Teaching Journal Issue 4

The theme that has run through this week’s reading has been one of children being allowed to be children, and our job as educators to recognize each child as an individual. Playing into that is the continuing issue of racial and cultural stereotypes that can invade the classroom. I found it interesting in the article by Lisa Delpit, on children being themselves, that while we may unknowingly take pride in being fair and treating everyone the same, it may in fact be harmful in teaching. Rather than ignoring the differences in race and culture for instance, we should embrace our differences, and use it as a tool to include and get children to participate actively in the classroom. Too often I think we tend to overlook the shy, non participating child, when in fact they should be engaged in class discussions. Too often children, and for that matter adults, are made to feel embarrassed if they don’t have the right answer or ridiculed and giggled at. It is our job as teachers to engage everyone and to create an atmosphere that promotes participation without criticism. I am an active believer that the education process needs the involvement of parents to understand the child as Ayers promotes. In my previous working life, as a production and distribution manager, with a background in work-study, I found very early on that everyone is not the same. In the demanding world of production standards and piecework, not everyone’s productivity would be the same. I strongly believed understanding and evaluating an employee’s strengths and weaknesses was always the first step in matching a person to the job. My job was to make them successful, and to find, wherever possible, that job that they were proficient in. The point I am making is that in education you need to understand each and every child beyond the surface appearances. I don’t think you can thoroughly do that without the help of the parent. Will the parent always be helpful? Not necessarily. As I was reading I was already formulating in my mind how I would need to better understand the culture of each ethnic or cultural group in my classroom. I would need some kind of hook to tap into each child to make that communication connection that would make us partners in learning.

In the Buchmann article, the theme started last week in class on “professionalism”, is explored from the standpoint of the classroom and the freedoms teachers may or may not take in regard to how curriculum is taught. The point I take away is that we, as teachers, are not free to choose methods, or content for our students, and probably rightfully so. To do so could deprive our students of a well rounded learning experience. I think the points are well taken in that human nature does often take over, and we tend to do what comes easy to us, to teach what interests us. That would be selfish reasons to be sure, considering the impact we have on our student’s lives. I do believe that this work need not be dull or uninteresting as it may seem to sound. It is our job to make it interesting and challenging to our students. I have no problems with carrying on the prescribed curriculum and framing it in a presentation that would be challenging to my students. At least I hope so in any case. I would not be true to myself that some coursework may prove to be challenging to myself to teach. I look at the way math is taught now in the 5^th and 6^th grades, and it looks unfamiliar to me. It’s not the math problems but the methods now employed for those students to arrive at the answer. But I can learn, just as they have, I am sure. On the subject of professionalism, I found it odd in class that evidently teaching is not considered professional by some outside the academic community or perhaps even within it. Not that it’s not a profession, but that it is not considered professional by people. Call me naïve, but I have always considered teachers professional, and worthy of great praise and admiration in their choice of professions.

In this week’s Ayers reading, I again have found him endearing to my thinking of how teachers should be, or strive to be. I also looked up Taylor Mali on You Tube and found him to be both funny and inspiring. These first few weeks have offered up a not always a rosy picture of what I am endeavoring to do, but I agree that the program would be remiss in not giving us the full picture of teaching; it’s rewards and challenges. As a student of history, and especially the history of the plains Indians, I could relate very well to the coming of age quest of Zayd, who is inspired by the legendary Sioux warrior, Crazy Horse. I am now reading the book, A Terrible Glory, about Custer and the summer campaign that led to the Little Big Horn. In the chapter Seeing the Student, it further affirms that we as teachers need to connect in some way with our students. If you read my educational biography, few of my teachers made a connection with me. Now certainly that is not all their fault, and I must take the blame, but few took the time to connect with me, and to challenge me. I hope when Ayers says“ outstanding teaching is built on a base of knowledge about students”, it is in fact a reality for me. I believe myself the kind of person that is very engaging to people and to children I know. Ayers also recognizes that culture, and understanding it, can be a valuable key in connecting with students. It is bridge building, as he aptly puts it. It’s building bridges to the child, and to the child through the parents and grandparents of the child. It is all about again the community that a school is, and the community that it serves. Delpit reminds us that “each person is an expert on himself or herself; that the people with the problems are also the ones that can solve them”.

Teaching Journal Issue 3

It has been disturbing me that when writing my educational autobiography my recollections about primary school were virtually nonexistent. Why is that? Could it be because my memory has just faded because of age, or there was just nothing memorable about those years? So I asked my wife about her primary years and like a flood she rattles off each and every teacher she had from kindergarten through 8^th grade, with a little story to tell about each. What the hay? She knew the good ones and the not so good, but most feel into the good experience category. Maybe because her community was smaller than mine, classrooms seldom exceeding 15 students. Where I was on a self imposed quest to just get out of school with a diploma, she was a committed to the learning experience, and was a model student achieving good grades, regents diploma, and an eyelash short of National Honor Society. Whatever that was.

