their brains firing up! I also learned a few things from them about how to slide things around on the computer screen so a person can read the questions and have the website with the information on the screen at the same time.

Overall, it was a successful lesson. This coming week, we have a LOT of reading to do, so my challenge is finding ways to help them with the language while using effective reading strategies. Whole-class reading can be boring, but I think that's probably the best way to tackle their first Shakespeare with freshmen. They're going to need a lot of translation, especially at the beginning, and especially at the pace at which we'll be reading.

The next few weeks will be crazy, with all the work of the unit, my portfolio project, and life in general, but we're coming down the home stretch! Let's try to have some fun.

Snow day! Oh, snow day. Um, snow day?

This last week, school was out Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, I had seven job interviews at a college interview day. Tuesday, we had in-service. Wednesday, the students were back to work with us, but this is what it looked like outside by lunchtime:

Like the palm tree? It's about 5 inches tall and inside on the windowsill.

And it didn't stop coming down for two days. Our area had over fourteen inches of snow fall. Suffice it to say, we had a snow day. Then another. Then a weekend. As I write this on Sunday, the weather experts are predicting another foot or more of snow tonight and tomorrow. So, a snow day tomorrow is a real possibility. When we Kansans were lamenting the lack of precipitation in our area for the last year, I don't think we were asking to get the backlog all at once!

As children, we saw a snow day as nothing more than an unexpected day off. Sledding! Hot cocoa! Movie marathons! And I will admit that as an adult, an unexpected day off is just as appealing. But, to teachers, snow days test our ability to adapt. Of course, every job requires adaptability and a snow day may require some people to work from home or to work extra hard when they get back in order to catch up. Some people may luck out and not really have to do much other than come back when the roads are clear. But for teachers, we have to take our plan, which we have packed full of meaningful, interesting, engaging learning tasks, and tweak it until it squeaks. We have to get all that learning into fewer days. For me, as a student teacher, my unit for my portfolio project for licensure will have to be shortened. My observation this week will perhaps not be the spectacular lesson I was planning, but something different and hopefully just as impressive. The students won't be ready for that spectacular lesson with two or three fewer classes ahead of it. I'm doubting that particular lesson is going to survive in the form I was planning. Bits of it may work themselves in here and there, but I won't have the luxury of an entire class period for that particular activity. We have a lot of reading to do, a lot of Shakespeare to decipher, interpret, and apply. So what will we do? We'll do what we've been practicing all along. We'll reflect, adjust, and we'll get to work.

Snow, oh snow, wherefore art thou so deep?

Seeing Strengths

As teachers, we are constantly asked to reflect, as well we should. Without reflection, we can't improve. We need to note what problems we have so we know what solutions to seek from colleagues, books, research, and mentors. But, I think we tend to focus on the negatives too often. As we reflect, we look to improve, but we should also note our strengths. What do we do well? How can we use those strengths to make our teaching stronger?

My cooperating teacher does many things well, but one thing I especially appreciate is the volume and quality of feedback he provides on my teaching. Every time I teach, we have a discussion on what went well and what could be improved. I like how his feedback, combined with his teaching experience, can help me see solutions I didn't see on my own. As the school year progresses, we have moved more toward a collegial relationship rather than one of simply expert and student. The collaboration on lesson plans and the overall vision for the semester has been, I believe, a benefit to us both and to the students. In reflecting on my teaching, he is very good about helping me see my strengths, as well as my weaknesses. With one recent lesson, I was reading with the class as a whole. I was a little frustrated at the end of class over some minor problems. Our reflection and discussion on the class revealed some simple solutions to my frustrations. But the biggest thing I noticed in this particular instance was that the list of strengths he had written down was much longer than the list of things to improve. I was too focused on fixing my frustration to see all the things that had gone well. Reflecting on these strengths and discussing them can be as illuminating as trying to fix the problems might be. By noting strengths, we can be sure to use those techniques and strategies again and to build upon them.

We know to look for strengths in our students in order to build on them, just as a house builder starts with a strong foundation and latches every other part of the structure to it in some manner. We look for those bits of sparkling granite in our students. We should also be looking for them in ourselves.

By this point in our education as teachers, we have been reflecting, improving, and polishing. We have climbed a mountain. Sometimes, it's far easier to focus on the pebbles we want to sweep away from the path in front of us than it is to notice the rock on which we are standing. Notice the rock. Don't wander off a cliff chasing after pebbles. Feel that mountain below your feet and take a moment to be proud.

The Job of Finding a Job, or The Big Payoff

So, this is it: the semester I've been working toward for three years, the big payoff, crunch time. When I charged ahead on this journey toward becoming a teacher, I knew it would be a long road. I knew it would be hard. Most of all, I knew it would be a lot of work. What I didn't know was how much I, and my entire life, would change and grow throughout these three years. Finally reaching this point, when everything I do is important and everyone is watching to make sure I can pass muster, I am filled with mixed emotions. I worry that I won't be able to get it all done and save my sanity. I worry that I won't be able to find that job that fits like an old pair of jeans. Will it be worth all the stress and sacrifice of three years? As I feel myself getting tense with worry, I remind myself to breathe, make a list, relax, and rock it.

This isn't my to-do list, but the advice isn't all bad.

One big item on that list? Getting a job. Finding a job is no small task. Before I even began working toward becoming a teacher, I thought about this step. Where do I want to work? Who do I want to work with, what students, teachers, administrators, and districts? What do I want my life to look like? It all feels a little uncertain. I know what I want, and I know I will work hard to get it, as I have been all my life. But I don't know that what I want will be available, much less that they will want me as much as I want them. So, I make plans on top of plans. First choices, second choices, a hundred little (and big) choices that will shape my life, possibly for the rest of my career.

When I was in college the first time around, I thought I could do it all on my own. I didn't really avail myself of the services available to me to help me make the transition from college to life. This time around, I'm well-versed in crafting a life, and I know that taking all the help you can get is a smart thing to do, especially when you have experts on hand. My resume has been reviewed by co-op supervisors, career services, and friends and colleagues. I'm compiling a (hopefully) impressive list of references. I'll be listening to everyone's advice and using what works for me to help me get that great job. This extends to using the tools available on job boards to help make monitoring new listings easier. My smartphone is my partner in crime. Notifications from RSS feeds straight to my phone will hopefully help make that job-trolling easier and more effective. I am accepting help as well as helping myself.

Finding a job really is a job of its own. When added to the job of student teaching, the job of completing the requirements for licensure, the job of trying to make some money, and the jobs of raising kids and having a relationship, it can seem like too much. But real life is hard and like everything else, this phase is only temporary. Eventually, I will get a teaching job, and because of everything else I have done, I will be prepared to be the best teacher I can be. The list in front of me may be long, but the list of tasks completed is much longer. I'm nearing the end of this journey and getting ready to embark on something new, and I have to know it was all worth it.