Reflection Assignment Week of April 5th: Impacting Young People
Bill shared a great story about getting through to a student with challenging behaviors. What positive experience have you had with a student, students, or class? Share a narrative and analysis. How did it make you feel?
On Friday when I came to school in the morning, my cooperating teacher was working with a student on solving systems of linear equations. Apparently, she had trouble on her homework and showed her solution on the board. When they checked it with the calculator, the teacher and student found that the two solutions didn't match. When the bell rang they still hadn't resolved the issue with two conflicting answers so they planned to meet during period 4. The student had to leave another class for this extra help but apparently had approval to do so. The teacher asked me to work out the problem prior to meeting with the girl again. I obtained the same solution as the graphing calculator. When it came to period 4, the girl showed up for help and the teacher had left. I located him and asked if I could work to help her. He agreed it was a good idea. We worked through the problem and found the error in the original solution. The girl asked if she could come work on some other problems during study hall/lunch. We met, worked on solving several additional problems and she asked if she could come back after she ate. We worked for a while and she had an AHA moment. When the teacher returned after lunch, I explained that she and I worked on many problems until she felt comfortable. At that time, the teacher told me that the girl wasn't even in his class but she didn't want her teacher to help her and always came only to him for help. He told me it was amazing that she trusted me enough to let me help her. She never allowed anyone but him to help her in the past! This experience, when I touched a student's life and gained her trust enough for her to be vulnerable to me, is one that I'll always remember.
During the independent practice I always go around to check progress. After an assignment is given I can easily spot the students that fall behind. If I see that most of the students are in their fifth problem and some are in their first or second I offer help right on the spot especially if I see that they are stuck. Of course I do that routinely. However, there were a couple of incidents where I spotted two students from different classes that had hard time with homework problems. I gave them the opportunity to come to me during my Study Hall periods and after school. One came after school and we sat down and went over few problems until he became comfortable with them. He was very appreciative and I was glad to help. The other boy surprised me because he came at the start of the day. I am always there at least 45 minutes before the school day starts. The same thing happened again. I was prepared for the lessons so I did not mind. But the most astonishing thing to me was when two other boys stopped me at the hallway and they told me that “I was one of their best teachers”. They asked me: “do you know our names?” I was embarrassed that I knew only one of them. Now, I know that I have helped these boys during normal hours but I did not differentiate compare to other students. It is amazing to me that kids understand when you provide them with genuine help and they appreciate it, some more than others. Those same boys give me high fives and sometimes they would give me a tribal cry three times followed by “go Mr. Tinios”. It is exhilarating! they have become my best advocates. By now most of the kids know of my Greek origin. In the middle of the class, two girls told me that I had a “cool accent”. I replied saying: “yes indeed I have an accent, which I will never lose but I am not sure if it is cool”. Again I did not expect such sensitivity on the part of the students. They see that you are new and you try hard and they try to make you comfortable! Finally, the apogee of my satisfaction came last Friday. The cooperating teacher was teaching this particular period, when the science teacher came and asked if she could “borrow the student teacher”. Sure enough, the next minute I was in her class. She had all the students standing or sitting on the floor around her, close to the board and she asked me if I knew anything about the Mobius bands and if I could explain them to the students. I asked the students to tell me “how many surfaces are their on a Mobius band?’ and of course most of the kids said there were two of them. I said if that is the case, if I make a trace, without lifting my pen, starting on one surface, I should not be able to see any trace on the second surface. They could not believe their eyes when, after I was done, there was a trace on “both” surfaces. I made a point to say that “this proves that a Mobius band has only one surface.” Their eyes went wide open next when I cut the band in half, and to their astonishment they saw that at the end, there was only one band instead of two. I explained to them that it was not an optical illusion. I told them that it was not just magic, it was math magic and they could do the same thing to their friends. The science teacher thanked me, the kids applauded and I was in “heavens”.
Great start to this thread! Thanks for sharing. When it hits the fan and you start drowning, keep in mind these positive moments. Don't let the negative ones define your experience nor your profession. I am in the same boat!
I have a second success story from that same class. On the first day, I had arranged the seats in groups and had folders and name cards on each desk. One student entered the room and immediately started moving folders and name tags. The teacher was in the room and saw this and called him out... it turned into an argument and eventually he sat, but was clearly upset. A few minutes into class, he asked for a pass to "ARC 9". In East Hartford, so many students act inappropriately that if they were always sent to the VP's office, the VP would be overwhelmed, so they have an intermediate place where the kids are sent when they are acting up in class... "ARC" is an acronym for something, maybe "alternative resolution center" or some such. Anyway, the kid was not doing any of classwork that I had the students working on. He asked for a pass to ARC 9 and I said no. A few minutes later, he told a kid to "go f*** off" so I sent him out at that point. He had ISS the next two days. The next day of class was Monday April 5. He walked in and immediately sat at a group of desks in the back corner of the room where no students sit, so he was by himself. Everyday, I put the students folders on their desks prior to them entering the room, and so his folder was at a different desk. He was quite aware that he was not sitting where I wanted him to sit. When I looked up and saw him, he looked at me with a look of surprise, probably waiting to see what I'd do.... I looked at him from across the room, said nothing, just nodded my head at him... I then went and got his stuff from the group where I'd assigned him and brought it over to him. He said "thank you" and I said "no problem... if it works for you, it works for me." I haven't heard a peep from him since, except when he raises his hand to call me over so he can ask me a question about the math. We've been solving systems of linear equations graphically, and many of the students have inadequate knowledge of arithmetic with fractions and negative numbers, so I have stopped giving them problems with these in them.
