Blog #4 Nicole Gonzalez

I enjoyed my time doing my field experience at Blue Lakes Elementary School. In my last field experience I was placed in an average classroom as for this time around I was in a pull out class. Being able to observe Ms. Machado gave me an idea of what to expect if I was a pull out teacher. Compared to the average classroom setting a pull out class has its differences.

 In a pull out class students are having difficulties in a specific subject area. Ms. Machado told me that most of the time students that go to pull out classrooms have a learning disability. With her class most of the students have ADHD and only one with a mental disability. She explained that it is challenging but patience is key. All her students have IEP’s that she must look at and follow so that her students learn and reach their full potential. I got to see her teach her students, perform assessments, and give them exams.

Though some of it I was unable to physically see in action such as the assessments. I was given that time to read to the students and then be able to talk and get to know them. During the time I was able to observe exams I got to see how she modified the test for the student that has a mental disability. The students really like their teacher and say they understand it better when she breaks things down to them. Teaching students with disabilities is a challenge but Ms. Machado makes it look easy. I learned a lot from her by talking about what a pull out teacher does and what I can expect for when I have my own classroom. I enjoyed my time at Blue Lakes and I hope to be able to go again.

Blog #3 Nicole Gonzalez

After reading the article “ An Educators Guide to Teacher Reflection” the part I found interesting was the reflection process. According to the article reflection is enhanced when mentoring or coaching is provided that allows teachers as learners to tap into their own realm of experiences, reflect on those experiences, and construct personal meaning to inform their developing practice. It is important as a teacher to be able to reflect back on your performance and see the areas that you have weaknesses and also strengths. Doing that can help improve the performance of the teacher in the classroom.

            When I talked to my clinical teacher about this article she told me that reflection is something teachers should be constantly doing. She explained that at the end of the day or the end of the week she reflects on her performance in the classroom. “ I like to think back to how I delivered information to my students and how I approached conflicts in the classroom. I do this so I can improve my teaching.” By thinking back she told me that it will not only make her a better teacher but her students will also benefit from it.

Students can also be the ones to go back and reflect. I saw Ms. Machado one day after the students came back from a field trip. When the students walked in she had them do an assignment that made the students reflect back to their trip and write about what they learned from it. Reflection doesn’t have to be reflecting on ones self it can also be used in assignments to see student comprehension. Many teachers have students reflect back in a journal. After hearing and seeing the students reflect back to their trip made me think about coming up with other ways to be able to reflect so that in the future I can use those strategies in my class. With the process of reflection I can look at back at my strengths and weaknesses and improve on them to help me become a great teacher.

POST #4 BERLINER

       The article, The Capacity to Reframe: A Crucial Attribute of Reflective Practitioners, discusses the act of maintaing a journal as a teacher. Keeping a teaching journal gives you a space to generate teaching ideas, work out pedagogical problems, reflect on your successes and struggles in the classroom, and put your past insights to work in planning future courses.
      The article analyzes how a teaching journal is a valuable resource when creating documents.  Having a consistent and detailed record of your insights and particular thoughts and successes will make the task of telling stories about your teaching substantially easier, and will make those stories more persuasive. Keeping up with a teaching journal will continue to help you through your academic career as you move toward tenure review, where detailed and polished teaching materials are key.
      While people may end up with lots of material to use in formal, public writing, keep in mind that the teaching journal itself should be a private document. Keeping your journal private allows you the space to fret, whine, rant, and about all the amazing and difficult things being a teacher allows. A private journal is also important should you write about any concerns you have with particular students. These entries need never see the light of day in their raw form, and keeping them that way protects you and your students.
      Ms. Ramos encourages her students at the beginning of each lesson to write a journal entry.  This gives students extreme freedom in their writing and gives them a sense of responsibility.  I find this to be a great technique.  Journaling will definitely be a method that I will employ from Ms. Ramos in my own classroom one day.  I want my students to feel independent with their writing.  I also think journaling is a good idea because it can help me, as a teacher, see where the students are at, and see how the students feel about certain subjects.  
       Journaling also works for students.  One of the best things about daily journal writing is that it can take so many forms. Teachers can use journal writing to meet specific goals, or the purpose can be wide open. Some teachers check journal writing and work on polishing skills; others use journals as the one "uncorrected" form of writing that students produce. Some teachers provide prompts to help students begin their writing. Others leave decisions about the direction and flow of student journals up to the students. When reading something, many kids are not going to come out and say how they feel about what it is they are reading.  In a journal, they know that it is theirs and that they can freely express themselves. I feel like I will be able to learn a lot about my quieter students through reading their journals.

