08.25.07
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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08.15.07
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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07.29.07
Posted in Me, Student teaching at 9:08 pm by Miss Fox
In 286 days, if all goes as planned, I will be a real teacher.
Summer school went well. Two A’s and one B. In case you’re counting.
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07.17.07
Posted in Me, Student teaching at 4:17 pm by Miss Fox
So, I have to get a physical before school starts in August to prove that I won’t give the kids TB or some other disease. I understand that, and I don’t mind doing it - they even have a form to take with us to make it easier to get proof and make sure everything gets done. Hooray for the student teaching physical.
Of course, I wait until the last two weeks of summer school to schedule that appointment - *cough*procrastinator*cough, cough*. I call, today, to schedule (just got off the phone, actually), and she actually knows what I’m talking about when I say I need a student teaching physical - which surprises me, because they didn’t last time I did this (remember, I was supposed to do my student teaching in 2004, but became temporarily retarded and dropped out of school) and it took me forever to get the appointment right. This excites me.
For about ten seconds.
UNFORTUNATELY, they only do appointments in the MORNINGS.
Sounds like I’m being a whiny bitch, right - “oh, wah, I don’t wanna get up in the morning, boo-hoo”. While that is entirely possible, my main problem is that I have class from 8am-1pm all summer - wouldn’t you know it, the exact times they have appointments. *grumble* And I have to come in on two separate days, 3 days apart, due to the TB test.
I don’t fault the woman making the appointment. She even said at one point, “I don’t know why they do this - they need to have afternoon openings…” after I told her I have class every day from 8-1 (as is the nature of summer school). She was very sympathetic, and I (luckily) had time free during the reading day before exams, and during what is supposed to be the end of my tennis final (we have a take-home, so I should be fine).
Some people might wonder why I didn’t go in the beginning of the summer, before I had class. Well, my friends, UNC student health only covers you for the semesters/sessions in which you are enrolled full-time. Thus, since I was not enrolled in classes last summer session, I would have had to pay $50 just to get an appointment. So, it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d called at the very beginning of the summer to schedule an appt, the only time I could have come in would be next Wednesday at 9 and next Friday at 10:15.
I’m just glad they weren’t closed on the reading day… lucky me, I suppose.
Oh, and a PS - I really hate needles and physicals, what with the pain and the stupid questions and all. At least with a tattoo, I get something pretty to show off later. The only thing I’ve ever gotten from a vaccine is a scar that everyone assumes is a hickey… *sigh* (Oh, and maybe protection from bygone diseases…)
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07.14.07
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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05.14.07
Posted in News, Violence at 5:06 pm by Miss Fox
When I first caught this story through MSNBC, I was taken aback.
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
Now, I remember doing fire drills and tornado drills in school… and even lock down drills in high school. We had bomb threats, and once we went into lock down because there was an armed suspect in a neighborhood adjacent to campus that the cops were after. Lock down lasted about an hour, until he was arrested, and then normalcy resumed. Even during that lock down experience, we were never told “there is a gunman on the loose - hide under your desks!” As a matter of fact, there was just some vague code announced, and all the teachers closed the blinds and closed and locked their doors. We weren’t allowed to leave the room without a teacher, and then only in emergencies (like going to the bathroom). Teachers continued teaching, even. Nobody said what had happened until after the guy was arrested, to prevent us from panicking.
We were never told we were in danger when we weren’t. And even when we were in possible danger, our teachers and administrators were sure to stay calm and keep us that way. Sure, we wanted to know what was going on, but we truly didn’t need to know until it was over. It only would have made the situation worse.
This situation is horrible for several reasons, not the least of which is that students were made to feel that they were in danger when they weren’t.
During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on a locked door.
Now, of course the media sensationalized this a bit, but let’s think about this. These students are 11 or 12 years old… do they really need to know there’s a man with a gun on the loose, even if it’s true? In a real situation, should they have told these kids details that would just scare them and put them into panic, or could they have been more vague?
And the teacher pulling on the door? That’s going way too far.
I understand what they were trying to do - I’m a teacher, I can see the importance of being prepared for a situation like this - but they handled it horribly. Scaring students unnecissarily only erodes the trust they have in you, and doesn’t really prepare them for a similar situation in real life. And, truly, it’s not the students who need to be prepared for this, it’s the teachers.
I seriously doubt any of them would be laughing had this stunt been pulled on them in a staff meeting.
However, a lot of people are saying that these teachers should lose their jobs - I don’t agree with that. I do think they should be educated on how to handle emergency situations, particularly away from school, and possibly disciplined for their lapse in judgement, but I think losing their jobs is more than harsh.
Shay [one of the sixth graders involved] and her mother, Niki Morris, said they forgave the teachers and wanted to move on. It “went too far because it was too gruesome,” Shay said. “You’d think a teacher wouldn’t do it, but they did. But they’re great teachers. If (the assistant principal) loses his job, I will break into tears. He’s the best assistant principal I’ve ever had.” (source)
There’s a response on the school’s website, as well:
Clearly, there are many versions of this situation and the coverage has been sensationalized. Regardless of the versions, this prank crossed the line in what would be appropriate to tell young children, especially in light of recent incidents.