(Part 2 of 2) All of the problems I'm giving them know, and all of the problems on tomorrow's quiz, will all be simple positive numbers. (They should know this stuff, but my decision was, and will continue to be, if I can't teach it, I won't assess it. It's not fair to give kids problems that you know will cause them to lose points, if those lost points are from topics unrelated to the objectives being assessed.) Anyway, this student called me to his desk on Friday and asked if we could have some of the more difficult problems on the quiz. I told him why I wasn't putting any on there, and he sighed... I told him I'd put an extra credit problem on the quiz with the fractions or negatives. He said "ok" and seemed content with that. The teacher had this student ranked 16 in a class of 19 very week students... she was shocked to hear that this kid asked me this. I have been assessing his classwork right along with the rest of the students and he has been one of the top students. I don't have much interaction with him. It's clear that he doesn't want to be involved in class, but he sits by himself in the back corner and completes all his work, and does it right. He calls me over when he has questions, and I never call on him in class... I'm trying to show him that I respect his desires. He doesn't want to sit in a group and he doesn't want to interact in class. There is a fear I think of the slippery slope, that "if I let this kid, then everyone will want to do it." As it turns out, some kids might object to your policies, but if you hold firm, few persist with their objections. And when you do make exceptions, you are in charge, so you're not obligated to do the same for everyone. I made a few exceptions for this one kid, a kid with whom I got off to a horrible start... and if his learning is any measure, it has been quiet successful. For anyone wondering, I do have some students in the class that are persistently challenging that I'm still working on! What is funny though is that the really troubled kids have been behaving great for me... it's the relatively good students that are uber-chatty that are giving me the persistent issues!
On Thursdays my school has a block schedule for even numbered periods with a one hour period reserved for clubs or what is effectively an additional study hall. This past Thursday three quarters of the students usually at this study hall period were out on a field trip. There were only about 5 students in the room with my cooperating teacher and me. It was nice to get to speak with some of these students in a relaxed atmosphere. One of the students present was one of my cooperating teacher’s top students. He’s a junior with one of the highest grades in the AP calculus class. He’s also an athlete on the swim and tennis teams. His teacher asked him if he knew what he wanted to study when he got to college. He answered definitively that he wanted to study actuarial science. In my previous job I worked on a team trying to build a business in insurance related financial products. I worked with several actuaries on this team and was able to share some of my experiences with him. It turns out that I’m going to be in NYC next week and will hopefully be having lunch with these guys. I asked if he’d be interested in speaking to them. He seemed genuinely excited at the prospect. I remember being pretty clueless about what most potential careers entailed even as a college student. While I don’t have direct experience as an actuary, I had exposure to the work they do and still have some contacts in the field. It felt really good to share this experience and my connections with this very talented 17 year old. A couple of other students have started conversations with me before class, but I haven’t had much time to talk about my career with them. I think that I’m going to enjoy conversations like this with kids.
It’s nice to read that some of you are making some real connections with your students. I haven’t made any such connections with a particular student or two. However, after a decent start in the latter half of the first week and then hitting a “rough patch” on Monday, I feel like I’m doing a better job teaching. During my past couple days of lessons, I really feel like the students were engaged. Since I’m teaching stats to seniors, I was trying to be “too conceptual” in my lessons. My cooperating teacher suggested I weigh things more toward the concrete. Once I made this adjustment, the students have been much more engaged. I’m getting participation from students who haven’t really participated in the past. Certain students are feeling very successful when they are able to answer some of the “softball” questions. And what’s nice is that I’m still able to tie in some higher level questions during the discussion for those that need the challenge. This level of engagement has certainly had a positive impact on classroom management as well. I will blog about that separately under the second prompt. My school is on vacation this week, so hopefully we can pick up where we left off. I think it took some of the kids a few days to get comfortable with the “new guy.”
Well, with respect to impacting and influencing students, I never realized myself until my cooperating teacher told me that she got a good feedback from students about me, especially from some students, whom she never imagined to step up and talk. My cooperating teacher wants me to discover things for myself without her giving me any prior knowledge about students. She is always looking for my feedback about my own classes and then she discloses hers. We have a student who missed 2 months of school, who never talks in class, she is undergoing severe depression treatment, never ever smiled in the class, sits in last row corner. Without knowing anything about her background except that she is having problems in understanding , I moved her from last row to the front row. After consistently monitoring and guiding her, couple of days later ,she felt more comfortable and secure in the first seat, close to me. She slowly started participating in oral quiz. She still doesn’t volunteer to write on board nor talk to anyone in the class but on Thursday for the first time, she gave a smile when I cracked a joke on something. I felt happy for her. I absolutely do not know about her problems but I know for sure , she felt happy when she understood how to apply SAS,SSS congruencies to prove two triangles are congruent. In the senior group, students always used to try to test my patience, initially it was 22 students Vs me.Now its like 5 VS me .My age, my accent, my gender,being a student teacher etc always came in our way .But one thing worked for me is “being unconditionally good” to each and everyone. The class when I taught “Ambiguous case of Law of cosines” started off very badly but it ended soo good that I could gain the respect,trust and goodwill among students.It made such an impact on not one but most of them that students who usually donot care about there grades or points ,started cooperating and learning. I did nothing fancy except for a given problem, I differentiated instruction from Blooms Taxonomy bottom to top level without losing my temperament to the frustration in the class.Later , I found out ,one student while giving feedback to my cooperating teacher told her “I appreciete you -teachers for your patience to educate us, when most of us are so reluctant. “then my cooperating teacher told her “ Don’t ask me , ask Ms.Salankar , what makes her go-on in the class inspite of you all being so non cooperative to learn”. After hearing this conversation , I realized , no matter what teacher does in class, the students always have an impact in that one hour. Its good to have that kind of experience once in a while for a teacher to boost their confidence to serve more.
Saras, thanks for sharing the story about the student that was so appreciative of teachers who care so much even when the students seem to be so reluctant. It's very encouraging to hear that a student said this.
As Dr. Phil's dad used to say (or so I've heard), for every rat you see, there are 100 you don't see... same principle is true here, for every student that makes a comment like this out loud, there are probably 100 others that are silently thinking it. It's an encouraging thought to keep in mind even as the students seem outwardly to care so little... I know this thought helps keep me going. It's not all as unappreciated as it might seem!
This week is Poetry Week at New Milford High School. One of the students in the Honors Algebra class, which I am not teaching, gave the teacher and myself a poem. I am in the class with them and they have gotten to know me, but I am not teaching the class. It was a nice surprise to get the poem. I brought it home to show my wife and kids. The boy said my last name (Stejskal, pronounced Stay –skal) rhymed with Space Cow. Here is the poem: “ Your name rhymes with space cow which is really cool and fun and during lunch, I think you deserve a cinnamon bun. Even though I don’t really know you, you seem like the coolest guy in the land. But have you ever heard of the song the Joker by the Steve Miller Band.” He asked me if I knew the song, I said yes, I was surprised that a 17 year old new the song. On the back he drew a picture of a cow floating in space with a glass helmet on its head, floating toward the moon. It was very creative. This brightened up my day, which was already pretty good.