Blog Post #4

The last time I spoke in class about my field experience, I mentioned how my clinical teacher will often switch from english to Spanish when she is teaching. Although I understand that there are some ELL students within the classroom, she does not clarify in only english. I mentioned how there are mostly hispanic students who seem to understand completely what she is saying, but there was one girl who did not seem to fully understand what was being said when she switched to Spanish. I have personally questioned the relationship between the teacher and this student since the first day that I came to observe here. The student I am referring to is an African American girl, who's body language and facial expression tell that she doesn't understand when the teacher speaks Spanish, we will call this student Linda. Linda is the only Black student in the classroom, and because of the recent events in the media, I decided to pay close attention to how the teacher reacted to Linda. I was hoping and praying that she was treated like all the other students were. I first noticed something off when the teacher was at her desk, surrounded by a few students who had questions about the work, all of the students asked their questions and got back normal answers, but once Linda asked her question, the teacher snapped a little bit and told everyone to go back to their seat and stop asking questions. I have no idea of the questions being asked, and I do not know if it was possibly the same one being asked over and over, or if Linda frequently asks the teacher too many questions and the teacher became annoyed, but I am just writing about what I observed. The other thing that I noticed about Linda is that she is always sitting in the back group of tables alone. I decided to ask about this once and the teacher assured me that other students were assigned to sit there with her, but they were absent. It seemed that these students were absent just about every time I observed. There was even a time when my clinical teacher asked the students to group up and check each other's papers, and there was no direction to help Linda who sat alone, so I asked a student from a different table if they would switch with her and they did. I am not sure if there is prejudices in my clinical teacher's heart, but a lot of the actions I had observed had me thinking otherwise.
-Samantha Beverly

Blog Post #3

I actually read the reframing article before going into field experience, and I was so surprised at what I noticed regarding the article. I noticed that the method that my clinical teacher uses is the repositioning method. There are a few select students who are almost constantly off task, or disrupting the classroom in one way or anther. My clinical teacher obviously becomes very annoyed and frustrated with these students because she finds herself constantly having to direct their attention back to the work or to the lecture. As I was observing one day I noticed that she was becoming very frustrated with one student because he was continuously having a problem with the students sitting around him, talking, wining, arguing with others at his table. I thought that my clinical teacher was going to blow up and call out his behavior in the class. Except I was surprised to see my clinical teacher's first reaction was, the teacher "uhh!" (when all the students are being too loud) and then she realized that it was this student again having a conflict with someone else at his table. Instead of yelling at him for the hundredth time, she asked the student to come to her desk and told everyone else to sit down and continue with the work they were doing. She repositioned her initial initial position of this kid is trying to annoy the crap out of me to maybe there is an underlying issue here. She quietly spoke to the student at her desk for a while, and then she learned that a student at his table was taking his erasers and intentionally writing on them when the other student had asked him to stop, and everyone else at the table had asked this student to stop as well, but he wouldn't. She decided to move the child who was stealing the erasers to a table where there was only one other student and resolved the issue.

blog #3

For one of the lessons, we did centers in the classroom.  There were four different stations.  One science, one reading and answering questions, one where they read on leap frog, and finally they did iready (a reading program on the computer).

I was in charge of the reading and questions section.  The students were in groups of five or six and they were in each section for 25-30 minutes.  The packet that they had to read had passages about all of the planets and then were followed by about six questions that varied from short response to multiple choice or matching.  The students were separated into groups by level (however I did not know that in the beginning of the lesson).

