Philosophy of Education

My recent experience in an ELA classroom has tremendously influenced my beliefs about goals for my students to achieve and the welcoming, encouraging environment I will strive for in my classroom. I have specific traits I want to enforce and inspire in my students. English class is crucial for a student’s literacy. This is where they refine critical thinking skills and learn how to express these skills in cohesive, effective ways. I think that it’s important for them to be reading texts that are of high interest but beyond just entertaining. I want my students to read and write texts that they can relate to and that they can learn and grow from as they progress in the school year and beyond.

Students need to learn that writing is a process. Worthwhile, thoughtful writing cannot be created on 26 lines in one interaction. Yes, they have to learn that skill for the STAAR test; but, if they are taught to write well in any format, and at any length, they sill certainly be able to successfully complete that task and countless other writing tasks. The STAAR essay should be taught as a genre of writing but definitely not the only one, or for that matter, the most important one for them to complete. They need to realize that their linguistic practices are something to take pride in, not change to fit in with mainstream, “proper” English. I understand they’ll have to be able to write academically for certain tasks like tests and academic essays but there needs to be space where they can write anyway they like, their native language if it is not English.

An English class is a place where group discussions, whether they are whole class or small groups, should be cultivated and respected. The expectations for class discussions needs to be set at the beginning of the year and upheld throughout. Eventually, my goal would be that the students lead and carry the conversation on their own with little or no interruption from me, the teacher.

I think that SSR and/or reflective writing in a notebook should be held as often as possible and while they read I want to conference with the students about their thinking as they read. I’ve seen SSR used to really benefit students’ literacy but I’ve also seen it as a random act that isn’t connected to anything at all. It is just a 10-15 minute way to get the students to sit passively and relax before starting “real work.” That is why I want my students to read with a purpose. That purpose can vary depending on their various needs that we can figure out together through conferencing. I want their reading to extend past independent SSR by sharing their thoughts on their books with one another. My hope is that my students see me as someone who is their advocate and someone they can trust with their thoughts and creative writing.

Courage to Teach

The specific problems Parker J. Palmer addresses in Courage to Teach are relevant to secondary schools, especially large schools where there is a lack of community, not only universities that he draws from for his examples. At my school it feels like there is no communication and it causes a lot of frustration and resignation by the staff. They feel like they have no say and no idea why they are asked to follow policies that are foreign and, in some circumstances, counterintuitive.

What resonates for me most in Courage to Teach is his conversational tone and ability to admit that although he’s been in education for decades he still messes up. He is still in awe in the profession that is teaching. There is no lack of wonder and variability that comes with every encounter, every moment in a classroom. It seems to me that Parker J. Palmer believes that as soon as you think you know everything there is to know about teaching you stop learning yourself.  You’ll no longer be an effective teacher because you think that you “know all” and it makes me think that is when banking pedagogy that we talked about in Freire starts to take place.

Palmer writes with a consistent reverence for teaching. He approaches every experience as his first time teaching and he is hyper aware of the students and the energy in the classroom.

That is crucial as a new secondary teacher. On average, we see six different classes several times a week. The class that we see first period is very different from the class we see after lunch at 7th period. We need to meet those specific needs of kids based on their personalities and the time of day we see them. Read their energy that day and tailor our lessons accordingly. It feels easy to just push through a lesson that’s not working and make it to the end of class to think about how to readjust for the next day, but what about that class we are in at that moment? What can we do to make sure they find value and interest in that class at that time?

As teachers we are always thinking on our toes, always having to deal with our computers not working or the copier being broken when we need handouts for the next class. We make due. It’s vital that we think on our toes when students are disengaged as well. One thing my teacher does that I really like are brain breaks, like we did with Anthony in our Research and Design class. I feel like I need to be more hyper-aware of when those are a worthwhile exercise to do in a class. I tend to push through a lesson when the kids seem bored to tears. I feel like that comfort to mix things up and the confidence to do a brain break will come when it’s my classroom and I’m not really on someone else's time but I feel more aware now that I need to incorporate that in my class than I was previously. Does anyone have an innovative brain break they’ve done in their class they’d like to share?

Tests tests tests

Like many of you, I spent the last week proctoring the MOY test. Because my classes aren’t blocked and there is a reading and writing test, I spent Monday through Thursday, 9 am until 4:20 pm watching students take this test. Now, I had a boring week that much is for sure. But every time the students came in they had this look of frustration and resignation to the fact that yet again we were measuring their abilities as students.