Today, Wednesday was my evaluation first period of the day. It went well. I was very nervous. I wanted to be sure I did the Closure before the bell and was able to relate it to the topic. My topic was symmetry. I put pictures up on the board before class showing photographs of houses that I have designed showing symmetry. I also put up a line drawing for them to see the drawing and then the finished house. Several of the students came up to look at the photos before class. They asked me if I built those houses. I said no, I designed them, but did not build them. When we got to the lesson on symmetry, one of the students asked me if I liked symmetry. I said, “Do I like symmetry?” I said I am a slave to symmetry. Even when I do an asymmetrical house, there still are elements of symmetry. I practically did my closure throughout the whole class. The kids were all on task and sitting quietly in their seats when the bell rang to start class. Boy was I surprised. They are my best class, but they were great today. We have been doing hands on activities all week. They seem to enjoy it, and I enjoy watching what they come up with in the activities. I give them some general instructions to do and then let them try it. We have been doing translation, rotations, reflections and today symmetry. I have had them draw triangles and then rotate them about a center point at 60-degree increments. Some of them ended up with images that looked like flowers, others like Ninja stars, and others like Kaleidoscopes. They were all impressed with what they created. I am going to give them an assignment due the week after vacation to use all of these elements to make something like a poster or anything they can think of that uses all of those elements. I gave them the idea at the beginning of the week and they all seemed interested in doing it. One girl wants to do something with Butterfly wings. I used color photos of Butterflies today in my Symmetry Lesson; the girl was smiling. So far the good outweighs the bad. Each day I feel more and more confident.
My cooperating teacher says I have grown leaps and bounds in the last 3 weeks. For me the only bad part so far is the amount of time to prepare, or to say it better the lack of time to do it and get sleep. I am also battling having to go into the Office 2 to 3 times per week for 4 hours a night after class, and then go home and prepare a lesson for the next day. Next week I am off from School and will be in the Office full time. The final week, I am going to put my foot down that I am on vacation and am not available.
Today after my evaluation, the Math Department head said, good you passed, now you can slack off and smiled. I said no, I have my cooperating teacher to evaluate me as well. The evaluator said that I should be left alone with the classes and that I should be writing the lesson plans for the 2 honors Algebra classes if not teaching them. She wanted me to have the full experience of a new teacher. Both my cooperating teacher and the Math Department head said that is not necessary. They said I am doing fine. We had asked Maria in the beginning and she said, I only need to teach up to 4 classes, I don’t have to do 5. Anyway a positive experience so far. I am growing every day.
I have this girl in my Algebra class who just moved to Farmington around a month ago. She sits at the left corner at the very back of the classroom. She is always quiet and when I walk around, I know she is struggling. My co-operating teacher told me to give her some extra help during her study period. When I first approached her, you could feel her resistance to talk to you. I then stopped my tutoring and asked her what's going on after a small talk of how it's like when I moved to this country. I guess my ice-breaker worked as she started to tell me she hated the new school and all the new people around her. I shared with her again my little stories about change and we started to work on the Math. Yet, the very next day when I met her again, she just went back to the square one. It looks like I have to redo the whole thing again to get her focusing on her Math.
I finally managed to get my computer ready for blogging. I am teaching at Amity Junior High School in Bethany and teaching a 7th grade class. This is a great school with pretty smart kids. My cooperating teaching is helpful and very welcoming. She has five classes each day. Two advanced classes, a lower level class, and two intermediate classes. I observed her teach for the first two days. The following day which happens to be my first day of teaching was also my day to be observed. My cooperating teacher taught the two advanced classes on probability so I assisted her to monitor their understanding. On my observation day, I began a new section (Solving One-Step Equations – Add & Subtract). Since it was a new material, I had to do quite a bit of explanation before they could do independent practice. I guess I may have done too much talking. Even with much explanation, quite a number of them still couldn’t get it so my cooperating teaching asked for my permission and “jumped in” to explain the material in a slightly different way. A few of them still expressed difficulty so she said I shouldn’t worry. That is the challenge of introducing new materials so we could go over certain portions the following day. We went around the class to monitor their work and give assistance to those who needed it. There were no issues with classroom management at all. I realized the time seem to have gone by much quicker than I expected but I managed to squeeze in a couple of closure minutes. I wasn’t that nervous as I thought I would be when being observed. I tried to keep my attention on the kids and remained positive. For some reason, my second batch of intermediates took much longer time to understand the material. They come to class just after lunch so I guess the food must have had a negative effect on them. A few of the students in this group were able to work all the independent practice questions with little or no assistance. Well, that is a microcosm of the real world. We planned to use exit slips the following day. In general, it was a day well spent and a few things to adjust to assist their understanding of new materials.
In my previous reflection, I mentioned that my students were at a Natures Classroom throughout the week so I did not have to do any teaching. As a matter of fact, I was not even required to go to the school throughout the week since I’ll be doing an additional week of student teaching as a result of the Natures Classroom. After consulting with my cooperating teacher, I decided to go to the school during the week to help the other teachers organize some group activities for the few students who did not go to the Nature’s Classroom. I was there as a supporting staff. Initially, I considered working as a substitute teacher for the week in another school (thinking of the few dollars I could make for that week). However upon a second thought, I realized it would be the best of times to bond with those students who remained and also to go over my lesson and teaching plans with my cooperating teacher who was also staying. The programs organized for the kids were great. They were engaged with some fun activities in art and science, watched some educational movies, had some outdoor activities, and played a few indoor games. I had the opportunity to learn about Chinese culture and beliefs. I also learnt how to make origami jumping frogs. On one of the days there was a contest for the frog which jumped the farthest. It was great participating with the kids and staff in those fun activities. Teaming up with staff has always been rewarding. The students were required to journal their activities for each day. The student who wrote more in the journal received more ice-cream on the last day (Friday). We designed a few poster boards with our origami frogs. The staff was friendly and welcoming. I allotted about two periods in each day to meet with my cooperating teacher to plan for the weeks ahead. She was also teaching some eighth graders so we met during her free time to do the planning. We went over the curriculum and discussed areas where the students might need in-depth coaching. Since the following week (12th to 18th of April) was their scheduled April recess, active teaching will resume on 04/19/2010. The April recess will be a good time to go over all that I have been taught since the beginning of the ARC program, and to re-freshen my memory and plan for the coming days.
