Archive for My education
22 April 2008
Posted in Journal-related, My education, Student teaching, Students at 8:32 am by Miss Fox
So, I’m finishing up my student teaching, this week. Wow.
It’s been a long, hard year - and I’ve accomplished quite a bit. I wish I had documented more as I went, but I had a hard enough time keeping my head above water. Maybe over the next couple weeks I’ll be able to reflect upon my experiences and give you all an idea of what it was like.
I wish I had updated with at least a little blurb every day. I didn’t because I thought it would be annoying to just get a few sentences of “kids say the damnedest things,” but they really do. I did keep a written journal here and there, so maybe I will post some of that.
Over the summer I hope to teach summer camp at a local science center, so I will update on that experience as well as the “job hunt.” I have some places in mind, and have been to a job fair, but I haven’t seriously started hunting. That starts next week.
I’m going to miss these kids. Maybe more than I will any future classes… they’ve taught me so much about myself. I intend to visit periodically before their year ends in June.
I can’t believe that I will be graduating in exactly 20 days. It’s been a journey, and I hope you’re willing to follow along to the next one!
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19 October 2007
Posted in Bad, My education, Student teaching at 2:25 am by Miss Fox
So, I’ve mentioned once before that my school system uses Handwriting without Tears to teach handwriting. My teacher gave me her teacher’s guide at the beginning of the year, but I haven’t had much time to look through it.
My school finally got the student workbooks this month, so my teacher started teaching it one Wednesday that I was there.
And I have to say, I’m horrified.
All the reasons to not buy and implement a system like this are there: it’s expensive (a $6 workbook for every student in grades K-2 plus a $6 teacher’s guide for each teacher and whatever other materials they purchased), it’s vocabulary-heavy, and it takes just as much time (if not more) to teach them how to use the method as it does to just teach them how to write.
Plus, it’s everything I hate… cutesy phrases that only vaguely relate to their purpose, lack of meaning, and boring repetition.
I remember learning how to write in elementary school… I hated it. “Write the letter p exactly this way 10 times. Now do it again. And again. Oh, no! you didn’t bring the tail all the way down to the line (that won’t appear on any actual paper you’ll ever use for anything other than handwriting practice)! Start over!” It’s ridiculous and impractical - and kids hate it.
I realize that being able to write legibly and consistently is important, I do… but can’t we, after decades of doing it the boring way, figure out a better way to teach it? I know you have to practice, by why can’t you practice using words and situations (and paper!) that the kids will actually use? Why can’t you just model the correct way and tell them you want them to write the letters the way they appear on their nametags or on the wall or wherever you might have the alphabet hanging in your room?
And, honestly, do we need to confuse them any further with the “magic c,” “frog jump capitals,” and “up, up like a helicopter, slide down, bump”? I mean, seriously - what the fuck does all that even mean? I remember, when I was learning how to write in cursive, my teacher kept telling me a cursive “r” was supposed to look like a chair, and I kept fucking it up. I just didn’t understand how what she drew looked anything like a chair, so I tried to draw mine like a chair instead of like hers, and she kept telling me it was wrong, and I still have trouble writing the cursive “r”. All because my teacher was so concerned about the vocabulary used in whatever system my school adopted to teach cursive that she didn’t notice that it wasn’t working.
I feel sorry for any kids who come in new in the second grade that aren’t familiar with Handwriting Without Tears. They’ll be lost and confused and frustrated. The funny part - the teacher’s guide actually states (on page 23 for those following along), “…there is no strange jargon or indecipherable terminology.” HA!
Ha ha ha! Ha HA ha HA! HA!!!
I don’t know if they’re fooling themselves, but they certainly haven’t fooled me - this system is so FULL of strange jargon that you spend half the time teaching them what it means to “frog jump up” and what the fuck a “magic c” is. I tried explaining this system to some of my adult friends (both education majors and not) and they were perplexed.
I don’t know of any “standardized” alternative to the program, myself, but I’d rather just teach them how to write my own way than use this… though, I’m sure there is something better out there. Any ideas?
