We have four different reading groups in our class of 12 kids. At least four. I worked with one group of them the other day. They had a brief set of instructions: they were to re-read two short books of a series and then read a new one, and answer two questions about it. These were very short books, maybe 8-10 pages, with maybe 2-3 lines of text per page.
Kids in the second grade class I was in last semester were pretty quiet, but they were not silent and still during silent reading. But maybe because there were 25 of them, and not 3 of them, I didn't watch them each as closely in terms of their reading behavior. There was also an expectation (created by peers, not just from us teachers) that during reading time, you read. Students can read, and so they do. Maybe not every second, but for more or less the entire time. We had only one kid who didn't, and he was a source of great anxiety for the teacher.
But when you are sitting with three kids at one table, it's a completely different story. Focus is not these kids' strong suit, even if it isn't their main presenting issue. I really should have taken notes of the range of behaviors I saw during this activity. They were quiet and they were, for the most part, turning pages. But from moment to moment, it was not easy to tell who was actually reading.
So they answer the questions, or not, and that's how you know if they read the book, right? Well, maybe. It's like what I said in my post about assessment (http://studentteacher44.blogspot.com/2012/12/like-shakespeare.html)- when you ask a student to write, you are assessing their ability to write first, regardless of what you've asked them to write about. If they can't or won't write, you can't know anything about what they know or have learned by asking them to write. Right? So... some of the students seemed to be reading, but they pretty much all struggle with writing, so writing wasn't showing me if they had read the book, or understood it. The only way was to have them each read it aloud. And this was quiet reading time: not appropriate.
Anyone who survived the trauma of reading aloud in school when it wasn't their strong suit is probably saying "Nooooooooo!!!" at this point, but.... there really is something to be said for reading aloud. It's the real deal. I love quiet reading time, and I know a lot of second graders that do, too. But for this group, they may not be getting a lot of reading done. It's really hard to tell.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Same idea, very different execution
ABPS is quite different from PSOhYes, despite their similarly stellar reputations. The reps are for different things, for starters. There are definitely different emphases in all kinds of ways, from a teaching and learning standpoint. And, of course, I am teaching in a very different kind of classroom. But... it also just feels very different. And it's also been a bit crazy.
My cooperating teacher, who I'll call Mr. Lee, just to keep things simple, was sick for the first two days of my placement. The SETTS coordinator honored his request to have the students split and placed in the classrooms of their most recent teachers, which worked out better than you might expect. Both were CCT classrooms, for starters, which helped a lot. It worked out great for me, because I learned a few really cool things from the teachers I observed over the two days. And I got to know two of the three paras a bit, and they're both really terrific.
Mr. Lee was back today and things got back to normal. I met all the kids and they had a normal day in their own classroom. That was nice for everyone. I see now what my advisor means by his being a "therapeutic teacher." You can tell that their comfort, from moment to moment, their agency over what they are doing, and their voices, are most important to him. He comes at classroom management from the standpoint of what is the least stressful for everyone- himself included in that, of course. It's great, and very calming.
The school as a whole- well, I think it may partly be a function of the fact that this school feels much less crowded. So it's not military-style in the hallways, they can go out no matter how cold it is, they have a gym for recess when they simply can't go out, and they don't have to sit still with their hands in their laps very often.
For example, at dismissal, the cafeteria was nuts because of the bus strike (many kids bus to this school as it is a choice school for several districts) and two boys kept running off. At PSOhYes, they'd be called back immediately. Here, the paras were like oh yeah, they'll be back. One girl didn't get packed up by the time the rest of the class was ready to go. They left. I stayed with her and asked if she'd like me to walk her to the cafeteria. She said yes; turns out that was because she didn't know how to get there. But Mr. Lee was not worried, and neither was her grandmother, who was there to collect her. Others in the school would take care of her. That was of course what would have happened at PSOhYes too, but here it's just a lot more relaxed: no one will get lost, this is a safe place, and kids are supposed to run around. No panic.
And speaking of dismissal: instead of packing-up time being a scrum, in the classes I've been in it's "quiet time." There's enough time to do it, music is playing, no one is scrambling. A much less stressful way to end the day.
The stairways are kind of an analogy for that. They seem to defy their penal appearance by having the bright red banisters, and multiple pathways for changing floors. I believe the intention used to be that one flight was "up" and one was "down" but those traffic rules have been abandoned in favor of the relaxed attitude. It's growing on me, for sure.
My cooperating teacher, who I'll call Mr. Lee, just to keep things simple, was sick for the first two days of my placement. The SETTS coordinator honored his request to have the students split and placed in the classrooms of their most recent teachers, which worked out better than you might expect. Both were CCT classrooms, for starters, which helped a lot. It worked out great for me, because I learned a few really cool things from the teachers I observed over the two days. And I got to know two of the three paras a bit, and they're both really terrific.