I have not had one particular experience that I can write about with a student. Except for the Probability and Stats students, whom I think resent me a bit because they really like my cooperating teacher Mr. Fry, and they are seniors (so I am depriving them of his company for 4 weeks!), most of the students in the other classes are responsive to me. There are of course some students that are not, but in every class I see that a good number are listening, smiling, and following along/understanding. It is nice to hear students thank you when you help them, which many of them do. There was one class right before the break that was awful--there had been an all-day assembly/event going on at the school that day, and every class of mine that came in wanted to know if they could go (but my cooperating teacher had said no)--one class was particularly chaotic and defiant because of this (at one point I even had to take some of the students' pencils away because they were starting to throw them), and I just did what I could to teach the lesson to those who were listening. I had one girl at the board helping her work out a problem, and at the end of the class she commended me for keeping my composure and staying with the lesson. That was nice to hear. Another nice experience was on a day where I used a table with missing numbers to help the students "discover" the log function on their own. This was a risk for me to take, because I wasn't sure if any of them would get it. I had the table on the board, and asked them to come up and fill in a number if they thought they had figured one of them out...I had to give them about 5 minutes to really look at it (that was the risk for me, because it could have flopped completely), and then a couple of students "got it" and came up to the board. You could tell that they were excited that they had recognized the pattern and they were excited about looking at something in a new way...it was nice to see that. Just as a note of interest, though, I mentioned that I was worried this activity would flop. In fact it did in the later Algebra II class. They just didn't see the pattern...but what I learned from that was that it does not have to be a big deal. I just moved on to a more concrete example to introduce the lesson, and they learned the concepts just as well.
One student is in a class being taught by my cooperating teacher and has a reputation for being difficult and tardy. I am usually in this class helping the students while the cooperating teacher leads the lesson. This student made a lasting impression on me and had an easy name to remember. I started calling her by name the second day I was in the class, usually by wishing her a good morning. The first time I called her by name a big smile came over her face and she said “You remember my name” and she has been friendly to me ever since. I happen to give one lesson to this class and that day she was very cooperative and tried to answer questions that I asked, which is contrary to her usual behavior. All it took to have a positive effect was addressing her by name and wishing her a good day.
The second student was a quiet girl who came to me for extra help before the test I gave last week. I had very little personal interaction with her prior to the extra help session. She was struggling with the material, as many of the students were. After thirty minutes of one on one extra help she had a much better understanding. She scored very well on the test and was one of the few students that sought me out for her grade before I handed back the test in class because she was eager to find out. She was very grateful for the extra help and very happy with her performance on the test.
I have a funny rewarding experience. Did you hear of the Odor-Eaters Smelly Sneaker contest? Well one of my students won last year’s big prize. She’s been featured recently on ESPN, in dozens of newspaper pictures, and has done radio interviews. She won $2,500 and got an all expense paid trip to NYC with her family. Anyhow, on our lesson on finding the height of a triangle, I used this student as an example. Say “Odor Eater Girl” was walking up to the highest point of the mountain and she dropped one of her smelling sneakers straight down from the top where it would make a right angle with the base. That would be a way to remember how to find the height of a triangle. Anyhow, I must of said that a hundred times over the course of a few days with my four classes. I had told my co-operating teacher that I was using “Odor Eater Girl” as an example for the kids to find the height of a triangle. Well, my co-operating teacher got evaluated last week by the school vice-principal. She picked a “discovery lesson” on parallelograms where the students were coming up with strategies by counting centimeter grid squares. In the middle of the lesson, she was struggling at one point with the class not getting what she was looking for, she didn’t want to give them the answer but lead them and they were just not getting it. So she asked what the parallelogram itself reminded them of. And one girl, raised her hand and simply said the name of the “Odor Eater Girl”. I nearly laughed out loud because I knew I had figured out a way to get the students to think of height and that one word was all it took! The kids were smiling. Well, my co-operating teacher handled it very well and explained all about the “Odor Eater Girl” and the prize money etc to the principal, and then she safely re-directed the lesson after that. Although no-one said one word to me about it later, I was smiling all day and still am because I know I got through to the kids with that example and also I know I helped my co-operating teacher in a small way that day for her evaluation.
I've impacted a lot of kids. I've been frustrating them to death. Thank god it seems to be getting better every day. The kid that impacted me the most was my son. I don't remember if I put that in an earlier post but on the first day one of the kids in my class looks and acts just like my son did in that school ten years ago. Then I had to correct one of his papers and damn if he doesn't write just like my son. He writes in pencil little teeny tiny letters so faint you can hardly see them. He could write the bible on the head of a pin.
I did connect with one kid finally when I relaxed enough to actually listen. This kid is a slightly overweight foster child that finally has landed in a house where it appears that the guardians are going to adopt him. We talked and he seemed to appreciate me listening. I was struck by his story since my sons best friend in high school shared almost the same story. He was adopted as a sixteen year old by a family down the street from us. I just heard today that his sister who was adopted by friends of our is graduating college this month
There have been many situations with students weher I have been able to help in some way over the past 2 years. There is one that stands out though. About 6 weeks into teaching a young lady came for extra help; I knew something was bothering her. We studied Math for about an hour. Then she told me of the trouble she was having at home. It would be inappropriate for me to go into details, but that afternoon I made a report to DCF. Around dinner time the student, her mother and sister the v-principal and I were in the conference room discussing the family situation and how best to protect the 5 women in the house. The v-principal knew the family well and the mother requested help from us without using the police. It was a night I'll never forget; visiting the house and getting the uncle to move out while keeping him away from a very angry and hurt father. As teachers, we help children in many ways. For some reason, I was the person this young lady choose to open up to and seek help from. I'm glad I was there for her.