As the groups came and left, I realized that more and more of them were getting distracted by others, they had more questions on words in the packet and about the questions they had to answer, and eventually none of the group members could read.  However, because I did not know this, the student almost began to cry from frustration.  

Since the teacher never told me how to run my center, I would help the students when they asked questions on a definition or I would assist them when they couldn't find the answer to a question in the reading.

While I was doing this, my teacher would be on the computer doing work, however in the afternoon she was helping the students in the science center.  I really enjoyed doing the centers because it gave me the opportunity to work with the students and really see what they are capable of and what it is like teaching kids with disabilities.  When working with the students, it was obvious that many of them had disabilities because they could not comprehend the reading and because they could not concentrate.  I had to tell the kids to focus on themselves many times similar to my teacher when she is giving out a portfolio for the kids to do.  I felt bad having to tell the kids that because I never thought that it worked but it was the only thing that I could think of to do since I don't know them well.

In my own class in the future, I would be more involved in the centers this way I could help the kids with something if they need it or I would be able to congratulate them on something done well.  

BLOG POST 4

Today in my field experience I had much more experience than I've had before this semester. I interacted a lot more with the students as the teacher in my classroom let me do tasks I had never done.

At first, she told me to staple some paperwork and while I did that I learned what the students were doing in class and what they would do on their next school semester as they were preparing for fourth grade. After that, she let me correct the student's practice tests, which was great. I felt like a real teacher correcting exams. It was math so I did it pretty quickly, but it was really nice from her to let me do that. At last, they had a quiz on skeletons and she let me help the special educations kids in the classroom, since it is an inclusive classroom. They could use their notes for their exams so I sat there and helped them with whatever they needed as I came to the realization that it is not at all hard for them to learn or behave, the hard part is grasping their attention so that they could do their quiz and look for the questions properly.

As I helped the special education students, I came to the realization that they all sat together in the same part of the classroom. It is an "inclusive" classroom but they are still in their own corner within the classroom. Not that they're apart from the rest of the students but they all know that those are the students with special needs. I asked the teacher about their impairments, and she couldn't respond. She said she believed that one of them had ADHD and another had Dyslexia but the rest she was not sure. I was very impressed by the lack of knowledge, since the whole point of special education is meeting the specific needs of the student according to their disability so as a teacher it is a bit obvious that one must know the disability and the needs of the child in order to help him/her.

BLOG POST 3

After reading the article "An Educator's Guide to Teacher Reflection", I wanted to write this post using the tool of re-framing. Reframing means to look at, present or think of something (beliefs, ideas, relationships) in a different way. When I went to my field experience last week I decided that I would try to stand from a student's point of view in the classroom. I have been a student before so I have had that viewpoint before and I am currently, obviously, a college student. But, in my opinion, the teacher-student treatment in a university classroom differs a lot from the elementary setting. So I decided that I wanted to have that viewpoint again, as sometimes I think the students get attitudes and complain too much with the teacher, but that was when I was simply observing.

The teacher that I was assigned to is a warm person, with a tough attitude. She cares about her students and I can notice that, but most of the time she responds with a simple "yes" "no" and sometimes she even tells them to "shut up" when she gets mad. Instead of enforcing behaviors by teaching the students that they shouldn't interrupt (by modeling or so) she prefers to shut them up, which can, most of the times, make a student feel offended or sentimental. This day the students were testing. When they finished their tests, if they got an A they would get a reward and if not they wouldn't. This strategy may be tricky sometimes because of course, who would want to hurt a student? But at the same time it works because it is a motivation for those who usually don't do their home works or don't study as much as they should. Several times, students went to the teacher's desk to give her the test back and she said out loud "This is an F!!!! I will post it in the Internet". Students faces turned into frowns as they were hurt by what the teacher was saying. They also felt this way when she told them to shut up. Nonetheless, most of the students knew every answer and got them all right. So from this I could notice that they do pay attention and they do have respect for the teacher, but I don't believe that having such respect is so honorable if one gains it by talking this way to students.