Mr. Lee was back today and things got back to normal. I met all the kids and they had a normal day in their own classroom. That was nice for everyone. I see now what my advisor means by his being a "therapeutic teacher." You can tell that their comfort, from moment to moment, their agency over what they are doing, and their voices, are most important to him. He comes at classroom management from the standpoint of what is the least stressful for everyone- himself included in that, of course. It's great, and very calming.
The school as a whole- well, I think it may partly be a function of the fact that this school feels much less crowded. So it's not military-style in the hallways, they can go out no matter how cold it is, they have a gym for recess when they simply can't go out, and they don't have to sit still with their hands in their laps very often.
For example, at dismissal, the cafeteria was nuts because of the bus strike (many kids bus to this school as it is a choice school for several districts) and two boys kept running off. At PSOhYes, they'd be called back immediately. Here, the paras were like oh yeah, they'll be back. One girl didn't get packed up by the time the rest of the class was ready to go. They left. I stayed with her and asked if she'd like me to walk her to the cafeteria. She said yes; turns out that was because she didn't know how to get there. But Mr. Lee was not worried, and neither was her grandmother, who was there to collect her. Others in the school would take care of her. That was of course what would have happened at PSOhYes too, but here it's just a lot more relaxed: no one will get lost, this is a safe place, and kids are supposed to run around. No panic.
And speaking of dismissal: instead of packing-up time being a scrum, in the classes I've been in it's "quiet time." There's enough time to do it, music is playing, no one is scrambling. A much less stressful way to end the day.
The stairways are kind of an analogy for that. They seem to defy their penal appearance by having the bright red banisters, and multiple pathways for changing floors. I believe the intention used to be that one flight was "up" and one was "down" but those traffic rules have been abandoned in favor of the relaxed attitude. It's growing on me, for sure.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Saying goodbye
Last Thursday was my last day at PSOhYes. IT was a GREAT day, thanks in part to Ms. Lee, who had some great ideas about what they would enjoy, and also went to a lot of trouble to make the day special. She had never had a student teacher who stayed as long as I did, and she felt that many of the students had really bonded with me, so she made sure that there was time for them to individually say goodbye. I had really bonded with them too- they will always be my "first class" and the one by which all others will be judged, I guess.
Ms. Lee told me before the holidays that I should do whatever I wanted in terms of teaching for my last few weeks. We figured out few days that I could teach most of the day, and I also designed a Japanese lesson for each subject area. Some worked better than others, but a really effective and timely one was having the students review place value using Japanese numbers. Other teachers expressed an interest in trying it. We had planned a field trip to the Noguchi Musem in Queens, but that got nixed by the school bus drivers' strike, and we decided that at 90 minues each way, it was too far to go by public transportation.
For the last day, I found a few good web sites with Japanese games that the kids could play using the school's laptops. Predictably, getting them charged, set up, etc., for the lesson was not a simple matter and Ms. Lee had never done used the laptops before, which made it all stressful for her I'm sure. She also ordered in some sushi rolls and the kids had lunch in the classroom, which I didn't know was allowed! Between that and playing computer games in school, she made sure the kids will not forget me anytime soon.
We exchanged some gifts. The kids each made me a card, which she attached to a scroll of Japanese rice paper and rolled it all up on a dowel. I read them later with my daughter, and some of them were very touching. She patted my arm and said, "Don't worry Mommy, I'll get you another class." Ah, to be four. But she really enjoyed visiting the class, and she understood that I was feeling a loss.
I am going to another well-known Brooklyn public school, which I will call ABPS, to teach in a 12:1 self-contained special education classroom. Starting Tuesday. Stay tuned.
Ms. Lee told me before the holidays that I should do whatever I wanted in terms of teaching for my last few weeks. We figured out few days that I could teach most of the day, and I also designed a Japanese lesson for each subject area. Some worked better than others, but a really effective and timely one was having the students review place value using Japanese numbers. Other teachers expressed an interest in trying it. We had planned a field trip to the Noguchi Musem in Queens, but that got nixed by the school bus drivers' strike, and we decided that at 90 minues each way, it was too far to go by public transportation.
For the last day, I found a few good web sites with Japanese games that the kids could play using the school's laptops. Predictably, getting them charged, set up, etc., for the lesson was not a simple matter and Ms. Lee had never done used the laptops before, which made it all stressful for her I'm sure. She also ordered in some sushi rolls and the kids had lunch in the classroom, which I didn't know was allowed! Between that and playing computer games in school, she made sure the kids will not forget me anytime soon.