On Friday when I came to school in the morning, my cooperating teacher was working with a student on solving systems of linear equations. Apparently, she had trouble on her homework and showed her solution on the board. When they checked it with the calculator, the teacher and student found that the two solutions didn't match. When the bell rang they still hadn't resolved the issue with two conflicting answers so they planned to meet during period 4. The student had to leave another class for this extra help but apparently had approval to do so. The teacher asked me to work out the problem prior to meeting with the girl again. I obtained the same solution as the graphing calculator. When it came to period 4, the girl showed up for help and the teacher had left. I located him and asked if I could work to help her. He agreed it was a good idea. We worked through the problem and found the error in the original solution. The girl asked if she could come work on some other problems during study hall/lunch. We met, worked on solving several additional problems and she asked if she could come back after she ate. We worked for a while and she had an AHA moment. When the teacher returned after lunch, I explained that she and I worked on many problems until she felt comfortable. At that time, the teacher told me that the girl wasn't even in his class but she didn't want her teacher to help her and always came only to him for help. He told me it was amazing that she trusted me enough to let me help her. She never allowed anyone but him to help her in the past! This experience, when I touched a student's life and gained her trust enough for her to be vulnerable to me, is one that I'll always remember.
ReplyDeleteDuring the independent practice I always go around to check progress. After an assignment is given I can easily spot the students that fall behind. If I see that most of the students are in their fifth problem and some are in their first or second I offer help right on the spot especially if I see that they are stuck. Of course I do that routinely. However, there were a couple of incidents where I spotted two students from different classes that had hard time with homework problems. I gave them the opportunity to come to me during my Study Hall periods and after school. One came after school and we sat down and went over few problems until he became comfortable with them. He was very appreciative and I was glad to help. The other boy surprised me because he came at the start of the day. I am always there at least 45 minutes before the school day starts. The same thing happened again. I was prepared for the lessons so I did not mind. But the most astonishing thing to me was when two other boys stopped me at the hallway and they told me that “I was one of their best teachers”. They asked me: “do you know our names?” I was embarrassed that I knew only one of them. Now, I know that I have helped these boys during normal hours but I did not differentiate compare to other students. It is amazing to me that kids understand when you provide them with genuine help and they appreciate it, some more than others. Those same boys give me high fives and sometimes they would give me a tribal cry three times followed by “go Mr. Tinios”. It is exhilarating! they have become my best advocates.
ReplyDeleteBy now most of the kids know of my Greek origin. In the middle of the class, two girls told me that I had a “cool accent”. I replied saying: “yes indeed I have an accent, which I will never lose but I am not sure if it is cool”. Again I did not expect such sensitivity on the part of the students. They see that you are new and you try hard and they try to make you comfortable!
Finally, the apogee of my satisfaction came last Friday. The cooperating teacher was teaching this particular period, when the science teacher came and asked if she could “borrow the student teacher”. Sure enough, the next minute I was in her class. She had all the students standing or sitting on the floor around her, close to the board and she asked me if I knew anything about the Mobius bands and if I could explain them to the students. I asked the students to tell me “how many surfaces are their on a Mobius band?’ and of course most of the kids said there were two of them. I said if that is the case, if I make a trace, without lifting my pen, starting on one surface, I should not be able to see any trace on the second surface. They could not believe their eyes when, after I was done, there was a trace on “both” surfaces. I made a point to say that “this proves that a Mobius band has only one surface.” Their eyes went wide open next when I cut the band in half, and to their astonishment they saw that at the end, there was only one band instead of two. I explained to them that it was not an optical illusion. I told them that it was not just magic, it was math magic and they could do the same thing to their friends. The science teacher thanked me, the kids applauded and I was in “heavens”.
Great start to this thread! Thanks for sharing. When it hits the fan and you start drowning, keep in mind these positive moments. Don't let the negative ones define your experience nor your profession. I am in the same boat!
ReplyDeleteI have a second success story from that same class. On the first day, I had arranged the seats in groups and had folders and name cards on each desk. One student entered the room and immediately started moving folders and name tags. The teacher was in the room and saw this and called him out... it turned into an argument and eventually he sat, but was clearly upset. A few minutes into class, he asked for a pass to "ARC 9". In East Hartford, so many students act inappropriately that if they were always sent to the VP's office, the VP would be overwhelmed, so they have an intermediate place where the kids are sent when they are acting up in class... "ARC" is an acronym for something, maybe "alternative resolution center" or some such. Anyway, the kid was not doing any of classwork that I had the students working on. He asked for a pass to ARC 9 and I said no. A few minutes later, he told a kid to "go f*** off" so I sent him out at that point. He had ISS the next two days. The next day of class was Monday April 5. He walked in and immediately sat at a group of desks in the back corner of the room where no students sit, so he was by himself. Everyday, I put the students folders on their desks prior to them entering the room, and so his folder was at a different desk. He was quite aware that he was not sitting where I wanted him to sit. When I looked up and saw him, he looked at me with a look of surprise, probably waiting to see what I'd do.... I looked at him from across the room, said nothing, just nodded my head at him... I then went and got his stuff from the group where I'd assigned him and brought it over to him. He said "thank you" and I said "no problem... if it works for you, it works for me." I haven't heard a peep from him since, except when he raises his hand to call me over so he can ask me a question about the math. We've been solving systems of linear equations graphically, and many of the students have inadequate knowledge of arithmetic with fractions and negative numbers, so I have stopped giving them problems with these in them.
ReplyDelete(Part 2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteAll of the problems I'm giving them know, and all of the problems on tomorrow's quiz, will all be simple positive numbers. (They should know this stuff, but my decision was, and will continue to be, if I can't teach it, I won't assess it. It's not fair to give kids problems that you know will cause them to lose points, if those lost points are from topics unrelated to the objectives being assessed.) Anyway, this student called me to his desk on Friday and asked if we could have some of the more difficult problems on the quiz. I told him why I wasn't putting any on there, and he sighed... I told him I'd put an extra credit problem on the quiz with the fractions or negatives. He said "ok" and seemed content with that. The teacher had this student ranked 16 in a class of 19 very week students... she was shocked to hear that this kid asked me this. I have been assessing his classwork right along with the rest of the students and he has been one of the top students. I don't have much interaction with him. It's clear that he doesn't want to be involved in class, but he sits by himself in the back corner and completes all his work, and does it right. He calls me over when he has questions, and I never call on him in class... I'm trying to show him that I respect his desires. He doesn't want to sit in a group and he doesn't want to interact in class. There is a fear I think of the slippery slope, that "if I let this kid, then everyone will want to do it." As it turns out, some kids might object to your policies, but if you hold firm, few persist with their objections. And when you do make exceptions, you are in charge, so you're not obligated to do the same for everyone. I made a few exceptions for this one kid, a kid with whom I got off to a horrible start... and if his learning is any measure, it has been quiet successful.