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14 October 2007
Posted in Journal-related, Me, My education, Student teaching at 1:53 pm by Miss Fox
I do apologize for not being very good at updating. I doubt I have any regular readers (it’s hard to have regular readers when you don’t have regular contributions), but in case you are out there, I am sincerely sorry.
My hope was to update weekly with my student teaching escapades for the week, but that hasn’t happened because… well, because life happened, instead.
My mother passed away in September, and I’ve been trying to catch up from that. I’m okay, and things are generally fine with school and teaching and all, but updating this journal has been rather low on the priority list as a result.
There are so many things to share, though - I’ve taught a lesson that went really well (I want to post the lesson plan), I’m working on a special case study that is both heartbreaking and eye opening, I’m getting ready to teach another lesson on Wednesday, my methods courses are proving tedious and only slightly useful, and I went to a math conference that was simultaneously boring and helpful and extremely crowded.
I’m growing as a teacher, and I can feel some exciting changes taking place in the way I think and plan and work with children. I am starting to feel like a responsible adult, and teaching is more and more becoming second nature to me.
Please, if you haven’t given up on me, yet, don’t. I truly appreciate your interest and input, and am anxious to offer what little knowledge I have, as well.
Thank you.
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25 August 2007
Posted in Me, My education, Student teaching at 7:25 pm by Miss Fox
So, last week, I spent pretty much every day in the classroom for at least a few hours getting ready for the First Day of School, 27 August.
Quick and dirty:
Monday the 20th, I helped the Teaching Assistant and another student teacher* paint these lovely crayons on our closets!
There was also a staff meeting, in which we discussed money (or lack thereof), students (and their overabundance), and teachers (or lack thereof).
Tuesday: More meetings. They sure do love staff development at my school. Last year, they started a new system referred to as a Professional Learning Community or PLC. Essentially, it increases collaboration between teachers and grade levels, and focuses more on learning than teaching - instead of dissecting what you’re doing, you dissect what the student is doing. I also painted this wall:
Wednesday: all day staff development. All. Day. Staff. Development. It was useful, but looooooong. At the end, I felt like I was about to die… but I really love the staff at my school, so it was bearable. Better than some of the Teaching Fellows meetings I’ve had to sit through (sorry, Gladys).
Thursday: Meet & Greet. About 20 of our 27 students came in with their families to meet us, fill out paperwork, and ask questions. Apparently we had a really high turnout, and I was able to use some of my Spanish (which needs MAJOR work, but was very useful). We have 8 Spanish speaking students in my class. I haven’t looked through all their files to see how proficient they are in English, but the few I looked through showed pretty high writing and vocab, but low reading levels. All in all, an excited group of people.
Friday: A sad attempt to plan for the first week of school. There was so much distracting stuff going on, my teacher and I didn’t get much done. She’s doing all of the planning, of course, as I’m only going to be there once a week until January, but she didn’t even have Monday finished when I left at 4. Hell, we didn’t even have an updated class list! I’m sure it’ll all come together, though - it always does.
Amongst all this craziness, I’m taking my methods courses. From now through December, I’ll be going in once a week on Wednesdays. I won’t go full time until the spring semester, but I am supposed to teach at least three lessons this semester. The other days of the week, I’ll be taking my five other classes, and pulling out my hair. It’s going to be busy, busy, busy - but I’m already loving it. So far, everything I’ve done has been useful and felt productive… instead of last year when I felt like I was doing busywork that had no purpose.
My plan for tonight and tomorrow (besides do reading for my methods courses), is to put together some short lesson plans that I can teach anytime this semester. I also need to review the teacher’s guide to Handwriting Without Tears, which is the handwriting program my school adopted last year.
I can’t believe the first day is Monday. There’s still so much to do!
* For a while, there were two of us - she goes to another college, and was to be full-time student teaching this semester. This proved to be a bit much for all of us, so she was placed with another teacher (in the same school). She did help us out pretty much all week, though - and was awesome.
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15 August 2007
Posted in Journal-related, Me, My education, Student teaching at 7:08 pm by Miss Fox
In less than a week, I will be sitting down with my teacher, planning for the coming year. I am very excited about this. Summer camp was a classroom management nightmare, so I hope to pick up a lot of tips from classes and my student teaching experience.