We exchanged some gifts. The kids each made me a card, which she attached to a scroll of Japanese rice paper and rolled it all up on a dowel. I read them later with my daughter, and some of them were very touching. She patted my arm and said, "Don't worry Mommy, I'll get you another class." Ah, to be four. But she really enjoyed visiting the class, and she understood that I was feeling a loss.
I am going to another well-known Brooklyn public school, which I will call ABPS, to teach in a 12:1 self-contained special education classroom. Starting Tuesday. Stay tuned.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Like Shakespeare
Sorry, got caught up in the holidays. So here's a story/thought that's been stewing in my brain for a while. A boy I work closely with, most closely in reading, absolutely floored me on Monday morning of the week before winter break. He came to school in kind of a foul humor, so I tried to jolly him up by starting with a game that we play in the hall: we toss a ball back and forth and call a word or phrase to each other that has to do with the book he's reading. It can be anything; doesn't have to be vocabulary. This helps me see whether and what he remembers of what he's read.
He's been reading the "Ready Freddy" series, and on that day students were supposed to decide how they would present their independent reading project to the class. I didn't really know how to approach this task with this kid, but it needed to be very concrete. Imagine my surprise, then, when on the first toss he says, "Freddy is always nervous at the beginning of the book." Next toss: "Then he gets help from his friends, and he's excited about his plan." And finally, "He is always happy at the end of the book." Wow. Considering that getting this kid to answer questions about what he's read is about as easy as pulling teeth, this sounded to me like he had all of a sudden started spouting Shakespeare.
I found out later that this was basically a summary of a reading conference he'd had with Ms. Lee and another student (also reading "Ready Freddy") on Friday, which made it less out-of-the-blue, but still impressive that he internalized and could produce all of that at an appropriate moment. So, great. I had him write it all down as part of his final project (a booklet; he loves making his own books) before it disappeared from his mind. I also praised him to the skies, of course. I think he felt good about his work, as well he should have. A good first period on a Monday. I told his mom about it at dismissal. Yaay.
The next day, Ms. Lee was going to give an assessment that corresponded to the Common Core standards for reading. I attended the meeting in which this assessment was agreed on; students were asked to write about a character that they had read about in the current school year and imagine being friends with them; kind of a fun assignment.
This boy turned in a blank sheet of paper for this assessment. Let's just leave aside the reasons for that; suffice it to say that this is not an uncommon occurrence for this boy when it comes to assessments. There was another boy in the class who also turned in a blank paper; this boy's particular challenge is writing, so again, not so surprising as an outcome. But my question is this: isn't this as much a writing assessment as it is a reading assessment? How can you assess one without the other, "formally," as it were? Is there a way to do it?
Assessing these two particular students this way indicates a problem, but it doesn't assess their reading ability. This assessment doesn't tell you that one of these boys reads independently for 30 minutes a day, and the other cannot do that at all. It doesn't tell you that they both read (decode) at or above grade level. It doesn't tell you that one of them just made, with some guidance, a major breakthrough in expressing himself concerning his reading comprehension.
Perhaps this assessment served its intended purpose for all but these two students, although this is far from clear. My question is this: how useful is this reading assessment if it is as much about how well a student writes as about how the student reads, or how sophisticated their thinking is about what they are reading? If we rely on writing to inform us about their reading, and thinking, then what happens when writing is a problem? Do we assume they're not reading? That doesn't seem fair.
Happy New Year everyone. More in 2013!
He's been reading the "Ready Freddy" series, and on that day students were supposed to decide how they would present their independent reading project to the class. I didn't really know how to approach this task with this kid, but it needed to be very concrete. Imagine my surprise, then, when on the first toss he says, "Freddy is always nervous at the beginning of the book." Next toss: "Then he gets help from his friends, and he's excited about his plan." And finally, "He is always happy at the end of the book." Wow. Considering that getting this kid to answer questions about what he's read is about as easy as pulling teeth, this sounded to me like he had all of a sudden started spouting Shakespeare.
I found out later that this was basically a summary of a reading conference he'd had with Ms. Lee and another student (also reading "Ready Freddy") on Friday, which made it less out-of-the-blue, but still impressive that he internalized and could produce all of that at an appropriate moment. So, great. I had him write it all down as part of his final project (a booklet; he loves making his own books) before it disappeared from his mind. I also praised him to the skies, of course. I think he felt good about his work, as well he should have. A good first period on a Monday. I told his mom about it at dismissal. Yaay.
