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?