At our school, and at any school, really, there are an insane amount of acronyms. SCA, EOC, MOY, SCI...FML (I’m sure yall know that last one). I feel like I am constantly behind knowing what all of these stand for. I mention this because I was really struck by how as they walked in to the door and the students in an upbeat tone asked “What are we doing today, Ms.?” and My CT simply responded with “The MOY” they knew what they were faced with for the next hour and a half. Testing has become so ingrained in these students. It’s more a part of their academic lexicon and knowledge than how to have class discussions. They rank themselves as people, as writers, readers, mathematicians based on their STAAR scores and not by the imaginative, amazing effort that I see them make in class.

One of the teachers at my school was feeling frustrated by the way the admin are approaching test review for those students retaking the STAAR test in December. He is telling them to “just do what they did last year.” Last year 82% of our students failed. So, how does it help them to do the same thing again? Alex poignantly mentioned during lunch one day that this is the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This teacher in question is feeling lost, she feels no sense of like mindedness at school and she feels like others look at her like she’s crazy because she disagrees with this way of studying for the test that gave such poor results last year. I’ve told her about Heart of Texas Writing Project and I plan on inviting her to the next seminar but what I’m curious about, beyond finding that kind of community what do we do next?

How do we stand up for our students who are tested so much? I’m at a loss for what we’ve actually taught them this semester. Where do we start? I think politicizing ourselves to benefit our students is important but I don’t know how to start and when I’ve mentioned this to other teachers they seem resigned to the way things are.

I don’t think my desire to change the testing system is a symptom of naivete but more veteran teachers seem to. If I had an idea of how to start changing this insanity I would want to try but just figuring out how is difficult.

To Teach

Our origami cranes, the students wrote haikus and wrote them on the wing

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading Ayer’s this past week. It’s been a bit of fresh air for me. I find that I gravitate to more practice and methods discussions than theoretical texts that we read and Ayer’s is certainly someone I’d love to talk to about my classroom over a coffee, or beer (depending on what kind of day it’s been). A lot of struggles I’ve been facing in my placement, he addresses so eloquently and reminds me that this experience is just the beginning of my teaching career. He acknowledges and discusses the frustrations that all teachers face about burning out, being forced to present watered down curriculum and the other insane aspects about being a teacher.

He talks in-depth about keeping your purpose in mind and not straying away from yourself as a student yourself, always learning and reflecting. This is something I’ve talked about a lot in class and on my blog. At times I get frustrated with things going on at school or in my personal life. I get bogged down in the “now.” When I consciously realize that I am stuck fixating I try to take a step back and remember the good things and those moments that remind me of why I want to teach in the first place.

One of my student's poems modeled after "This is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams 

School on Friday was a great reminder for me. So as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, we’ve been working on a poetry unit in my 10th grade Pre-AP classes. Friday we had our publication celebration complete with takis, rice krispie treats (homemade by yours truly) and creative, revelatory poetry from my students. So many were eager so share their poems and everyone reacted positively and gave thoughtful, constructive praise to their fellow poets. One of my students who doesn’t normally participate, shared almost every poem who wrote with the class. The poem above is his. I mean, how great is it?! Overall, I had a really great week with my 10th grade. We had to cut our unit short which was disappointing, but because of that, we got to have a writing workshop this week in class. I got to spend the week working on poetry with engaging, emerging poets. How cool is that?! In my class I want this to be the norm not the exception to what we usually do. We’re starting to wind down our student teaching experience and I know for most of us it hasn’t been exactly what we were expecting. I feel like I’ve been learning how to get along with people I don’t necessarily agree with completely and how to be patient when I can’t do everything that I want to do. I just know that I am really, really ready to be in my own classroom where I can have sincere inquiries and discussions, writing workshops and where I can learn from my students as much, if not more than they learn from me.

The OMGs about ZPDs

I’ve noticed in my student teaching that there’s a fine line between a person’s ZPD and giving them work that is to difficult, even when scaffolded, that can lead to severe frustration and even shutdown. On the other side though, there’s giving them work that is way too simple and can lead a student to feeling bored or even insulted.

I believe that the expectations we have about our students and their abilities creates in our minds as educators what we think is their ZPD. For example, I think that I have really high expectations for the work my students are capable of. I scaffold and structure my lessons to reflect that. I ask a lot of my students but nothing I don’t think they’re capable of. I believe though that many teachers do not have as high of expectations and when they use lessons that show these low expectations and they scaffold things that are unnecessary the students lash out. When we do those dreaded powerpoints that go over terms and ideas the students already know, they become disinterested and zone out because they already know what we are insisting that they write down in their interactive notebooks. It’s the self fulfililng prophecy of a teacher having low expectations for their students so the students don’t push themselves. It’s a huge challenge in diverse classes, such as ours, to keep in mind the varying ZPDs in the room. At my school we have one of the highest ELL population in AISD. Many are new to the country, some are even new to the alphabet. How do we go about balancing their needs and what they can handle in terms of our lessons with those who are native English speakers and who have the background knowledge in ELA? In one classroom we can have students who are completely overwhelmed and frustrated with the complexity of the lesson sitting right next to bored students who swear they’ve had the same lesson on literary terms every year.