The next day, Ms. Lee was going to give an assessment that corresponded to the Common Core standards for reading. I attended the meeting in which this assessment was agreed on; students were asked to write about a character that they had read about in the current school year and imagine being friends with them; kind of a fun assignment.
This boy turned in a blank sheet of paper for this assessment. Let's just leave aside the reasons for that; suffice it to say that this is not an uncommon occurrence for this boy when it comes to assessments. There was another boy in the class who also turned in a blank paper; this boy's particular challenge is writing, so again, not so surprising as an outcome. But my question is this: isn't this as much a writing assessment as it is a reading assessment? How can you assess one without the other, "formally," as it were? Is there a way to do it?
Assessing these two particular students this way indicates a problem, but it doesn't assess their reading ability. This assessment doesn't tell you that one of these boys reads independently for 30 minutes a day, and the other cannot do that at all. It doesn't tell you that they both read (decode) at or above grade level. It doesn't tell you that one of them just made, with some guidance, a major breakthrough in expressing himself concerning his reading comprehension.
Perhaps this assessment served its intended purpose for all but these two students, although this is far from clear. My question is this: how useful is this reading assessment if it is as much about how well a student writes as about how the student reads, or how sophisticated their thinking is about what they are reading? If we rely on writing to inform us about their reading, and thinking, then what happens when writing is a problem? Do we assume they're not reading? That doesn't seem fair.
Happy New Year everyone. More in 2013!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Water and conversation
I have been thinking a great deal lately about language
and its work as the main medium of teaching. The Japanese have a saying: “Water
and conversation are free.” This was an obstacle in my previous career in
consulting, as there is a predisposition in Japanese business culture not to
pay for “conversation,” which is often what our services boiled down to. My job
was to make the conversation interesting and valuable enough to pay for.
In teaching, it’s even harder than that. Language seems so
ephemeral- do students hear the words we say to them? Do they understand? Out
of 25 kids, how many are hearing me at any given moment? Did that fire truck
mean I should start over? We don’t have the luxury of meandering conversations:
if nothing else, we’re limited by the attention span of the least attentive
child. We have to write koans and haiku. Every word has to be packed with
meaning, we have to know how to say the most in the least amount of words and
time, and the lesson has to be more than the sum of its parts: its substance
has to stay in their minds somehow. Right now, I waste words, and time, casting
around for just the right lever to pull, to tip their minds in the direction I
want them to go. I feel like I don’t know where we’re all going—mainly because
I’ve never been there before. I am not reliably leading them, yet, where I want
them to go. If they do wind up there, it feels like a happy accident, and I
need to also find a way to know if it happened at all. It’s all still water and
conversation.
。。。水とお喋り
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Parenting in Public, or My Toughest Parenting Experience to Date
7:45 am on a Manhattan-bound Q train. It's crowded, and M and I are standing. Four or five young men board the train, about 15 or 16 years old. They are talking amongst themselves about something no doubt completely innocuous, but loudly, and it is f__ this and sh__ that and, especially, a more or less constant stream of the n-word.
I stand there trying to tune it out and hoping M is, too. But they get louder and louder, and finally, I turn to the one talking into my ear and say, in what I hope is a reasoned tone, "Listen. She's four. Does she really have to listen to this?"
They were genuinely apologetic: "Sorry miss," and I was prepared to let it go. After all, they really were just chatting to each other, in the way that teenagers do. It is their vernacular. I accept this- just not right in the ear of my four-year-old.
Then M looks up at me and herself utters the n-word, with a question mark at the end.
I said to her, probably much too firmly, "You must never say that word, do you understand? It's a very bad word. Never say it." She looked down and, perceiving that she had done something wrong but having no idea what, began to cry. Hard.
I picked her up in my arms to comfort her. I said to the young men, "I hope you're pleased with yourselves." All of this took less than 30 seconds.
My immediate thoughts were as follows: I should have been more compassionate with M. I should have been more articulate with those boys. Maybe, I should never have opened my mouth. But even had I not, clearly that word entered her brain.
Certainly I don't blame those boys for her distress, but I'm sure they misinterpreted what I said. I blame them for something more important than that. And maybe I shouldn't blame them- I don't know if it's appropriate to expect them to reflect on how what they are saying sounds to someone who does not speak their vernacular. Somehow I can't picture them talking to their mothers that way, but at the end of the day, I am still blinded by my cultural lens. I can't imagine what their words do or don't mean to them.
But I can only think that if ever there was empirical proof that language has an impact, this is exhibit A. To put it in the starkest possible terms, I don't think those boys want to be the ones who taught a little white girl the n-word, regardless of what else I might teach her about the n-word. If I asked them, I bet that's what they'd say to me: I don't want to be that guy- I can imagine that.
