PrinciPAL

     So. I have reached the point in my placement where I have developed a pretty good report with my mentor teacher and the teachers on my team – they are comfortable sharing their experiences and anecdotes with me and vis versa, including even things from their personal lives. I have never felt uncomfortable with this, until pretty recently. 

     My grade level team eats lunch together in the library most days, and recently, one of the teachers was about to have her observation from the principal. I have only ever had great interactions with our principal – she has been incredibly welcoming and kind to me as well as the other student teachers, and during the faculty meetings I was excited to see how much she favored innovation and shared experiences. However, there seemed to be a pretty tangible tone of negativity when she was brought up during lunch. Ever since she was brought up a couple days ago, there seems to be a pretty blatant common thread in most of our ‘casual’ conversation. On one occasion, my mentor teacher was telling us that her husband’s school was getting a new principal, and there was a comment about the possibility of my placement getting a new principal and how great that would be. On another occasion the next day, another one of the team members brought up a joke about the principal that seemed a little off-color.

     On all of these occasions, I have just kept my mouth shut. And all of these occasions have never been out-right enough for me to classify them as rude, disrespectful, or even mean. However, it is really uncomfortable for me to not really have the same understanding as the rest of the teachers in my grade-level and still be listening to these types of comments. I guess what I’m saying is, what should I be doing in these types of situations besides not saying anything? Nothing? Should I be nervous for my principal’s opinion of me? Does she realize that this group of teachers might not think as favorably of her? Is that a poor reflection of me in her eyes? It makes me very nervous.

First Week of School!

     Let me just preface this by saying I wrote all my blog entries in a Word Document because of confusion with the link, so I'm about to have multiple entries that seem anachronistic!

     Lockeland is the most amazing place in the world. I am immediately so in love with my first placement. 

     My mentor teacher could not be more engaging, brilliant, and encouraging. I just found out she was most recently named teacher of the year – and it shows. She has already made me feel so welcomed. Every question I have thrown her way – even about the most peculiar, small things and at random times – she has answered with sage poise. Though this environment is clearly privileged, she is constantly checking in on the big and small needs of her students. AND YET, every thing she does seems to be so fluid and obvious. She does not take hours and hours before and after school to plan and prepare for the next day, she doesn’t have a ton of extra work that she takes home every night, she is raising two small children (a 1 year old and a child in pre-K), and she does not flinch in the face of new ideas and innovation. I wonder, how long does it take to get to this point? She’s been teaching for twelve years, and things seemed to have just unfolded perfectly for her. I wonder if I will ever reach this point!

      It seems like this is the best kind of teacher: one that has the wisdom from years of experience that creates fluidity in her teaching and problem solving, but also has the flexibility and open-mindedness of someone who is fresh on the scene. I wonder if this is achievable sooner than twelve years in? And how do you achieve this balance? Is it simply due to the nature of the amount of time she has put in to teaching as a profession? Or is it a mental choice? Or probably, some combination of those?

Reflection & Goals

As I'm working on my edTPA and reflecting on my first placement and the lessons I taught, I've been thinking about some of the lessons I learned that I want to keep in mind moving forward. I'm setting a few goals for myself for my second placement:

1. Ask more questions!!! I hate to say this, but I think I missed a lot of learning opportunities by not asking all the questions that popped into my head during my first placement. There were so many things that I didn't ask my FM or other teachers, either because it wasn't the right time and I forgot later, or because I just thought it was a stupid question (like, what is SIOP?? I should know that, right? But I don't). I think I was so focused on the "teaching" part of student teaching and trying to seem professional, that it was easy to forget that I'm still a student, too, and I need to be learning these kinds of things as I go. I'm going to make a point of asking my next FM as many questions as possible, big or small, to make sure I'm maximizing the opportunity for myself and learning as much as possible.
2. Force myself to have my lesson plans and materials ready 24 hours in advance. Yep, this is a requirement. Am I the only one who had trouble sticking to it? :\ Sometimes, it wasn't really "my fault" and there was no way I could write the lesson plan more than a day ahead of time for whatever reason, but a lot of the time, it was me procrastinating. At first I thought the "24-hour rule" was for the FMs' benefit, and mine didn't seem to mind just talking about each day's lessons the morning of. But I finally realized I was doing myself a disservice by getting behind, because I probably missed out on some valuable feedback that I could have gotten if my FM had more time to review my lessons. That, and I maybe would've gotten more sleep if I'd made a habit of staying one step ahead of myself. So, moving forward into my second placement, I'm going to do everything in my power to stay ahead, and make it a habit for when I have my own classroom.
3. Stop saying "um" when I'm teaching. You know when you watch yourself teaching on video and some things just make you cringe? This was it for me. Must stop.

What were some of the biggest lessons y'all learned from your first placement? What are your goals moving forward?

Second Placement Nerves!

I can't believe it's already been half a semester! I have gotten so close with my mentor teacher and my class, and so into the routine of my first placement that I'm anxious to start a new one! I'm sure many of you who have middle school or departmentalized classes can relate to this, but I'm anxious to go a full day in one contained classroom. I know it's a very different experience, and it's going to be a big adjustment in terms of lesson plans and transitions and working with much younger students! I always thought I wanted to work with younger students, but I have really loved being in a fourth grade science and writing classroom. I know days in younger classrooms can be exhausting, and I'm excited to see all the differences. It's definitely going to be weird  to go back to observing and being so foreign to the classroom procedures and school formats. I don't know much about the school that I am moving into, and I have been fortunate at Lockeland to not have to deal with many serious behavioral issues or truly unexpected classroom events. While I hope my new placement is different and I can get a variety of experiences, I know I will have to adjust to a new school and classroom culture. I'm excited to get started at our second schools! It's been a strange week this week and I'm looking forward to getting back into our routine.

