Meeting the Students from District C

I've really liked how we've gotten to meet with many different people involved in District C from the teachers and administration to the students that we met last week. I was really excited to get to hear what they had to say in depth because when doing walkthroughs in classrooms, there isn't much of an opportunity to do that much talking to them besides a few questions here and there.  

As I said on the bus ride back to campus last week, I loved hearing what they wanted to see in a teacher. I also loved how enthusiastic they were about learning and pushing themselves to do the best work they possibly could so that they could make their families and themselves proud. It’s always great to have students like that, just like it’s great to have an enthusiastic teacher. Seeing someone excited about learning the material you have to teach is an awesome feeling, but at the same time, there are going to be students who are going to be more difficult to work with. I think that part of being a really good teacher is making sure the students learn, but also getting them excited about doing it. And like I said in my previous blog post, the more a teacher shows interest, attention and care towards a student, the easier it will be to figure out the best way to motivate them and help them learn in the best way possible. We’ve heard teachers say how important it is to know your students, and last week we heard it from the students themselves. One of them gave the example about how much he loved basketball, so his teacher tied examples in class to basketball for him.
 
There are plenty of teachers out there who, unfortunately, don’t take the time to get to know their students or help to push them to be the best student they can be. They stand at the front of the room, spew out the information and go home at the end of the day. But not only is this not helping the students learn, but the students can pick up on this attitude almost immediately. And if they can see that a teacher isn’t enthusiastic, doesn’t particularly want to get to know them, or doesn’t reach out to them, then they’re not going to want to push themselves in that class. I feel that the more respect the students and teacher have for each other and the more open and interested in each other and learning from each other they are, then more learning will occur.

 

Showing Students You Care

Since last week, I’ve been kind of thinking a lot about what Ms. G, our guest English teacher said about helping that student start to enjoy reading and getting him to the point where he finished an entire book from start to finish—something he had never done before. This point also brought up how a little one on one time and making the effort to get to know your students can really be beneficial and effective. I also thought what Principal JL said about sympathy vs. empathy was really important as well.

 I think making an effort to get to know your students, work with them, help them, and show them you care and genuinely want them to succeed is really beneficial for the students. Like Ms. G said, that particular student she dealt with did not like or want to read, but once she took the time to work with him and give him that bit of extra attention that he needed, he had picked out a book from the library and finished it. She showed him that she cared and when students can see and realize that teachers are on their side, I believe they feel more motivated. If a teacher doesn’t make it clear that they care, or they get frustrated with students who may be acting up, not showing an interest in material and/or performing poorly in class, it only makes the student feel worse about him or herself. Getting frustrated or trying every professional method you can think of isn’t going to help the student. While professional techniques do help, part of teaching is getting to know the students in your class, being patient and kind, showing them you care, being understanding and figuring out the best way to help them learn and believe that they can learn.

 And then there’s the balance between being sympathetic and empathetic. Like Principal JL said, you want to have empathy towards your students, which means being able to understand and acknowledge how they might be feeling, but you don’t want to get to the point where you feel bad for them, so you make things easier or don’t establish expectations. You want to have expectations and standards for them and you want them to succeed. You don’t want to ignore whatever issues they may have, but you want them to be able to move forward and rise above them. I think this also relates back to showing students you care. I feel as if acknowledging whatever a student is going through, but also giving them the attention they need and helping them meet the expectations laid out for them is showing you care, not feeling sorry for them and letting them slack off or making work easier. You have to believe in the students and also show them that you believe in them. 