For anyone wondering, I do have some students in the class that are persistently challenging that I'm still working on! What is funny though is that the really troubled kids have been behaving great for me... it's the relatively good students that are uber-chatty that are giving me the persistent issues!
On Thursdays my school has a block schedule for even numbered periods with a one hour period reserved for clubs or what is effectively an additional study hall. This past Thursday three quarters of the students usually at this study hall period were out on a field trip. There were only about 5 students in the room with my cooperating teacher and me. It was nice to get to speak with some of these students in a relaxed atmosphere. One of the students present was one of my cooperating teacher’s top students. He’s a junior with one of the highest grades in the AP calculus class. He’s also an athlete on the swim and tennis teams. His teacher asked him if he knew what he wanted to study when he got to college. He answered definitively that he wanted to study actuarial science. In my previous job I worked on a team trying to build a business in insurance related financial products. I worked with several actuaries on this team and was able to share some of my experiences with him. It turns out that I’m going to be in NYC next week and will hopefully be having lunch with these guys. I asked if he’d be interested in speaking to them. He seemed genuinely excited at the prospect. I remember being pretty clueless about what most potential careers entailed even as a college student. While I don’t have direct experience as an actuary, I had exposure to the work they do and still have some contacts in the field. It felt really good to share this experience and my connections with this very talented 17 year old. A couple of other students have started conversations with me before class, but I haven’t had much time to talk about my career with them. I think that I’m going to enjoy conversations like this with kids.
ReplyDeleteIt’s nice to read that some of you are making some real connections with your students. I haven’t made any such connections with a particular student or two. However, after a decent start in the latter half of the first week and then hitting a “rough patch” on Monday, I feel like I’m doing a better job teaching. During my past couple days of lessons, I really feel like the students were engaged. Since I’m teaching stats to seniors, I was trying to be “too conceptual” in my lessons. My cooperating teacher suggested I weigh things more toward the concrete. Once I made this adjustment, the students have been much more engaged. I’m getting participation from students who haven’t really participated in the past. Certain students are feeling very successful when they are able to answer some of the “softball” questions. And what’s nice is that I’m still able to tie in some higher level questions during the discussion for those that need the challenge. This level of engagement has certainly had a positive impact on classroom management as well. I will blog about that separately under the second prompt.
ReplyDeleteMy school is on vacation this week, so hopefully we can pick up where we left off. I think it took some of the kids a few days to get comfortable with the “new guy.”
Well, with respect to impacting and influencing students, I never realized myself until my cooperating teacher told me that she got a good feedback from students about me, especially from some students, whom she never imagined to step up and talk.
ReplyDeleteMy cooperating teacher wants me to discover things for myself without her giving me any prior knowledge about students. She is always looking for my feedback about my own classes and then she discloses hers. We have a student who missed 2 months of school, who never talks in class, she is undergoing severe depression treatment, never ever smiled in the class, sits in last row corner. Without knowing anything about her background except that she is having problems in understanding , I moved her from last row to the front row. After consistently monitoring and guiding her, couple of days later ,she felt more comfortable and secure in the first seat, close to me. She slowly started participating in oral quiz. She still doesn’t volunteer to write on board nor talk to anyone in the class but on Thursday for the first time, she gave a smile when I cracked a joke on something. I felt happy for her. I absolutely do not know about her problems but I know for sure , she felt happy when she understood how to apply SAS,SSS congruencies to prove two triangles are congruent.
In the senior group, students always used to try to test my patience, initially it was 22 students Vs me.Now its like 5 VS me .My age, my accent, my gender,being a student teacher etc always came in our way .But one thing worked for me is “being unconditionally good” to each and everyone. The class when I taught “Ambiguous case of Law of cosines” started off very badly but it ended soo good that I could gain the respect,trust and goodwill among students.It made such an impact on not one but most of them that students who usually donot care about there grades or points ,started cooperating and learning. I did nothing fancy except for a given problem, I differentiated instruction from Blooms Taxonomy bottom to top level without losing my temperament to the frustration in the class.Later , I found out ,one student while giving feedback to my cooperating teacher told her “I appreciete you -teachers for your patience to educate us, when most of us are so reluctant. “then my cooperating teacher told her “ Don’t ask me , ask Ms.Salankar , what makes her go-on in the class inspite of you all being so non cooperative to learn”. After hearing this conversation , I realized , no matter what teacher does in class, the students always have an impact in that one hour. Its good to have that kind of experience once in a while for a teacher to boost their confidence to serve more.
Saras, thanks for sharing the story about the student that was so appreciative of teachers who care so much even when the students seem to be so reluctant. It's very encouraging to hear that a student said this.
ReplyDeleteAs Dr. Phil's dad used to say (or so I've heard), for every rat you see, there are 100 you don't see... same principle is true here, for every student that makes a comment like this out loud, there are probably 100 others that are silently thinking it. It's an encouraging thought to keep in mind even as the students seem outwardly to care so little... I know this thought helps keep me going. It's not all as unappreciated as it might seem!
This week is Poetry Week at New Milford High School. One of the students in the Honors Algebra class, which I am not teaching, gave the teacher and myself a poem. I am in the class with them and they have gotten to know me, but I am not teaching the class. It was a nice surprise to get the poem. I brought it home to show my wife and kids. The boy said my last name (Stejskal, pronounced Stay –skal) rhymed with Space Cow. Here is the poem:
ReplyDelete“ Your name rhymes with space cow which is really cool and fun and during lunch, I think you deserve a cinnamon bun. Even though I don’t really know you, you seem like the coolest guy in the land. But have you ever heard of the song the Joker by the Steve Miller Band.” He asked me if I knew the song, I said yes, I was surprised that a 17 year old new the song. On the back he drew a picture of a cow floating in space with a glass helmet on its head, floating toward the moon. It was very creative. This brightened up my day, which was already pretty good.