In Oakes, Teaching To Change the World, the chapter this week dealt with grouping, tracking, and categorizing programs. Essentially, labeling students. Now I am by no means stupid, and I don’t expect I was plain stupid back in elementary and high school. Did I not apply myself, certainly? Was I an annoyance to my teachers, most defiantly? Could it be early on in my academic life I was labeled a “don’t waste your time” student, and that followed me throughout my education? I never felt pushed by my teachers to do anything, and by my parents, pushed to just pass and move on. In the Ayers reading this week, the chapter on “Seeing the Student”, I saw the challenge there to identify with each of your students, to understand them. What excites them, what stories do they have to tell about what’s important to them, and how we as teachers can tap into those dreams, and ambitions to help us teach them as individuals. I find Ayers, inspirational so far. Maybe it’s idealism, but so what. Should we not always strive for the best? To give the best in ourselves, so that our students receive the best, everyday. I liked the method of how Ayers, engaged the parents with their input, to learn more about their children so he could better adjust his methods to each student. I ask myself does teaching in what appears to be a very structured curriculum afford me the time to individualize each students learning experience, so that I don’t get into the “why waste my time on him or her attitude”. Please let me be memorable in some way to my students. Was that selfish? I think we all seek recognition. Hopefully, from a good experience.

I have a teacher story that I heard from my brother-in-law, a middle school PE teacher. He and another fellow teacher were attending a school sporting event and were standing by the fence observing the game. From across the way, two former students, no longer in school anymore shouted, and waved to the teacher standing alongside my brother-in-law. “Hey, Mr. Smith, you asshole”. With that the other teacher turned to my brother-in-law with pride in his eyes and said, “do you see after all these years, they still call me mister”. I guess we choose what we hear. God, I hope I am not remembered like that.

In our kindergarten class we have no less than four reading groups, and as you would expect they are based on ability, at least in my observation. I will ask this week how in fact that is determined. My group having an autistic child, and two or three students who barely understand English, having recently arrived from Europe, Korea, and India. Talk about having your hands full in trying to get through the most rudimentary sentences, keeping their attention. No small task for the teacher to be sure. Certainly I help, taking care of my youngster, and the Korean child next to me. I believe these children also get at least a couple to three hours of individual attention in reading. What I find so very amazing, maybe because I struggled in high school with learning Spanish, is how within weeks these children almost without exception pick up the language so quickly. Is it that these children are wired for understanding languages or is it the child in us that is so receptive to picking up another language? I have more questions, than I do answers but I am learning more every week. My experience this past year as a paraeducator has truly in itself enriched my life. I think I may have said this before but I love going to school, I love the children, I love doing this. Even what one would perceive as a bad day, do not seem that way to me. This past week I have been kicked, almost bitten, chased an unruly child on the spectrum, and you know, it does not matter. To understand a child is to love a child. These are not bad children, these are children who need our help, to overcome or make the best of their situation, and we are there to help them.

Teaching Journal Issue 2

Group discussion tonight revolved around a table discussion about the Perlstein book, Tested, and a role-playing exercise placing us in different roles in the early part of the 20^th century. I found the video interesting tonight, as history in general is very appealing to me. As this week is WASL week in school, the subject of testing is very relevant. The whole question of testing remains a controversial subject, which played in to the video on public education that we viewed. Back when the IQ test was used as a scientific (and I use that term very loosely) means of determining a persons intelligence or more importantly aptitude. It was to become a tool to direct someone’s entire life into the curriculum one would need to be successful, whether that be a rocket scientist or a dishwasher. I am sure the reasons were well intentioned, or one would hope so. It would be helpful if science could place us in a capsule that would evaluate every brain cell and determine what potential we had within us so we could develop into the best that we could possibly be, but as of yet that’s not possible. So we test, as best we can to what we have learned or not learned. SAT, Regents, many states have them. No easy answer to if some are better than others in determining what we know, or how prepared we are. We have state tests that are unique from state to state , that have become very important to funding, and indeed to the success and security of principles and teachers. Somehow in all this I find testing by itself although necessary, needs to be factored or weighted along with the subjective input of teachers. Now you say, how fair might that be? Well very fair in the mind of a fair-minded teacher, and not so fair in a teacher that’s not interested or observant to a child’s progress. We could not base a judgment therefore on simply one teacher’s opinion, but would average the opinions of all the teachers the child has had from behavior, to social interaction, and all that’s in between. How much of this would be factored into a child’s final score if you will? I probably should not be a 50% test scores, 50% observation, but the non-test factors should account for something in determining if Suzy-John is learning anything, and more importantly progressing, getting better. There is no escaping that someone or somebody needs to make a determination what that is. Will whatever that is decided going to make everyone happy, well no. But I do have faith in that history can tell you what works and what does not seem to work, and we have come a long way from the age of IQ tests.

