Brent the Warrior Monk

My response to the blog of Brent Bonds: Entertaining and enlightening. Delicious and nutritious. 

I was fortunate enough to work with Brent over the summer. He split his time between our class and the 9th/10th grade English class. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy watching him teach, I learned from him. He put crazy wigs on his bald head and wore scarves, hats, and jackets just to grab the students' attention. He taught them to play flip-cup as a review game. And they learned from him. But enough of my brown nosing campaign and more on his blog.

It is one of the most entertaining blogs I've read. He manages to throw in references to warrior monks almost flawlessly, and still there is substance. It is an honest blog, regardless of who it may offend. This passage illustrates that idea perfectly and it ranks among my favorites:

"I'd like to see a new wave of teachers who do more than teach to tests and who rely more on trenched experience than empty research. It is a perfect time to revamp our schools of education, which I must admit I have always thought were Mickey Mouse courses. It would be nice to see a change of emphasis from a minimum of subject area classes and too many less-than-valuable education courses to a system that requires a great deal of core subject-work and supplements that in-depth knowledge with a greater hands-on apprenticeship."

I could not agree more. He wasn't afraid to say that he thinks education courses are Mickey Mouse, and talks about how and why he thinks it should change, and I'm pretty sure he's right!

One of my other favorites, and a perfect example of how he turns the painful requirement of blogging into something he and the rest of us can enjoy:

"In three weeks time, at the current rate of personal growth, I expect a golden transformation. A glowing apotheosis. I, Brent Bonds, will have become a teaching god."

I think he may have succeeded. 

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Summer Training

This summer was easily the most intense of my life. I have never really had a summer in the typical, kid sense of the word. I was always playing competitive sports... softball, golf. Until college, my goal every summer was to play well enough to get noticed by a college coach and earn myself a scholarship. Once I achieved that and got to college, I was required by my coach to play in amateur tournaments all over the country or I wouldn't be eligible for fall qualifying.

There was a lot of pressure.

That was nothing.

I didn't know what pressure was back then! While at the time I thought everything in the world was riding on whether or not I played a good round of golf, what I immaturely failed to realize was that it didn't matter. Not at all. And certainly not to the kids whose lives I've just been thrust into. They don't care if I was a college athlete. They don't care how hard I worked every summer or even if I was a success or failure. They just want me to teach them. That's pressure.

So this brings me to the matter of my summer training. I must say that without it, I would be feeling infinitely more pressure going into the actual school year. We taught summer school in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Students were bused in from a couple different districts for a total of around 250 students. which is a lot of students in one summer school.

We had anywhere from 25 to 30 kids in the 7th and 8th grade English class. It felt like 100 kids for an inexperienced, fresh-out-of-college student with zero training, but it was undoubtedly the best training I could have possibly received. It was like a mini school year. I saw the steady decrease in student focus and behavior as the weeks passed. I had high and low days, successes and failures. I reached some kids and failed to reach others. I learned how to plan a lesson, come up with assessments, and attempt to make grammar interesting. 

By no means do I think I am ready for the coming school year. I'm not sure if first year teachers are ever fully ready for that. I actually still hesitate to even call myself a teacher. But I am licensed, and regardless of what my feelings are, I will be in a classroom of my own in a matter of weeks.

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In My Students' Shoes

As a requirement of MTC, I video taped one of my early lessons, in fact, my first lesson. While at this point in time I hate the fact that I have hard evidence of my lack of teaching abilities, I think that down the road it will be pretty neat that I have my first lesson ever on video. Even if I do hate it though, I certainly learned a lot from watching it.

First and foremost, on the surface, I realized I hate my voice. I'm pretty sure that is a natural response, but I really had no idea I sounded so annoying. What I thought was intense fluctuation in my intonation sounded like a glorified monotone. I can't believe the students came back the next day. Maybe it helped that my first lesson was a Friday, first period.

I didn't move around nearly as much as I though I had, and the few board-hugging steps I took seemed forced and calculated. Not knowing the students' names didn't help either. So when I called on someone, I did this awkward point with my clip board, which I'm sure they saw right through.