"The Clipboard Mafia"

A few weeks ago, teachers at Tusculum were observed for instructional rounds. The teachers and faculty refer to the observers as "The Clipboard Mafia," which I think is pretty funny :)

Before the rounds happened, the principal emailed the teachers telling them the "problem of practice" (short version: students are not working on grade level and they have not developed higher-order thinking skills) and "focus questions" that the observers would be looking for. Their focus questions were:

1. What evidence do you see or hear in the areas of questioning/academic feedback that indicates the in-depth level of student work is at the appropriate grade level according to the standard(s) and learning targets?
2. What evidence do you see or hear that indicates the standards and learning targets are scaffolded for diverse learners?
3. What evidence do you see or hear that indicates the academic language of the standard is differentiated for various English language proficiencies?

The rounds ended up being at the same time that our students were taking the MIST test, so they did not come observe any lessons in our classroom. However, my mentor teacher and I still talked about these focus questions and how I could adjust my lessons to show evidence of the things they were looking for.

At the faculty meeting after the instructional rounds, the principal talked about what the Clipboard Mafia had told her. It turned out that they really didn't see a lot of the things they were looking for in most of the classrooms they observed. Many of the teachers who had been observed were frustrated, because they said that the observers came during morning meeting, when students were eating breakfast, and they didn't feel like they really had the opportunity to demonstrate the things the observers were looking for. Others felt like the suggestions for improvement were vague (my FM asked for specific examples on how to show evidence of differentiating academic language, and there weren't really any concrete examples of what they were looking for).

Have any of you been observed, or have you talked to your mentor teachers about instructional rounds? These seem really intimidating, and I am honestly so glad they didn't come at a time when I was teaching. I do think it's helpful that the teachers got the focus questions and problem of practice ahead of time, but do you think that these short observations are really enough for the observers to get a good idea of what's happening in a classroom, no matter what time of day they come?

Peabody IT Rentals... A Rant.

I don't know about all of you, but I found it pretty hard to get a camera last week for filming. I know this is being posted after I had luckily gotten my filming and editing done, but is anybody else as angry as I am? First, we were told that reserving a camera was not a thing. This meant that we had to show up a day or two in advance (oh, don't even think about trying to rent on the weekends), and hope that there was camera available. Then, I know some of us did find out that reserving a camera was a possibility. Peabody IT needs to figure out whether or not they are allowing us to reserve these cameras or not. Would have made life a little bit easier... am I right? However, I then hear that some of the people who reserved cameras had their cameras given out. I think that they should probably make up their minds and either stick to reserving cameras or not. 
I was one of the unfortunate ones who was unable to get a camera from IT. No camera, no tripod, no nothing. So, I asked them where else I might be able to get one from and they did not know. They had no idea. I don't blame the student worker for not knowing, but the head of IT didn't even know. They said I should try Peabody Library. So, I packed up all my stuff and headed to the library. When I got there, they said that they had a FlipCamera that I could use. Never have I ever heard of a FlipCamera in my life, but I figured it was my only option at that point. I laughed, literally laughed, when the Library Desk Worker handed me what looked like a handheld audio recorder. I couldn't believe that this little, dinky camera is what I would have been filming the edTPA video clips on. I asked the man how long it would film and he told me an hour, as long as it was charged. 
I got home, got it charged, and turned it on. It was only going to be able to film for 17 minutes and 53 seconds... not even a full 18 minutes... shocker. Furious, I called A&S IT and asked if I could rent a camera from there and they told me yes. However, since I wasn't and A&S student I would have to pay $50 and wait for them to email my professor to "make sure I actually needed it for class." Oh. my. goodness. Anyway, long story short, one of the teachers on the 4th grade team at Lockeland ended up having a FlipCamera that actually did record an hour and I was able to successfully film, save, and clip the video as needed. 
To bring this rant to an end, I think we need to tell somebody about this. I know I wasn't the only person who had difficulties with getting a camera. I also know that I was not the only one who was told that reserving a camera was not allowed. What can we do about this? Should we sit down and talk to IT? Should there be a week when cameras are reserved for edTPA filming for all Student Teachers? Should A&S be able to charge Peabody Students? Maybe Student Teaching seminar classes can be allotted a certain number of cameras and then we can alternate filming over the course of a month? I don't know! This needs to be brought to somebody's attention, because nobody should have to go through the amount of added stress some of us had to. ESPECIALLY during the stressful and crazy edTPA filming days! Again, sorry for the rant... I'm obviously still a little peeved. 

Snow Days

Because what could be more timely...

Obviously as student teachers about to write our TPAs, these snow days couldn't have come at a more perfect time.  I have been so happy to get a few more hours of sleep, do some extra research for my TPA, and write my context for learning while watching Singin' in the Rain instead of in Peabody Library with a grande latte from Starbucks at 1AM.  But as convenient as the snow days are for us, I can't help but think about the loss of learning our students and how frustrating this would be for our teachers.  Can you imagine being one of the teachers Cassie talked about in her last post whose job relies on student scores and then have your students be gone for a whole week? I don't know about y'all, but I sometimes feel like my kiddos forget what I teach after two days, more or less after a whole week off.

Additionally, less so at Hickman, but at the school I was at last semester, I know there were kids who only ate when they came to school.  They got food sent home with them on the weekends, but it makes me so sad to think about their cold and hungry selves at home on these snow days.  What do we do with that as teachers, knowing that we can't do anything?  I know we can only work our hardest and best to make the time our kids spend in our classroom the best it can be, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like enough.

What's your strategy for staying positive on these snowy days when you're worrying about your kids?  What would your plan be for refocusing your kids when you get back?  What are you doing with your time off to make sure you spend it wisely?