The train was full of all kinds of people, of every hue. I have no idea what anyone thought of the exchange, if they thought anything at all. But what a relief that children are children: I was able to cheer M up on the rest of our trip to school, and by the time we got there, she was running down the hill, pretending to be a dog, and anxious to be inside and join her friends, per usual. I went to her classroom in hopes of catching her teachers so that, if she should decide to try the word out again at school, they would know the background.
Her teachers were not surprised, but I was, when I burst into tears while telling the story. And, truly, of the many moments that I wish I could have called my mom in the last six years, never more so than today. Why? I couldn't tell you, not exactly. It was just a harrowing experience.
I know that this will come up again. I only hope that next time, I can be more prepared and less reactive. I hope I can make M understand without making her cry. And most of all... I could really live without the audience. This subject is hard enough as it is.
I stand there trying to tune it out and hoping M is, too. But they get louder and louder, and finally, I turn to the one talking into my ear and say, in what I hope is a reasoned tone, "Listen. She's four. Does she really have to listen to this?"
They were genuinely apologetic: "Sorry miss," and I was prepared to let it go. After all, they really were just chatting to each other, in the way that teenagers do. It is their vernacular. I accept this- just not right in the ear of my four-year-old.
Then M looks up at me and herself utters the n-word, with a question mark at the end.
I said to her, probably much too firmly, "You must never say that word, do you understand? It's a very bad word. Never say it." She looked down and, perceiving that she had done something wrong but having no idea what, began to cry. Hard.
I picked her up in my arms to comfort her. I said to the young men, "I hope you're pleased with yourselves." All of this took less than 30 seconds.
My immediate thoughts were as follows: I should have been more compassionate with M. I should have been more articulate with those boys. Maybe, I should never have opened my mouth. But even had I not, clearly that word entered her brain.
Certainly I don't blame those boys for her distress, but I'm sure they misinterpreted what I said. I blame them for something more important than that. And maybe I shouldn't blame them- I don't know if it's appropriate to expect them to reflect on how what they are saying sounds to someone who does not speak their vernacular. Somehow I can't picture them talking to their mothers that way, but at the end of the day, I am still blinded by my cultural lens. I can't imagine what their words do or don't mean to them.
But I can only think that if ever there was empirical proof that language has an impact, this is exhibit A. To put it in the starkest possible terms, I don't think those boys want to be the ones who taught a little white girl the n-word, regardless of what else I might teach her about the n-word. If I asked them, I bet that's what they'd say to me: I don't want to be that guy- I can imagine that.
The train was full of all kinds of people, of every hue. I have no idea what anyone thought of the exchange, if they thought anything at all. But what a relief that children are children: I was able to cheer M up on the rest of our trip to school, and by the time we got there, she was running down the hill, pretending to be a dog, and anxious to be inside and join her friends, per usual. I went to her classroom in hopes of catching her teachers so that, if she should decide to try the word out again at school, they would know the background.
Her teachers were not surprised, but I was, when I burst into tears while telling the story. And, truly, of the many moments that I wish I could have called my mom in the last six years, never more so than today. Why? I couldn't tell you, not exactly. It was just a harrowing experience.
I know that this will come up again. I only hope that next time, I can be more prepared and less reactive. I hope I can make M understand without making her cry. And most of all... I could really live without the audience. This subject is hard enough as it is.
Monday, December 3, 2012
QUIET!
This will be brief. Sometimes it's hard to remember that kids that are noisy are learning and engaged. Depending on the activity, it's not possible to be silent.
Yes, I had another sub at PSOhYes today, for several periods while Ms. Lee was doing some professional development. The sub was nice enough. But.
I had the kids doing a math game that Ms. Lee had left me to review their math facts. It involved groups of four and a ball, and with that structure, they were going to get boisterous, it's a given.
Once the sub had had enough of the noise, she sat on the teacher's chair and yelled, "It's too loud in here! You can play but you have to be quiet."
All the kids looked at me. Of course, I couldn't say anything, but I was thinking, really? You think they can play if they have to be quiet? I don't!
Yes, I had another sub at PSOhYes today, for several periods while Ms. Lee was doing some professional development. The sub was nice enough. But.
I had the kids doing a math game that Ms. Lee had left me to review their math facts. It involved groups of four and a ball, and with that structure, they were going to get boisterous, it's a given.
Once the sub had had enough of the noise, she sat on the teacher's chair and yelled, "It's too loud in here! You can play but you have to be quiet."
All the kids looked at me. Of course, I couldn't say anything, but I was thinking, really? You think they can play if they have to be quiet? I don't!
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