Today, Wednesday was my evaluation first period of the day. It went well. I was very nervous. I wanted to be sure I did the Closure before the bell and was able to relate it to the topic. My topic was symmetry. I put pictures up on the board before class showing photographs of houses that I have designed showing symmetry. I also put up a line drawing for them to see the drawing and then the finished house. Several of the students came up to look at the photos before class. They asked me if I built those houses. I said no, I designed them, but did not build them. When we got to the lesson on symmetry, one of the students asked me if I liked symmetry. I said, “Do I like symmetry?” I said I am a slave to symmetry. Even when I do an asymmetrical house, there still are elements of symmetry. I practically did my closure throughout the whole class. The kids were all on task and sitting quietly in their seats when the bell rang to start class. Boy was I surprised. They are my best class, but they were great today. We have been doing hands on activities all week. They seem to enjoy it, and I enjoy watching what they come up with in the activities. I give them some general instructions to do and then let them try it. We have been doing translation, rotations, reflections and today symmetry. I have had them draw triangles and then rotate them about a center point at 60-degree increments. Some of them ended up with images that looked like flowers, others like Ninja stars, and others like Kaleidoscopes. They were all impressed with what they created. I am going to give them an assignment due the week after vacation to use all of these elements to make something like a poster or anything they can think of that uses all of those elements. I gave them the idea at the beginning of the week and they all seemed interested in doing it. One girl wants to do something with Butterfly wings. I used color photos of Butterflies today in my Symmetry Lesson; the girl was smiling. So far the good outweighs the bad. Each day I feel more and more confident.
Part II:
ReplyDeleteMy cooperating teacher says I have grown leaps and bounds in the last 3 weeks. For me the only bad part so far is the amount of time to prepare, or to say it better the lack of time to do it and get sleep. I am also battling having to go into the Office 2 to 3 times per week for 4 hours a night after class, and then go home and prepare a lesson for the next day. Next week I am off from School and will be in the Office full time. The final week, I am going to put my foot down that I am on vacation and am not available.
Today after my evaluation, the Math Department head said, good you passed, now you can slack off and smiled. I said no, I have my cooperating teacher to evaluate me as well. The evaluator said that I should be left alone with the classes and that I should be writing the lesson plans for the 2 honors Algebra classes if not teaching them. She wanted me to have the full experience of a new teacher. Both my cooperating teacher and the Math Department head said that is not necessary. They said I am doing fine. We had asked Maria in the beginning and she said, I only need to teach up to 4 classes, I don’t have to do 5. Anyway a positive experience so far. I am growing every day.
I have this girl in my Algebra class who just moved to Farmington around a month ago. She sits at the left corner at the very back of the classroom. She is always quiet and when I walk around, I know she is struggling. My co-operating teacher told me to give her some extra help during her study period. When I first approached her, you could feel her resistance to talk to you. I then stopped my tutoring and asked her what's going on after a small talk of how it's like when I moved to this country. I guess my ice-breaker worked as she started to tell me she hated the new school and all the new people around her. I shared with her again my little stories about change and we started to work on the Math. Yet, the very next day when I met her again, she just went back to the square one. It looks like I have to redo the whole thing again to get her focusing on her Math.
ReplyDeleteI finally managed to get my computer ready for blogging. I am teaching at Amity Junior High School in Bethany and teaching a 7th grade class. This is a great school with pretty smart kids. My cooperating teaching is helpful and very welcoming. She has five classes each day. Two advanced classes, a lower level class, and two intermediate classes. I observed her teach for the first two days. The following day which happens to be my first day of teaching was also my day to be observed. My cooperating teacher taught the two advanced classes on probability so I assisted her to monitor their understanding. On my observation day, I began a new section (Solving One-Step Equations – Add & Subtract). Since it was a new material, I had to do quite a bit of explanation before they could do independent practice. I guess I may have done too much talking. Even with much explanation, quite a number of them still couldn’t get it so my cooperating teaching asked for my permission and “jumped in” to explain the material in a slightly different way. A few of them still expressed difficulty so she said I shouldn’t worry. That is the challenge of introducing new materials so we could go over certain portions the following day. We went around the class to monitor their work and give assistance to those who needed it. There were no issues with classroom management at all. I realized the time seem to have gone by much quicker than I expected but I managed to squeeze in a couple of closure minutes. I wasn’t that nervous as I thought I would be when being observed. I tried to keep my attention on the kids and remained positive. For some reason, my second batch of intermediates took much longer time to understand the material. They come to class just after lunch so I guess the food must have had a negative effect on them. A few of the students in this group were able to work all the independent practice questions with little or no assistance. Well, that is a microcosm of the real world. We planned to use exit slips the following day. In general, it was a day well spent and a few things to adjust to assist their understanding of new materials.
ReplyDeleteIn my previous reflection, I mentioned that my students were at a Natures Classroom throughout the week so I did not have to do any teaching. As a matter of fact, I was not even required to go to the school throughout the week since I’ll be doing an additional week of student teaching as a result of the Natures Classroom. After consulting with my cooperating teacher, I decided to go to the school during the week to help the other teachers organize some group activities for the few students who did not go to the Nature’s Classroom. I was there as a supporting staff. Initially, I considered working as a substitute teacher for the week in another school (thinking of the few dollars I could make for that week). However upon a second thought, I realized it would be the best of times to bond with those students who remained and also to go over my lesson and teaching plans with my cooperating teacher who was also staying. The programs organized for the kids were great. They were engaged with some fun activities in art and science, watched some educational movies, had some outdoor activities, and played a few indoor games. I had the opportunity to learn about Chinese culture and beliefs. I also learnt how to make origami jumping frogs. On one of the days there was a contest for the frog which jumped the farthest. It was great participating with the kids and staff in those fun activities. Teaming up with staff has always been rewarding. The students were required to journal their activities for each day. The student who wrote more in the journal received more ice-cream on the last day (Friday). We designed a few poster boards with our origami frogs. The staff was friendly and welcoming. I allotted about two periods in each day to meet with my cooperating teacher to plan for the weeks ahead. She was also teaching some eighth graders so we met during her free time to do the planning. We went over the curriculum and discussed areas where the students might need in-depth coaching. Since the following week (12th to 18th of April) was their scheduled April recess, active teaching will resume on 04/19/2010. The April recess will be a good time to go over all that I have been taught since the beginning of the ARC program, and to re-freshen my memory and plan for the coming days.