What I know so far: I’ll be student teaching in first grade, with a fairly experienced teacher. Based on the Kindergarten class from last year, the class size will be large (possibly 26 students!), but they had less behavior problems than the first graders last year, so it might not be too bad. My teacher seems eager to help me, and willing to let me take over where comfortable. I’m glad I’ll be with her in the beginning, since it will make the class feel a bit more like mine.
So, there will probably be many posts on my actual experiences in the coming year, and I’ll likely be begging for advice on occasion. 
Hopefully, I’ll be able to do some current-event type posting, as well… my intention for this blog was never to be completely about me, but about the world of education in general, too. I’ve got lots of things I want to write about, I just have to find the time to sit down and write about them. Feedback would be awesome!
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14 July 2007
Posted in Journal-related, My education, Special needs, Students at 8:17 pm by Miss Fox
First, the apology: it’s been quite a while since I’ve made a post. That makes me a bad, bad journal-writer. I’ve been busy with work and summer school - there is no shortage of things I want to post about, rather a shortage of time with which to prepare decent posts. I hate the idea of slapping half-assed, unresearched posts up here just for the sake of posting. So, I do hope that you will forgive the lull. I’m hoping it will start picking up.
Now, for the subject at hand.
Last night I went to a low-key party at a friend’s house. Before you get all excited, there were board games involved - I suppose a more appropriate term would be “get-together”, but none of this is truly important. One of my friends, K, is a teaching assistant (elementary school), and something she said to me struck me as odd and frightening at the same time.
We were talking about summer school, and she says, “Oh, yeah! My teacher from last year is teaching summer school this summer, and I ran into her, yesterday. I asked her how it was going and she says, ‘I have seventeen kids and none of them are on medication!’ All I could think was, ‘Should they be? You had 22 last year and none of them were on medication, either…’”
K also found this teacher’s statement odd, and just kind of ended the conversation with her. She went on to explain that this is a first year teacher, who was inconsistent and never really handled discipline or communication with families her entire first year of teaching. K, the teaching assistant, did all of that for her.
Because of things like this, and other reasons, K left that school and will be a teaching assistant at a very small (80 kids) elementary school next year.
This caused me to react in several different ways:
(1) What are they teaching people at East Carolina University (from where the teacher graduated) about special needs kids, classroom management, and family communication? (I’ve heard great things about ECU’s school of education from many different people, and am guessing that this person is an exception to her peers.)
(2) Why do people still assume it’s their students that are the problem when they have issues in the classroom? And why is the hoped-for outcome medicated students? What ever happened to thinking, “Hmm… my students aren’t doing well and going crazy… perhaps I should change what I’m doing.”
(3) Why is it okay to abuse your teaching assistant by letting/making them do all the classroom management? This teacher is going to be in a world of trouble next year, when she has to do all of that stuff herself.
(4) Speaking of that, why don’t school of education programs mention teaching assistants? I just realized that I have not once learned what a teaching assistant is actually supposed to do. I can guess, based on prior experience, but isn’t that kind of important? Shouldn’t I be learning how to properly utilize my teaching assistant, if I get one? They’re kind of a mystery to me.
Anyway, just some observations… some of which have been rolling around in my head for some time, but came to the surface last night. I hope to develop a more detailed, researched post about students on medication in the future, but didn’t have time to do that, tonight.
I hope you are all well.
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12 May 2007
Posted in Me, My education, Social studies, Student teaching at 10:42 pm by Miss Fox
Something I meant to write about a while back, but the craziness of the semester prevented it:
Last semester, there was a grad student in one of my classes. She is really interested in social justice, and led a few lessons on the topic (some of which were enlightening) - I really enjoyed having her in the class.
Because she is a grad student, she had a research paper to write. She interviewed all of us about our perspectives on social justice: how it affects our lives, our teaching, where our opinions originated, etc. It was an interesting interview, and I should be receiving a copy of the paper soonish. It’s all anonymous, of course, but I really want to know what the some of my other classmates had to say about some of their experiences/opinions on the topic, as I think my views often differ from my peers.