While I don’t have the answer to this problem, I do know that we have to become well versed in juggling. We have to juggle our students ZPDs and having several different activities focused on the same topic that is appropriate for all students in the room making sure they are engaged and able to complete the task within their ZPD. That is really difficult with one teacher in the room! Having an inclusion teacher or a support teacher working with ELLs is very helpful but they aren’t always there. And even then it’s difficult when they are. It’s a constant struggle we’ll have to be prepared for. I’ve had a lot of experience with having to think on my feet when I’ve taught before. It felt like something would always go wrong in Thailand and I had to have at least three backup plans. Yes, three. My ideal is to give individual attention to every student in my class. I make sure I walk around to the different tables and ask if there are any questions or anything I can help with. This seems so simple but I feel like I don’t always see this at my school. I also want to become more conscious about challenging those students who are bored and don’t need extra help, the students who finish the task in record time. I find myself focusing on helping only the struggling students but not pushing the kids who can do assignments with their eyes closed. Making sure they are also challenged is just as important. I need to make sure there are backup activities that initiate critical thinking and inquiry and isn’t just busy work to keep them from goofing off.

Freire and the concept of banking knowledge

“The more they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.” (Freire, 73).

This quote hit me like a slap in the face. I’ve seen this passivity in action at my school. Where the students accept the way things are because they’ve been lead to believe that they couldn’t possibly know what’s best for themselves. The teachers, as authority figures, know what the students need to know and they deliver that information via PowerPoint and worksheets. When students question why they are learning concepts and terms they already know we assure them of their importance and we continue with the PowerPoint as planned. The students then passively continue filling in the right hand side of their interactive notebooks. I feel like the banking concept I witness at my school is related to my blog post about Choice Words. I mentioned that when I would ask my students a question about their metacognition, why they chose the answer they did, etc, they would automatically think they were wrong and doubt their thought process and choice. Some of them see me as the all-knowing teacher, which is flattering for my ego, but this takes away from their control over their own education. They passively watch me hand out worksheets and go over notes, that I am “an expert” in and they don’t start a conversation with questions or wondering about the validity of things such as the 26 lines for the STAAR test or why we never read novels in class. We don’t do these things because people in the higher levels of education don’t think they’re capable.  

The more we tell them “things are the way they are because we are the teachers and we say so” the less agency they take over their own educations and the less they seem to value what we do in class. I am continuously working towards a pedagogy that is far removed from the banking concept but at times, because of the environment at my school it is easy to fall into. With my poetry unit I am encouraging group discussions and a lot of creation of original poetry.  I always humble myself as the teacher and push them to involve themselves in the discussions and share their knowledge and experiences to create a different environment in my class. It’s hard at times, because they don’t seem to be used to this approach to school and it can be awkward but I feel like it’s a step forward.

All work and no play...

John Dewey’s tome How We Think was at times a tough read. It’s hard to stay focused on a text like this while working 50ish hours a week, lesson planning, grading and trying to achieve some sort of semblance of a social life. That being said, I think it offers truly valuable insight into how humans think. It addresses thinking through psychological as well as philosophical lenses and it resonates with me in how I approach my classroom.

One section that really piqued my interest was the section that differentiates work and play for children. Dewey states that “In play activity, it is said, the interest is in the activity for its own sake; in work, it is in the product or result in which the activity terminates. Hence the former is purely free, while the latter is tied down by the end to be achieved.”  I’ve been confronted this past week with how “boring” or how “fun” our lessons have been in our junior ELA III class.

I’ve shared that I have been less than thrilled with our drill-like unconnected lessons regarding narrative and expository writing sprinkled with powerpoints and handouts. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about a lesson I don’t understand the purpose of and then I have to convey that faux enthusiasm to the students. My students fail to see the purpose of the end result of our ELA lessons. They don’t see a big picture in regards as to how these lessons help them succeed in life or even just to the extent of anything beyond the STAAR test. It’s no wonder that they spend half of the class in  passive lethargy.