Blog Post 3

For my blog I am going to focus on the idea from "A Educator's Guide to Teacher Reflection" called re-positioning or re-framing. I have can see this overlapping with my field experience more than once therefore I chose to apply it to my journals. The situation I would like to focus on is a day I went into the classroom and there was a substitute for Mrs. Garcia (not real names). The substitute was handing out busy work so instead I asked the English teacher, Ms. Camacho, if I could observe her instruction instead. I am glad she allowed me to observe her class because I was able to see the different relationships the two classes had with their core teachers Mrs. Garcia and Ms. Camacho.  These two teachers are night and day when it comes to their backgrounds, instruction, classroom routines and especially how they view and handle misbehavior's. Before I go on to explain how each one engages with their students, I will touch on their different back grounds so you can kind of relate to lenses they are using towards their students.
 Mrs. Garcia is around 38 years, she is Cuban, married and has a 10 year old son that attends the school where she teaches. She has been teaching for 14 years and absolutely adores it. Her instruction is very organized and by the book. She even discusses with the class what common core standards they are meeting within each lesson. As a person she is very forgetful and busy and some what unorganized but when it comes to her classroom everything is regulated and in check. She has a tremendous amount of patience with her students. She is not quick to punish them if they are acting out and takes each student a step at a time. In the class she has developed an incredibly positive and effective relationship/dynamic with her students.  She encourages students to ask questions and takes time to answer their questions. She does not make remarks that lower the students self esteem. In fact when I spoke with her one on one I found it incredibly heart warming when she was able to pick out a unique quality about every single student. I am not exaggerating every single one. She is the kind of teacher that sees a student acting out and misbehaving as a learning/teaching opportunity.
Now Ms. Camacho on the other hand, is 27 years old,  Cuban, not yet married, has no kids, and has been teaching for 5 years and adores it as well. Her instruction is very modern and kind of relaxed. While Mrs. Garcia has little routines set up to shift things through out the lesson Mrs. Camacho does not. Her instruction is more as she goes kind of feel. She does not have them journal every day like Ms. Garcia but does have certain current events due every Thursday. Mrs. Camacho also has a section of the class with bean bags and donated books for students to relax and "take a moment". Her instruction will usually tie in with something happening in pop culture. As a person you can see that she is very up to date and passionate. She is quick to punish the students for misbehavior as though their actions are a personal attack. The students in fact have an on going joke that she is one of loudest teachers in the school and that you can hear her from outside when she is yelling. She does not have the same patience as Mrs. Garcia, when students come up to her she somewhat seems irritated by their questions. She kind of jokes around with the students as she was a kid herself.  She raises her voice a lot with them for almost anything. She has sort of labeled some of the students for instance one girl is a "drama queen" while another boy "never stops talking". She also made it very clear to me who she favors in the classroom.
The point of this blog was to show how the teachers interpretation of a behavior triggers a  different response to the behavior and to reflect on how different frameworks can change the class experience. Out of curiosity I asked students who their favorite teacher was and most answered Mrs. Camacho. They described her as more "fun".

Blog Post 4: "Narrative" Observation

A teacher narrative about Ms. Sorondo's 9th through 12th grade "Developmental Langauge III" course at Coral Gables Senior High:

On that Thursday, March 12th of 2015, Ms. Sorondo was preparing for another day with her high school class. These kids sitting in beige, metal desks before her looked more enthused than she did, which isn't saying much. She scowled. Crossing her arms on the walk from one end of the classroom to the other, she touched the light switch once, then again, and another time. Flickering on and off, the fleeting darkness signaled the class to sit at attention like soldiers. Their enthusiasm was now wiped from their faces and Sergeant Sorondo threw quizzes before them. "Phones off and away. Now! I don't want to see them," she barked. This was the first sound that left her lips since entering the room and it was clear that everyone preferred the silence.

She walked about the classroom as children bit their nails and tapped their pencils, trying to complete a close reading quiz. Even a fourth grader could do this assessment with ease if they were proficient in English, of course. These high school aged students, however, were not. The anticipation filled their faces as the time ticked by on the black and white clock in the front corner of this prison.

