Wiki Tatu (Week three)

            Monday we had off for Martin Luther King Day which led to an interesting Tuesday with the students. However before we even got them we had a conference with a particular parent who was extremely upset with the “lack of communication” between us and her. Her child has thrown away notes that have been sent home from us, he has thrown away notes from his mother to us, he throws away his check in check out sheets and then tells his mom that he has no homework. This student has been throwing away every attempt of communication between us and she started taking it out on Mrs. Z. and I at the conference. Mrs. Z. started telling her that we have never seen any notes and send home multiple things to him daily and it just wasn’t registering with her. The principal finally stepped in and said that she can’t come in and call his staff incompetent because her child is throwing things away and hiding things, and he did a really good job of diffusing the situation. After that it was better but she still had a really bad attitude and was very degrading towards us. We had a conference with her on Friday as well and that went a little better.

            Now that class has started the students were really riled up from their long weekend and we had some issues with talking and interrupting us but it was nothing that posed too big of a problem. I just said that I know it’s been a long weekend but we have to get back to work, we have a short week this week because conferences are Friday so a short week means three good days of work. That helped a lot and then they went and burned some energy off in gym and we had a great rest of the day. I started by giving them their morning work continuing with time because they are really having a hard time with it. Then after that Mrs. Z taught a lesson on geometry and I graded some papers. Lunch was eaten by all. After that they had music and I explained their social studies project, then took them to the computer lab and finished the civil war webquest which leads into their project.

            Mrs. Z. let me make their final assessment for their webquest which was nice for me. I’m having them write a newspaper article on a topic of their choosing from the civil war. They have to write about the who, what, when, where, why, and how. They have the weekend to write their rough draft and then after Mrs. Z. or I go over it with them they have until Friday to write the final draft on a formatted piece of paper and draw a picture on it in the designated box. I’ve have some kids ask if they can type it up or put it on a poster board, so I’m really excited to see the final product.

            Wednesday was a really good day. I handed out their morning work and then corrected it. I taught a math lesson on elapsed time that went really well. The last week I have been trying to help the kids with it because it was a subject that was introduced to them before I got there but they have been struggling with. I had only gotten 10-15 minute windows to try and explain to them better how to calculate it and it wasn’t working. So Wednesday I took their math time and I taught a full math lesson on calculating elapsed time. I was talking to another teacher and she said she had a great method on teaching elapsed time and I could look at it if I wanted and I loved it. It was simple and easy for the kids so I printed off copies for everyone. The next thing I did was make copies of a clock face that the kids could write on. I put both of them in a plastic sleeve cover that they could put in their binders. This way they can keep them nice and in a place they can find them, but more importantly they can write on them with dry erase markers. That way they can reuse the clocks and other method time and time again for practice without needing to print more and more. It worked great and the kids are finally grasping the concept on how to calculate elapsed time.

            Thursday was a great day. After the morning work was done I started a math center lesson as a review lesson of the last few math concepts they learned. My supervisor came and observed the lesson and said it went really well. I had the kids in one station working on money and making change so they could work with decimals. In another station I had them working on elapsed time with their clocks I had given them. In the last station I had them working on geometry and drawing shapes and other forms of geometry on a whiteboard. The kids were great and not only had fun but worked hard at the centers.

            Matthew has been so much better this week. He has been coming in with a better attitude, he hasn’t had to go see the social worker once this week. He has gotten almost all of his work done on time, it’s not exactly the best quality but at this point it’s a start. One thing I think has been helping is he had a good day and then because of that received a lot of positive reinforcement. I think that helped his self-confidence and resulted in him feeling a little better about coming to school. Then he started getting his work in on time and got some more positive reinforcement which encouraged him some more. IF this is the case, and that is a big if, then it really does reinforce my belief that positive reinforcement can go a long way with students. Or it could just be he got a week’s worth of good night sleep and wasn’t cranky. Whatever it is I’m happy he was in a better mood and started to see his performance improve but we will see what happens next week.  

Next week is also when I will officially be completely taking over everything in the classroom. :)

Classroom Confidential

            In chapter four Schmidt talks about culture in the classroom. She says that when students from different cultures walk in the door teachers have two options; “You can view the cultures and practices as assets.” Or “You can view some students as burdened with deficits – not proficient in English, underschooled, poor – and by extension, burdens to you, their teacher.” (pg. 69) We as teachers have to make the right decision between the two. Obviously the first one is the one that teachers should make which was something really good for me to read because it is a belief I have always had but never have seen it in writing. So to see it written down in this book was a really good confidence booster for me. She later talked about the best way to have students from different cultures capitalize on their education. The first step for great teachers is to master a dual-curriculum. They have to master all of the academic content; the reading, writing, and math. The second is what she calls the “stealth curriculum”, which is about conduct, language, gestures, taboo words, dress, and manners. All of those things are dictated by the white majority culture, which is the majority of teachers, Schmidt says 90%. We can’t assume that what is acceptable in our culture is acceptable in any other. Which I knew but again was good to read.

            In my classroom right now all of the students but three are from different cultures. So reading this chapter I felt like it was being spoken to me. I grew up in a Christian home, went to a Christian school through 8th grade and a high school with over 2,000 students, a handful of whom were not Caucasian. So growing up I never had a multicultural classroom, I had friends who were from other cultures, played basketball with people from all over the world, even played in different countries, on different continents, but never was in a class that was multicultural. I decided to get a black studies minor in order to deepen the understanding of African American culture but that’s only one culture. Reading this chapter in Schmidt I felt like it was written for me because of where I’m student teaching now and where I plan to teach in the future.