When I walked into my classroom on Tuesday my CT said that she wasn’t ready to give our juniors another essay to write because we have yet to finish grading the last one. We quickly put our heads together and thought of an interactive activity involving reading four expository articles and looking at their techniques to see what makes a strong or weak article and what techniques they could put to use in their own expository essays. They worked in groups taking note of the positives and negatives in each essay and then they got up and went to a poster that corresponded with the article they read and wrote their notes. They then switched to the next article. After they finished all four we came back together and discussed the positives and negatives of each article. It was the most awake and involved I’ve seen this class all semester. I asked them what they liked about this activity and one of them responded “It was actually fun, we got to work together and do something interesting for once.” Ouch. I’m happy that they found it interesting and that they had something to take away from it but it is a rough reminder of what they think about the other work we’ve done in the class.

Then again, that statement was from my student I had mentioned last week that spends most of the class with her head down and talking back to me. The way she said it made it seem like we were there to entertain her. I think there is a balance between work and play and is attainable and a lot of it has to do with cultural relativity.

Cultural relativity has really lacked in this class thus far. We’ve been reading short stories and articles that deal with children for about a month now. We read a story about children who are left unattended and a horrible accident happens to them and it was paired with an expository article about children who are laborers. We were comparing narrative and expository but there wasn’t any front loading and it felt really random. Then about two weeks later, we did the same activity again with two similar articles. The students kept asking “Why are we reading so much about children??” There was no feeling of cohesion or a theme throughout these readings. It felt like we were just putting articles in front of them and saying here, “read this and fill out this chart.” Sure, the short stories were about Latino children but there was no connection the students felt towards these stories. It was just another thing they had to do go get by to get the daily points for the day.

I guess my point is that if we use culturally relevant materials and connect them to a purpose the students can identify with more intrinsically than points or the STAAR we can more easily mingle play, (by which I mean entertainment/engagement) and work. The activity we did on Tuesday allowed them to work together, read articles they could find at least somewhat interesting (the subjects were love, the science behind basketball, the music industry, and people who have accents) and see their work presented in front of the class. We then tied the activity to techniques they could use in their writing. The students need to understand what the end result of our lessons should be but enjoy the process along the way to feel more agency in their education.

Lean on me

Somebody to lean on

A frustration that seems to be permeating at my school is a lack of community and like minds amongst the teachers. I find that the teachers I work with feel overwhelmed with a lot of the things we have to implement, like this program called Teengagement and Scholastic Reading Counts. They haven’t received training on how to implement these programs but they are expected to put all of these things in place.

The teacher next door to me is a new arrival to Texas and AISD. She taught in another state for years and she’s having a difficult time adjusting to how things are done. When we talked the other day I mentioned the Heart of Texas Writing Project. I told her it would probably help her keep her purpose in mind and it would be good to connect with other teachers who share her views on writing in the classroom. I was talking about The Dreamkeepers with her and how one of the teacher’s experiences at a 7-week conference renewed her enthusiasm for teaching. It is ironic that I told her about the book because she actually studied under Ladson-Billings.

The teacher I’m referring to in The Dreamkeepers said that the conference was “kind of like a recognition that the way I thought about teaching was all right. It was the intellectual activity, you know, the thinking.”

I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot this week. It is so valuable to make sure we are part of a community that supports our philosophies and helps us put them to practice in the classroom. If this community isn’t available at your particular school it is a necessity to find it elsewhere. It’s easy to sucumb to peer pressure or doubt yourself because of what you see others around you doing even if you know it’s not best practice. I’ve been having a bit of a hard time with the things I’ve been required to teach this semester so I’m trying my best to make sure I’m keeping my ideologies in mind and trying to implement them when possible.

This Wednesday I’m going to start a poetry unit that’ll last about 2-3 weeks. My CT thinks I should start with the beloved PowerPoint, which would be an introduction to the ideas and terms we’re going to focus on for entire unit. They are tone, imagery, simile hyperbole personification and symbolism. Do yall have any suggestions on how to spice this up? I pretty much don’t have much of a choice about having to specifically address each one but I want to make sure it’s not a snoozefest that the students can actually engage in and relate to rather than just writing notes.

Staying present and motivated

While this post isn’t technically about the things we’ve been reading for class, those texts have really made me feel like I need to step up my game. I’m noticing that it gets overwhelming trying to answer everyone’s questions, hand out graded assignments, make sure no one’s on their phone as they’re doing their assigned work that it is difficult for me to be present in every moment. When I say present I mean that it’s hard to always keep purpose in the forefront of my mind. 