In any case, she asked me (and other students, I presume) if I would mind her following me next year when I get into my student teaching and possibly my first year of teaching. I have to say, I am extremely flattered that she would find my views on social justice and teaching interesting enough to follow me, but I’m also incredibly curious about what she discovers in her research. I think it’ll be a really good experience for me, and will get me thinking about the issues. I mean, we all consider issues of social justice, but I think being part of her research will help me think about topics before they come up in my classroom, and perhaps allow me take a more proactive approach to such issues with my students.
I’m sure there will be more about this in the future, but I wanted to mention it for those who might be keeping up with the blog somewhat regularly.
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9 May 2007
Posted in Me, My education at 3:59 pm by Miss Fox
I turned in my last final exam, yesterday - I am now, officially, a senior.
Rock on.
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29 April 2007
Posted in Me, My education, Student teaching at 6:11 pm by Miss Fox
As a lovely parting gift, my fourth graders put together advice they have for new teachers. Some of it is surprisingly good advice, though I loved it all. (* are next to the ones I really liked):
“Don’t give homework on Fridays.”
“Don’t YELL at your students, or they won’t like you!”
“Treat your children nicely.”
“Try to give secret words on the board so the kids can earn prizes.”
“Do funny activities with your kids.”
“Get class pets, like hamsters or snakes or fish.”*
“Do something really, really special once every month, like having a picnic outside the classroom.”*
“Pick up trash every week outside.”
“Don’t make up really stupid rules.”
“Even if they haven’t earned all the letters for a prize, maybe give them a little treat one time every two months.”*
“Learn very exciting lessons.” (by one of my ESL students)
“Have longer recess time. Like 40 minutes.”
“Make two rules that kids hate. Like not having any F-U-N.”
“Don’t let your kids make announcements.”
“Pay your kids to learn.”
“Do a funny dance once a year in front of the class.”*
“Torture your kids with a song every day.”
“Make learning F-U-N-N-Y… minus the N-Y.”
“If your students aren’t listening, threaten to hang them up by their toes.”*
“Don’t kiss your students.”
“Let your students have free time.”
“At the end of the year, take a picture with your class to remember them by.”*
“Make some puppets and let your class make an interesting play.”
“Sometimes, give homework that they will look forward to.”*
“Have a pizza party at the end of the year.”
“Give your kids jobs to do like teacher’s helper and messenger.”
“Read a book to your students.”*
“Pay attention to your kids.”*
“Give this homework: Play two video games designed by the same person, and compare them.”*
“Let your kids learn a lot.”
“Play with your kids at recess.”*
“At the end of the year, have a dance contest.”
“Tell your kids that even when it’s too hard, to never give up.”*
“The class pet should be a cockatoo.”
“Have show and tell each week.”
“Don’t let your kids go to the bathroom in the middle of class.”
“Torture your kids by talking about water when they have to go to the bathroom.”
“If kids aren’t paying attention, whack them in the head with a marker!”
I’m gonna miss these kids.
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26 April 2007
Posted in Journal-related, Me, My education, Student teaching at 1:49 am by Miss Fox
I feel bad for not keeping things up around here, lately. School is coming to a close, and due dates are flying at me like crazy monkeys. It’s just as scary as it sounds. truly. I just finished the big project for the semester, and have a few papers to write and two take home exams to complete by the end of next week. I can do it, but goodness knows it’s been frustrating and exhausting.
I also have my student teaching information - I’ve been placed with 1st graders at the same school at which I student taught this semester. I met my teacher on Tuesday, and she seems amazing. I truly can’t wait!
I have so much more swimming around in my head, but it is late, and I’m so ready to go to bed. More soon, I promise - there is never a shortage of things to say!
Side note: I’ve been checking up on the search terms that are leading people to my journal, and it’s kind of an entertaining little mix of things, now. It used to be mostly about sex and little girls (gross times infinity!), because of my post about the sexualization of little kids. Now, people are finding me for good things - some have even searched specifically for my journal. It makes me happy. That is all.
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