One thing I thought I did well was the lesson itself. I was teaching pre-writing for an autobiography, so I played them a clip of Vh1's Behind the Music on T.I. It was someone they respected and knew something about and it was a show they were all familiar with. I began playing it without even giving them some things to look for. So then I awkwardly paused and gave them a list of four things, which I later realized they didn't understand. After it was finished playing, I pulled the projector screen up to reveal three graphic organizers drawn on neon poster board. This was one of the things I think I did well. It showed them I was prepared.

On the board I had drawn a Venn Diagram, a cause and effect map, and a timeline. I filled the organizers out with events from my life. I had been told that students enjoy learning about their teachers... they didn't seem to care. But back to the point.

I watched the video that night and then again yesterday (2 weeks after). I can feel that I have already gotten better. There is far greater volume and excitement in my voice. I am starting to connect with the kids, and I move around so much now (touching all four walls) that I have actually been told to stand still a little more. 

My nervousness has turned into excitement (at least internally). I can't wait to see myself in two years.

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Reluctant Blogger

My whole life I have been stubborn. It's not that I have problems with authority or taking orders. All of that is fine and a natural part of growing up. The problem has usually been that I don't like to do unnecessary things. Busy work in class always frustrated me. Homework for the sake of homework never got completed. Scenic routes aren't really my thing either, and admitting that there is nothing wrong with standing in a grocery store check-out line in the south for twice the time I would in the north has been something I have struggled with for my four years at Ole Miss. 

"Where else do you have to be, Andrea?" 

"Anywhere but here," I usually retort. "It is totally inefficient to stand in line at Wal-Mart for this long."

So here's my point: I am stubborn on nearly every level. I will argue with you about whether or not the sky is blue if you really want to. I will take any side of any argument and enjoy arguing it. So coming into teaching, I figured I would have no problems letting my students know exactly how I felt, exactly what I expected, and exactly what would happen if they chose to go against me. I figured they would be able to sense the brick wall that is Miss Buccilla. 

NOT.

As I have said before, I have discovered this odd contrast between Andrea and Miss Buccilla. Andrea lives pretty happily without concern of approval from much of anyone. Miss Buccilla secretly begs for the acceptance of her young students. So as a result of this dichotomy, that hardened disciplinarian that I assumed would exist in the classroom is remarkably absent. 

So all of that was so that I could simply say this. The Reluctant Disciplinarian helped me. It was probably too anecdotal, which caused me to begin tuning out what I was reading - much like I do when people get too anecdotal in conversation. (It's that whole aversion to unnecessary things) But I could relate to Gary Rubinstein in a number of ways. Even though Andrea is very different than Gary Rubinstein, Miss Buccilla has a lot in common with him.

If I had to choose one piece of advice to immediately take from the book, it would be to develop a teacher look. According to Rubinstein, "the teacher look says, 'There's nothing you can do that I haven't already seen, so don't even bother trying.'"

That sounds wonderful. I have already tried it a couple times and it has been entirely ineffective. In fact, it even produced some laughter. But I had teachers (and a mother) who had that look down to a science, so I know how effective it can be. I know that there will come a point in the year when my voice is like poison that my students immediately shy away from and ignore... so I need a look.

I think that devoting a significant amount time practicing my teacher look in the mirror is entirely necessary and time effective. This blog however, was completely unnecessary.  

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What I've Learned About Myself

I've learned that I'm not as good at time management as I thought. (Notice this blog was posted 10 minutes before it was due).  I've learned that I am not as mean I as I thought. I have learned that I am not as intimidating as I've been told. (In fact I think my college-age friends are more scared of me than my middle schoolers). I've learned that I like kids a lot more than I realized... and not just my little sisters anymore. I have realized how easy it is for me to care for someone who, prior to one month ago, I had no knowledge even existed. I have not learned why yet, but I have discovered the interesting fact that, even though I normally do not bother with whether or not someone likes or approves of me, I am desperate to gain the approval of these pre-teens. I have learned that I am extremely unorganized, which I guess could go back to the time management thing, but it has become such an obvious flaw that I feel it's ok to mention twice. 