ReplyDeleteI have not had one particular experience that I can write about with a student. Except for the Probability and Stats students, whom I think resent me a bit because they really like my cooperating teacher Mr. Fry, and they are seniors (so I am depriving them of his company for 4 weeks!), most of the students in the other classes are responsive to me. There are of course some students that are not, but in every class I see that a good number are listening, smiling, and following along/understanding. It is nice to hear students thank you when you help them, which many of them do. There was one class right before the break that was awful--there had been an all-day assembly/event going on at the school that day, and every class of mine that came in wanted to know if they could go (but my cooperating teacher had said no)--one class was particularly chaotic and defiant because of this (at one point I even had to take some of the students' pencils away because they were starting to throw them), and I just did what I could to teach the lesson to those who were listening. I had one girl at the board helping her work out a problem, and at the end of the class she commended me for keeping my composure and staying with the lesson. That was nice to hear. Another nice experience was on a day where I used a table with missing numbers to help the students "discover" the log function on their own. This was a risk for me to take, because I wasn't sure if any of them would get it. I had the table on the board, and asked them to come up and fill in a number if they thought they had figured one of them out...I had to give them about 5 minutes to really look at it (that was the risk for me, because it could have flopped completely), and then a couple of students "got it" and came up to the board. You could tell that they were excited that they had recognized the pattern and they were excited about looking at something in a new way...it was nice to see that. Just as a note of interest, though, I mentioned that I was worried this activity would flop. In fact it did in the later Algebra II class. They just didn't see the pattern...but what I learned from that was that it does not have to be a big deal. I just moved on to a more concrete example to introduce the lesson, and they learned the concepts just as well.
ReplyDeleteThere were two students that come to mind.
ReplyDeleteOne student is in a class being taught by my cooperating teacher and has a reputation for being difficult and tardy. I am usually in this class helping the students while the cooperating teacher leads the lesson. This student made a lasting impression on me and had an easy name to remember. I started calling her by name the second day I was in the class, usually by wishing her a good morning. The first time I called her by name a big smile came over her face and she said “You remember my name” and she has been friendly to me ever since. I happen to give one lesson to this class and that day she was very cooperative and tried to answer questions that I asked, which is contrary to her usual behavior. All it took to have a positive effect was addressing her by name and wishing her a good day.
The second student was a quiet girl who came to me for extra help before the test I gave last week. I had very little personal interaction with her prior to the extra help session. She was struggling with the material, as many of the students were. After thirty minutes of one on one extra help she had a much better understanding. She scored very well on the test and was one of the few students that sought me out for her grade before I handed back the test in class because she was eager to find out. She was very grateful for the extra help and very happy with her performance on the test.
I have a funny rewarding experience. Did you hear of the Odor-Eaters Smelly Sneaker contest? Well one of my students won last year’s big prize. She’s been featured recently on ESPN, in dozens of newspaper pictures, and has done radio interviews. She won $2,500 and got an all expense paid trip to NYC with her family. Anyhow, on our lesson on finding the height of a triangle, I used this student as an example. Say “Odor Eater Girl” was walking up to the highest point of the mountain and she dropped one of her smelling sneakers straight down from the top where it would make a right angle with the base. That would be a way to remember how to find the height of a triangle.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I must of said that a hundred times over the course of a few days with my four classes. I had told my co-operating teacher that I was using “Odor Eater Girl” as an example for the kids to find the height of a triangle.
Well, my co-operating teacher got evaluated last week by the school vice-principal. She picked a “discovery lesson” on parallelograms where the students were coming up with strategies by counting centimeter grid squares. In the middle of the lesson, she was struggling at one point with the class not getting what she was looking for, she didn’t want to give them the answer but lead them and they were just not getting it. So she asked what the parallelogram itself reminded them of. And one girl, raised her hand and simply said the name of the “Odor Eater Girl”. I nearly laughed out loud because I knew I had figured out a way to get the students to think of height and that one word was all it took! The kids were smiling. Well, my co-operating teacher handled it very well and explained all about the “Odor Eater Girl” and the prize money etc to the principal, and then she safely re-directed the lesson after that.
Although no-one said one word to me about it later, I was smiling all day and still am because I know I got through to the kids with that example and also I know I helped my co-operating teacher in a small way that day for her evaluation.
I've impacted a lot of kids. I've been frustrating them to death. Thank god it seems to be getting better every day. The kid that impacted me the most was my son. I don't remember if I put that in an earlier post but on the first day one of the kids in my class looks and acts just like my son did in that school ten years ago. Then I had to correct one of his papers and damn if he doesn't write just like my son. He writes in pencil little teeny tiny letters so faint you can hardly see them. He could write the bible on the head of a pin.
ReplyDeleteI did connect with one kid finally when I relaxed enough to actually listen. This kid is a slightly overweight foster child that finally has landed in a house where it appears that the guardians are going to adopt him. We talked and he seemed to appreciate me listening. I was struck by his story since my sons best friend in high school shared almost the same story. He was adopted as a sixteen year old by a family down the street from us. I just heard today that his sister who was adopted by friends of our is graduating college this month
There have been many situations with students weher I have been able to help in some way over the past 2 years. There is one that stands out though. About 6 weeks into teaching a young lady came for extra help; I knew something was bothering her. We studied Math for about an hour. Then she told me of the trouble she was having at home. It would be inappropriate for me to go into details, but that afternoon I made a report to DCF. Around dinner time the student, her mother and sister the v-principal and I were in the conference room discussing the family situation and how best to protect the 5 women in the house. The v-principal knew the family well and the mother requested help from us without using the police. It was a night I'll never forget; visiting the house and getting the uncle to move out while keeping him away from a very angry and hurt father. As teachers, we help children in many ways. For some reason, I was the person this young lady choose to open up to and seek help from. I'm glad I was there for her.
ReplyDelete