Just below it, a new face appeared through the doorway. He was scrawny and tanned, visibly Latino, and unbelievably timid. Ms. Sorondo demanded why he must interrupt her class when they were in the middle of an assessment. He didn't answer her immediately. Smoke might as well have erupted from the sides of Ms. Sorondo's blonde head. She walked close to him, only a foot away, and asked again why he was in her classroom. The boy opened his mouth and began to speak, not in English, but in Spanish. In response, a student sitting in the corner farthest from the pair, blurted out this boy's response but translated into Standard English. Even before he could even finish, Ms. Sorondo blurted out, "he's now in an ESOL 3 class, he will speak English." Surprisingly she bypassed another awkward exchange and just introduced him to the class as "Julio who is coming from Spain but was born in Cuba." Julio from Spain but born in Cuba shriveled his face into the tiniest ball it could possibly morph into and the class could feel his discomfort even though they themselves did not share the same emotion.

Ms. Sorondo and her students were used to a constant flow of new kids. They never stopped coming. It was the middle of March, and still, they were coming. Her harshness was a reflection of this predictability. And so, she sat him down then in a random beige, metal desk in the middle of the room, where he could sink in his shyness and feel the stares fall on his somewhat un-welcomed face.

"Cayaté," Ms. Sorondo shouted as the class took this interruption as an opportunity to break the silence of a quiz and talk. "Shut up" was most definitely not a vocabulary word in these kids's curriculum. They began to pound their pencils back against their desks and chew away at their fingers, trying to end the agony of yet another quiz. Ms. Sorondo once again took her place back in the front of the class, occasionally walking around to individuals who appeared more distracted than the rest. And Julio, he squirmed in this seat that was warmed by another student who was once in a position just like his: new, afraid, and unprepared for the education ahead of him.

Blog Post 3: "Metaphor" Observation

Reading through the pages assigned to assist us in the crafting of these last two reflections, I was initially confused. I didn't see how my feedback could be translated in terms of these tactics since I'm so used to the uniform paper or project in framing my field experience observations. So, I had to try to fit this new information into my mind in a way that made sense for me. So, I looked to my English background. As a Creative Writing and Education major I found the most sensical and intriguing section of this writing to be the ones about metaphor and narratives. After some thought, I can see how, if explained thoroughly, an educator could benefit from reviewing a fellow teachers's feedback through a metaphorical lens. This is what I tried to do in the following post...I hope it makes sense to you too:

A teacher's mind is their tool kit. Some are shiny and brand new, never been used and ready for construction. Others have had time to age...rust. They might squeak when trying to twist bolts or clank when hammering in a nail, but they work just the same. They have seen more, done more, cranked more, and clattered more than all their polished counterparts. And although they bare an orange, flaky crust, they do not let this affect their use; in fact, they age like fine wine. Only getting better with time. This teacher's mind is her tool kit. She keeps on building. 

So I guess that was more of a poem than a simple metaphor.. I blame the English major in me. If you did not pick up on it, there is a correlation between this metaphor of an old tool box to one of my field experience teachers, or rather one aspect of my observation in her "Language Arts through ESOL" course. Ms. Massot was her name and she has been teaching at Coral Gables Senior High for many, many years. More specifically she has worked with English Language learners for many, many years. This shaped her methodologies and attitude in the classroom and was the aspect of her teaching that resonated with me the most.

She would often say, "use me," in reference to defining new vocabulary and understanding confusing sentences or concepts. This is how I got the idea for a tool box. It symbolizes her wealth of knowledge, which is richer and more expansive than a younger teacher would have simply because of their lack of experience. I even personified the tools themselves to resemble the parts of Ms. Massot that work to produce results, namely learning, in her classroom.

By parts I mean her personal attributes. Her loudness, expressiveness, passion, and dedication were all something I had previously viewed as traits found mostly within younger teachers. But Ms. Massot proved me wrong. She held tightly to these tools and let them develop from year to year. I found, as did she, that these were timeless tools that would better facilitate her English language learning students' receptiveness and engagement in the classroom. She used everything in her power and in her mind to make herself available to these kids and make it known that all 23 of them were there for one purpose: to learn. Ms. Massot's mind was not only her, but her students's tool kit.