It goes on to say that the incident is being investigated and that proper action will be taken, I just hope they are balanced in their discipline. There are a lot of teachers who have no idea what to do if such a situation was to happen for real, and that’s the real tragedy, here.
Let’s use this as a sign that we need to educate our teachers, not just punish them.
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05.12.07
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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Posted in Controversy, News at 6:57 pm by Miss Fox
Lately, I’ve heard quite a bit about year-round school vs. traditional calendar school in the local news:
Superior Court Judge Howard E. Manning, Jr. ruled Thursday that the Wake County school system can not force students into year-round schedules.
Which leaves a lot of people wondering - where are these kids going to go? They can’t build schools fast enough, and the students keep coming. According the article, they’re trying to come up with all kinds of options, but the only other one that seems possible is splitting the day - having an “early shift” (approx. 7-12:30) and a “late shift” (approx. 1:30-7) for students.
Parents don’t want that, either.
So perhaps a little background is important. Year round school is generally nine weeks on, three weeks off. This means that students and teachers would be in school for nine weeks (already the typical grading period), with three-week breaks between. For a lot of families, it’s hard to find childcare every two months for a month. I can see the issue there, though don’t a lot of parents typically have to find childcare for three months once a year, anyway? Seems like that would work itself out (highschoolers looking for babysitting jobs, camps that would cater to year-round school schedules, etc). And, I would think that typical family vacations are three weeks or less, anyway.
There are always exceptions, but on the surface, year-round schooling doesn’t seem to be a problem. There are a lot of opinions as to the actual benefits regarding retention, but nobody seems to think academics are suffering due to year-round schedules.
However, Wake County and a lot of other overcrowded school districts are using the year-round scheduling on a track system to help maximize the number of students that can learn in a given building. It sounds like a good idea, but it becomes a clusterfuck when you realize that parents with multiple children will sometimes have kids on different tracks. Teachers have to share classrooms - moving out of their room every nine weeks and moving into a new room three weeks later.
As a future teacher, the notion of moving all my crap every grading period does not make me happy. I’d rather have it all there, organized, where I need it. Part of the appeal of teaching is having my own classroom… it just seems so temporary…
But what are these school systems supposed to do? This is a lose-lose situation for everyone, and compromise isn’t coming easy. I know that Wake County is doing everything it can to accommodate these kids, but there are just too many.
Tempers are flaring on both sides of this issue, as parents fight for both sides, school systems struggle to come up with a good plan, teachers worry that they’ll be shuffled around…
The saddest part is, it’s the kids who are caught in the middle.
This is a pretty good resource for the pros/cons of year-round school… it appears to be fairly balanced.
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05.09.07
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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05.03.07
Posted in Controversy, Immigration, News, Politics at 11:09 am by Miss Fox
Immigration is a hot political topic, lately - specifically dealing with the Latino population, more specifically Mexican immigrants, and even more specifically undocumented Mexican immigrants.
So many people want to do away with immigrants - send them back to their home country to fix their own problems. What if we’re causing some of those problems? Yup, that’s right - the United States is selling our cheap corn to Mexico, and wondering why the 1.3 million Mexican farmers that have been priced out of work are coming up to the States for work.
Oh, and those dirty Mexicans don’t pay taxes, right? They come up here and make all that money, and then give it to their fat families in Mexico and don’t even have to pay taxes… wait, what? You mean that’s wrong, too? Most of them don’t even make minimum wage, but a good portion of them pay taxes, and even file federal returns. Also, most states have sales tax - every time they buy something, like food, they are paying taxes. Do they get tax refunds? Or the same benefits that legal US citizens get? Nope.
Alright, so perhaps I should get to the education connection before I get shoved down off of my soapbox. North Carolina has one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country - 393% over ten years from 1990 to 2000, according to the 2000 US Census. I’ll be teaching in North Carolina for at least four years, and have lived here my entire life.
As a teacher, it is illegal for me to ask the immigration status of my students or their families, according to Supreme Court Case Plyler v. Doe.
In the eyes of a school, there is no difference between legal or illegal immigrants. They are entitled to the same education as American citizens.
The 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause does not allow public schools to ask about immigration status. Source.
Personally, I agree with this decision - why should children suffer because of the disagreements of adults?
Also, the Supreme Court says that “sink or swim” education is unconstitutional, according the the case Lau v. Nichols - this means that if a student does not know English, schools and teachers are required to adapt their instruction and/or supplement the student’s learning to help them succeed.
I agree with this, too - ignoring them doesn’t make the problem go away, and creating ignorant citizens makes it worse.
So, why all this ranting? Because I feel that our nation’s views on immigration - illegal or not - are generally founded out of ignorance and misunderstanding, and that most United States citizens cannot be bothered to learn the truth.
I intend to brush up on my weak Spanish over the summer, and hopefully I’ll be conversationally fluent by the time I’m teaching, in a year. And I wish people would stop trying to tell me that I’m wrong because I’m “catering to the illegals”. Would it really hurt to do some research and give some support to our neighbors? Really?
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