Choice Words had so many wonderful examples of how to make any moment a “teachable” moment. Ladson-Billings’ case studies of the the effective teachers also inspires me to make sure every encounter I have with my students is worthwhile. It’s easy when I get stressed by misbehavior, or the pressure from admin about testing or the rigid curriculum to get too inside of my head and go through the motions of teaching. I try to always be present and enjoy my time with my students. I consistently attempt to make sure my conferences and all of our interactions are worthwhile but at the end of the day I find myself wondering what I can do better. How could I have handled that class differently? Why didn’t I mention this or that when I talked with Oscar this morning? I try to not be hard on myself. I know there’s a learning curve and that it takes time to perfect the dialogues we have with our students but I want to make sure my students know that I value our time together and I don’t want to waste anyone’s precious time.

I subbed for my teacher on Friday afternoon. It was really crazy, to say the least. We had three classes in the afternoon because of Lanier’s wonky Friday schedule, including our inclusion class. I think by default they were a bit wacky because it was Friday. I tried my best to keep everyone motivated and working but there was confusion about the assignment and a lot of students weren’t sure about what was supposed to be due for that day. I had trouble making sure everyone was doing their work. A lot of students didn’t touch their papers they were writing until I walked up and talked to them one on one about their progress. After the bell rang I asked myself how I could have handled it differently. I wish I would have brought the class together establish the importance of simply asking questions when they’re confused. I also wish I would have reaffirmed the necessity of revision, we’re working on revising and editing narratives. Overall, the work was finished and I had some strong conferences with students, especially the ELLs but where do I start to make sure every class starts on a positive, motivating note?

Back at it

All last week I read Choice Words in the morning before I start teaching for the day. I’m glad I started my day off with it because it’s a reminder of how vital every conversation I have with my students is in their development as critical thinkers, readers, and writers. I’ve used a lot of these techniques before without really having a way to name them. It’s true that most of them are geared towards elementary students. I recognize that I was trained to speak with students in this manner when I worked with AmeriCorps in South Austin.  However, I find them really helpful with my secondary students as well.  Asking students how they came to write about what they did or what was their thought process for finding a solution to a difficult question makes them think about their position as an engaged learner who has control over their education.

As we talked about last class my class has been erm…a little more scripted, shall we say? We assigned our juniors to write a narrative about death. For some reason the powers above enforce that we have to have all of our writing on those cursed 26 lines. Yes, even for juniors who don’t have to take the test. So that was pretty lame but I tried to make the most of it. I walked around and conferenced with some students and read their essays with them when they were finished. Then I tried out a few of these quips in Choice Words. I don’t know if it was the way I was asking these questions or if they’re just not used to being questioned in this manner but most of my students thought that I was questioning them because they were wrong and they needed to change what they were writing. I realized I had to preface our conversation with a reassurance I was asking them about their writing because I wanted to know how they thought of their story and why they wrote it that way because I am honestly interested and eager to help them become passionate writers. One of my challenge students who doesn't like to read and always seems to dislike what we’re doing in class turned in his essay to me and I sat down with him and immediately read it. After words I was so enthusiastic because he really did set a great scene incorporating his upbringing in Jamaica and I told him so. I gave him specific examples of what I liked about his writing and he seemed genuinely surprised and happy. It seemed like he wasn’t used to being praised for his reading and I’m hoping that our conversation will help him to continue writing. especially about Jamaica.

I don’t think a lot of these students are used to being asked to reflect on why they write a certain way or how they came to their decisions. The questions usually stop after a correct answer is supplied. Does anyone else feel this way too?

End of the year thoughts

I’m still in the processing stage of my Yearlong plan. I have some idea of what I want to do and achieve in my year but I haven’t sat down to do the legwork. Creating the outline is a lot more exciting and less daunting that I thought it would be. Maybe I’m letting my nerd flag fly here but I like how it is a blank slate and full of possibilities. The tricky part, for me, is going to be making all of the dots connect. There are a lot of different things I am interested in teaching but I need to make sure they flow and aren’t disconnected and random. So that is definitely something I have to keep in mind while I go ahead with my plan.

I finished at ARS last week. It was a bit bittersweet. I really enjoyed my time there. The girls were wonderful. I said a little goodbye to them at the end of class and one of the girls gave me a big hug and wished me good luck. It was too cute! I’ve had a great time getting to know them and reading alongside with them. I’ve read three of the books they're reading and it’s been so interesting to have my questions shared by the students and hearing their answers. I feel like I learned a lot from my conversation with my CT and my facilitator. They have great advice for me for my student teaching and beyond and I feel really confident about next semester. I’m really ready to commit more time and energy in the classroom! I can’t wait to see my students every day and become a major fixture in their lives as they will in mine. Bring it student teaching!