A Different Look - BP3

Sometimes you need to step back and really analyze your situation.

What am I doing?

What are the students doing?

Why are we acting in this fashion?

We tend to get caught up in the superficial actions and don't stop and question why. As an educator, and as a human being in general, we should learn to be skeptical and question that which is around us. In many occasions, actions tend to have causes with deeper motives but are masked by superficial ones. It is up to us to stop and think about the underlying motives in our everyday encounters. Due to difficulties with my field experience and the nature of this blog post, I feel that it would be nice to approach this topic from a more personal and first hand account. As an instructor at Mathnsium, a learning center for math, I am privileged to teach a variety of students whose levels range from the basic arithmetic taught in kindergarten to university university calculus. Although I do not command a whole classroom and I am only with each student for hour long periods (90 minutes for students taking algebra and up), I am able to interact with and foster a worry-free and engaging environment for my students. I work with up to four students at a time, but I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I wasn't paying attention to all the other students in the center similar to how a teacher has to observe their classroom. Due to my experience, I feel it would be appropriate to share my observations involving some of my students with our class. For the sake of professionalism and for the purposes of this blog post, I will be changing the names of the students in my examples.

When working with kids, it's important to remember the fact that they are kids; sometimes we forget this is obvious fact. They haven't fully developed yet, they lack experience, and they are egocentric. Many times when students are disruptive, they don't truly understand the implications of their actions because they are so caught up in the world that is them. However, it's not impossible for them to see outside their own world, they just need a nudge in the right direction and to be made aware of their own actions.

I have this one student named James. James talks. He talks to me. He talks to his neighbor. He sings to himself. He doesn't control his volume. Math hour? He thinks it's social hour. He doesn't realize that his neighbors are trying to learn and develop a proficiency in something that doesn't come as natural to them. James is just being friendly and outgoing, but he's also distracting his neighbors and as a result hindering their development. Some of these kids really need the help, so taking James to the side and explaining to him what he's taking away from the other students isn't fair to them. They've come to learn and receive help and he's just tying up the instructor and disturbing his neighbors. He likes baseball, so when I was talking to him I told him to imagine how it would feel if someone yelled at him every time he took a swing. I had him put himself in the shoes of his neighbors and understand why his actions may be disturbing others. As a result, he's slowly getting better at controlling the volume of his voice and letting his neighbors focus on their work.

In another similar situation, Franco tends to be pretty disruptive. He's in sixth grade, He'll play with anything in his immediate vicinity. He'll talk to anyone in his table. He'll talk to anyone in neighboring tables. I have tried to make him aware of his actions but he still continues disrupting his neighbors. I thought maybe he had some type of disability, but I stopped and analyzed my interactions with him, what we've talked about, and what I had noticed in the brief time between him and his mom when she picks him up. His parents work a lot and when she picks him up she looks exhausted. I think he is simply seeking the attention he hasn't really been receiving at home and it took me a bit to realize this. I had tried ignoring him, but I think maybe diverting a bit more attention at him and engaging him while doing our math work may be more effective. It's worked in that he's completing more of his work, but as a result he only really works when I'm right in front of him which takes away a lot of my time and attention which becomes a problem when you consider the other kids at my table which are equally deserving of the same time and attention.

Stopping and analyzing has proven effective in my development as an instructor and has therefore allowed me to better help my students. However, I am not a book full of answers. What would you guys do if you were me? How would you handle the Franco situation?

Here's a video I found on reframing that I'd like to leave you with that might help you on your future endeavors as both inside and outside the classroom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvPIB8PTYqc

Blog Post #4 Samantha Rader

Since I have been able to complete my field experience I figured I could write my blogs as soon as possible while my experience is still fresh. To follow up on my last post about reframing, I am going to continue with that idea. A different viewpoint I am able to look at is how Ms. Jay feels towards these students. I am going to continue to say that I think she is an excellent person, but is burnt out herself. I think she has started to teach as if she was a child's mother and takes on the motherly role.