I have learned that I will be teaching 7th grade writing, which is a state tested subject. In fact a double state tested subject. The Mississippi Curriculum Test 2, and a state writing test.

I have learned that challenge excites rather than scares me. 

I have realized that being a Division I college athlete was easy.

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My First Couple Weeks

It is Friday of my third week of summer school, and as I am sitting in the teacher work room 30 minutes before the day begins, I am realizing that my time management skills are not what I thought they were. I am still in the honeymoon phase, where even on my worst days I find something positive... or at the very least I try to turn something negative into something funny.

Will my optimism subside? I hope not. Have my first couple weeks been way harder than I had imagined? You bet. Here is the deal. I have learned so much in a short two weeks of summer school, and my teaching abilities have taken the drastic jump from non-existent to passable. I have gotten to the point where, on my good days, I actually feel like a teacher, not just a college graduate beginning the next step of my life. So that gives me hope.

As far as my students go, they are great. They are bad. But they are great. This is the first year that summer school has had enough students to actually simulate a real school year, so the behavior problems I have encountered have been very authentic. We have 30 kids enrolled in our classroom, which means we have somewhere around 25 on a given day. For a first-year novice at classroom management, that is a lot of kids. But like I said, it's great.

We eat lunch with the students everyday so I have gotten to know them outside the class. I'm not sure yet if that has helped or hurt me. There seems to be such a fine line between having them respect me and having them be too comfortable. So I don't know if my recent slip in effectiveness is because they are too comfortable or because it is week three and they realized that they only have two more weeks with me.

At some point, I will have all the answers to these questions. I'll let you know.

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Cold Call, Cold Heart?

This week we were supposed to try a new questioning technique during our lessons. To me, "cold calling" seemed not only to be the simplest, but likely the most effective idea. Let me first define cold calling. The teacher takes either a bunch of pop sickle sticks or a stack of note cards and writes the names of one student on every card. For each question asked, the teacher pulls a name from the group and calls on that student. At this point... in theory... the student whose name gets called perks up from their usual morning lull and aptly gives the answer. In theory.

Since the teacher pulls names at random, it is meant to keep the students on their toes. It is meant to motivate them to pay attention so that when they are called on, they know the answer. It is meant to increase learning.

I was really excited to try out cold calling. Every lesson I have taught thus far has been first period and, needless to say, the kids are less than eager to volunteer. I figured that I would finally get to see them demonstrate all of the information I had helped them learn. 

At first it went pretty well. They were able to answer most of the questions with ease. I had been teaching about the writing process and they were able to list all of the graphic organizers and their corresponding styles of autobiographies. They also remembered the things I told them to look for while editing. But when we got to the last three things I wanted them to look for: spelling, grammar, and punctuation, we had problems. 

Up until that point, I had been cold calling on kids to go write their answers on the board under the corresponding heading that I had written. The student that I called on knew the answer to my question. He said it aloud before I asked him to write it on the board. This actually happened to be one of the better students in my class. He always volunteers, he never sleeps, and he is always polite. But the look of terror on his face when I asked him to write his answer... spell his answer, sent a chill down my own spine as I felt so terrible about what I knew was about to happen. 

He shuffled up to the board and picked up one of the dry erase markers. In tiny handwriting, he apprehensively wrote spelling. "Good!" I encouraged him to keep going, but at this point, the rest of the class had picked up on what was going on. Laughter began spreading around the room, and as I shot them "the look," he turned to a classmate to see if they had the words, grammar and punctuation written on their paper. No luck. As casually as I could, I walked up to the board to "save him." I took the marker, whispered in his ear and said, "Don't worry, I've got it."

That was the end of cold calling for the day. I felt like I couldn't risk humiliating another student. I understand that the whole point is to help them learn. But at that moment, I don't think I was helping anyone learn. It certainly seemed like more of a distraction than anything. My thoughts are this: in a "good" school district, where everyone is at grade level and can at least spell the words that they have been seeing over and over again in their lessons, cold calling might be a good idea. But in these districts, and especially in a summer school English class, I need to find a different way to promote participation.

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