The progressive schools that developed in Gary, IN, and the Wirth system of schooling fascinated me. It seemed so wonderfully Utopian and I did not get the feeling that they were there simply to churn out bodies to fill the factories during the nation’s industrial boom. The idea of a school being all things to the entire community is a wonderful ideal. A place of education for not only college preparation, but also for vocational training. As these progressive schools started to make in-roads, they seem to have been as quickly pooh-poohed by cities like New York. You certainly have to remember the times and the fact is what is education? Is it not to prepare people for working careers primarily? Certainly, a college education makes one richer intellectually, and to socialize on many levels. But in times when your literally fighting survival as a new immigrant, or protecting your job from someone else that will work cheaper, you need to be prepared in the world to do that. Vocational occupations were a necessity and a means to get one out of the common laborer classification of work. Not everyone, nor were there even enough “management jobs” to go around. The jobs simply did not exist yet. I still chuckle to myself over the stigma that my fellow high school students had attached to them for attending vocational school or occupational skills. In many cases they went on to be very successful in these endeavors as mechanics, plumbers, technicians while the college grad scrambled to find work equal to their degree. What is wrong with children learning life skills such as vocational jobs, health, hygiene, manners, cooking, to name a few. Certainly many children are deprived of that, not necessarily from parental neglect but in a society now of both parents working, the time it takes to teach these skills is often times overlooked as you can imagine when parents are trying to put food on the table. Imagine now that same school, teaching the parents English or new skills for them at night in the same building. A true learning experience for all in a communal atmosphere. Interesting thoughts, and in fact being practiced in places now I would imagine. One of my reasons to teach is this sense of community that a school can provide. Schools should be those beacons of HOPE in a community and shared by all. They are the gateways of our futures and we will play an important part in it. Scary, challenging, will we, me, be up to the task?

How do you tell when a teacher has been teaching too long? When did the apathy set in? Their tolerance become zilch? I have been most fortunate in my brief experience in the classroom to have wonderful caring teachers that inspire and are truly loving and concerned about each and every one. I suppose teaching like any other job can take its toll on you. Maybe I am different, unique? I worked as a manager of 250 people that I was ultimately responsible for. Brilliant people, hard working, nose to the grindstone people, and a knucklehead here and there, but I can honestly say I loved coming to work everyday, for 35 years, at the same company. I enjoyed all the people, laughed with them, listened to them, and sometimes cried with them. You become like a family in many occupational workplaces. My wife is so very jealous of me and my zeal everyday to go to work in the classroom. Matter of fact, it’s time to head off now.

Teaching Journal Issue 1

I have to say it feels very strange to be in a classroom again as the last classes I physically attended were back in the early 80’s. I have of course taken college credit courses since receiving my BS but they were all online which is a different experience. My family has had more than a laugh or two knowing that soon this will be full time with comments like “are you pledging a fraternity?” This is all so exciting and yet I would be lying if I did not say scary as well. While I have been actively in the classroom since September in a supporting role to the teacher as an Para educator, it’s another thing being the sole body in front of those faces. I have a high degree of confidence in my ability to be everything I envision as an educator but I know there are surprises down the road as my instructors will point out and ask us to ponder.

I wonder how my particular style will develop? Will the one I envision be suitable in a classroom environment? I found my style as a corporate manager to be very successful as I climbed the ladder from a very humble warehouse forklift operator to Director of Operations for a 100 million dollar company. Certainly, I have identified with the styles and effectiveness of the classroom teachers I have been able to observe in the grades (K-3) I hope to teach one day. Some are so totally different and seem to be effective in their own way to varying degrees of success. I was surprised to see that the teachers with calmest demeanors and voices seem to have better control of the classroom. So many questions I hope will be answered but I know as Ayers says, most of your education will come in doing which is not much different than the corporate world. Theories are merely that and often times do not stand up to the test of real world problem solving and interaction. So far Jane and Jean have made good choices in their book selections. Hopefully the Oakes book will come around but I can understand its rather dry textbook approach. I do like that many of the teachers we have been introduced to are 1^st year teachers, and it should prove interesting to see how they will grow and how their expectations play out. I have not read that far in advance to see if we continue to follow them through.

I am looking forward to attending the school board meeting and with probably nearly every school district suffering along with the economy it will prove interesting to see where cuts are made. I have played catch-up for the past two weeks. That’s why I am indeed late with this 1^st stab at journal entry for the classes. I underestimated my Biology courses time requirements, but have caught up and will try to use my time management skills better in the future. Another student started a thread on the Perlstein book, which I commented on and should be another vehicle for interaction with my peers. All and all, I think our cohort represents a nice mix of individuals from some diverse backgrounds as much as I can gather from the introductions. I thought I would be the only “old one” in the class when I heard I was accepted and was pleased that we have some other student that are around my age. When you add that with the recent graduates or soon to be ones and the parent now experiencing the “empty nest”, you have a nice representative mix of generational experiences, which is nice.