Typing this up also reminded me of a TV show that further illustrates this point. I actually watched the show on YouTube over the summer for fun and I love that I’m actually applying it to school. The show is an Australian mockumentary called Summer Heights High and while a lot of it is supposed to be comedic, I think the story of Jonah, one of the students, contains a lot of seriousness and fits perfectly with some of the things we’ve discussed. In the show, Jonah is a Year 8 student who came to Australia from Tonga when he was three. He has four siblings and was raised by his father after his mother died when he was young. He lives with his four siblings, his father, two cousins and an aunt. He struggles in school, specifically in reading, so he goes to a remedial reading class with Ms. Palmer, who he actually enjoys. When we see her interacting with Jonah, she is always kind, polite and patient with him and it is clear that she believes in him and wants him to do well. She truly wants him to learn to read. And while Jonah is in her class, he wants to learn how to read. He actually states at one point that maybe someday he’ll be able to read “Harry Potter in a day.” On the contrary, his English teacher, Ms. Wheatley, gets frustrated with him. It seems as if she is shouting at him nearly every day and even throwing his books on the ground as she kicks him out of class. The contrast between the behavior of these two teachers and Jonah’s behavior as a result is very interesting and shows the differences in students depending on how a teacher treats them. Jonah wanted to improve in Ms. Palmer’s class because she cared about him. She believed he could learn how to read and she made the effort to help him and care about him. Jonah even stated that Ms. Palmer appreciated him. She gives him appropriate work to do and works with him so that he'll be able to read on story day at the end of the term. On the occasions he does act up, she stays calm and gets him back on track. Ms. Wheatley, on the other hand, just screams at Jonah and gets frustrated. She doesn't make an effort to talk to him or get to know him and she doesn't make him feel as if he could do any better or improve. Here is the link to the final scene of Summer Heights High, which I think sums up the difference between Ms. Wheatley and Ms. Palmer pretty well: Summer Heights High.

October 31st Observation

During our last visit to District C, it worked out that I got to spend some time in all three English classes listed on the paper provided for us. The first class I went to was working on their common task in the library. They were an ELL level 2 class and I believe the teacher said that most students had been in the country for two years or under. We were encouraged to walk around and talk with the students about what they were working on and even help them out if they needed it. I actually felt a little unsure of what to say considering it was an ELL class and the last time I had tried to talk with an ELL student, it had been somewhat uncomfortable for both of us. But as the teacher ended up bringing up, it takes time to be able to feel more comfortable and to easily communicate with these students, which applies to not only many other parts of becoming a teacher, but almost anything new in life. There will surely be moments of awkwardness and discomfort and moments where things don’t go perfectly. But as time goes on you can only get better. 

The second class I visited was an inclusion class. When we got there, the teacher had a few minutes left of her lunch break, but she allowed us to wait in her classroom until her break was over and her new class began. She let us look at copies of the book the students were reading, which was called Things Fall Apart. The copies she let us look at were very interesting because they looked like normal books, but there were vocab words bolded and then defined at the bottom of the page. There were also questions at the end of every chapter about things like the theme. The teacher did mention that this particular class was an inclusion class so I felt that those types of additions to the book would be helpful to them. When the class began, the students did not seem very interested in participating. She would ask if someone would like to read and she would be met with dead silence. It appeared that not every student had their book with them either. While I found the teacher likeable, there was just no excitement in the class and this was actually quite the opposite of other classes I’ve seen where the students are very eager to read out loud and share things with the class. 

The third class I visited just so happened to be one of those full-of-excitement classes. I had never visited this class before and I really loved the energy in the room. They were discussing different types of irony and filling out a sheet as a class. Students would volunteer to read a scenario that illustrated a certain type of irony and then students would identify what type it was. Everyone was very eager to participate, read scenarios, and discuss certain aspects of what they had read and/or what they thought the answer was and why. At one point, a scenario was read about Eminem swearing in his songs, but not allowing his children to swear. It ended up sparking a sort of debate over whether or not Eminem was really being hypocritical. I think this energy really did have a lot to do with the fact that the scenario included a rapper that the students would be familiar with at the very least. It would have been different if the scenario had talked about a singer that the students didn’t know or enjoy. This shows how important it is to know your students and what gets them excited and eager to talk and participate. People are always more comfortable talking about what they know and like, so being able to tie interests into the lesson is so beneficial.

 Of the three, the third class was definitely my favorite. It seemed to me that she had found that balance we talked about where she had a good relationship with her students, but there was also learning going on. The students were excited and eager to participate and from what I heard, nobody was getting an answer wrong. It is definitely what I would like to see from my future students one day and hopefully I will be able to take what I saw and be able to effectively use it just like this teacher did.