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.