She deeply cares about the students. I have observed numerous things that supports this. One of those things being when a child is crying (which happens frequently in a kindergarten classroom) she rushes over to find out what's wrong. She listens to the child and what they have to say about why they are crying. She never ignores how they are feeling and validates their feelings.

Today while I was there, a student was uncontrollably crying. I would have handled the situation by telling the student to calm down and when he was ready to come talk to me. It's hard to be able to understand a student when they can't stop crying. Ms. Jay and him were only conversing in Spanish, which I unfortunately do not understand. I asked Ms. Jay what was wrong since it was clear that the student was becoming a distraction to the other students who kept begging him to stop crying because it was so loud and intense. Ms. Jay told me she had never seen him like this before. She said earlier in the morning she saw the student with her partner teacher, who I will refer to ask Ms. Trunchbull. Ms. Jay asked Ms. Trunchbull if anything had happened and she replied with, "I made him do work." Ms. Jay doesn't feel like you can push your students that hard where they're at the point of breaking. Ms. Jay had concluded that Ms. Trunchball said or did something to make the student feel this way. I think that's why she is so easy-going on this class.

Ms. Trunchbull and Ms. Jay's room share a wall. You can hear the second Ms. Trunchball isn't happy with the children. She screams and yells so loud that even I wouldn't want to be in that classroom, not to mention how 5 year olds feel. Before Jay's class switches to go into Ms. Trunchball's room, 4 girls got mysterious stomachs all of a sudden, one was even crying. Ms. Jay told me that it happens pretty frequently and she knows it's because they don't want to go next door. Ms. Jay allows the students who are supposed to be in Ms. Trunchball's room into hers all the time. She doesn't think Ms. Trunchball should be an educator. Ms. Trunchball takes things to the extreme, not only with her voice but with her discipline. I've seen her dragging kids to the office for not doing their homework. Unfortunately at 5 years old it is hard to be that upset with the student, when it's really their parents who need to be talked with.

Ms. Jay feels for these students because she envisions her own 4 year old daughter in their place and knows that she wouldn't want a teacher to treat her daughter like that. Based on that, I feel that is why she lets a lot of things go with them. The students definitely run her classroom and I think it is because she doesn't want to add more stress to their lives, because like she said, "many of them come from broken homes."

Blog Post #3 Samantha Rader

From reading the article, "An Educator's Guide to Teacher Reflection" I decided to write my blog post on reframing. Reframing allows you to view a situation from another angle. By reading this I learned that I don't view my observations from anyones viewpoint but my own. I place my judgements on the situation and often don't agree with how things are handled. 

On multiple occasions I have been there where my clinical teacher just throws a video on for the afternoon class because she was too tired from the morning class and "it was a Friday". 

From my viewpoint I didn't see this as good teaching despite the videos or movies being educational and held the children's attention. After speaking with my Ms. Jay I learned that there is a lot of things going on in her personal life too. She isn't just tired from the morning class. She's tired because she wakes up at 4:30 am with her husband, gets her daughter and herself ready for school, and on top of that lives a half an hour from where she teaches. She has already had a long day by the time her afternoon class comes in at 11:15. I was most often there on Friday's and frequently Friday afternoons. I wasn't there to see her teaching all week most times. 

She had expressed to me that she doesn't want to let herself get frustrated with the children when often things aren't there fault. She has many children who are ESOL and ESE and doesn't have adequate help with them. On top of that she is exhausted and knows that she can't take her frustrations out on the children. After a long week I now understand why she puts on a video for the Friday afternoon class. She views it as a benefit rather than letting herself get frustrated with the children who's homework isn't complete, children who still don't know the alphabet, and children who don't speak English. She knows these kids really well. She knows when she can and can not push them. Testing was finally completed Monday and she said that the kids are burnt out from practicing for the test all year. She still does work with them, but she feels she's reached the point in the year where's there's nothing more she can do. She has already filled out her retention and referral papers and seems to be ready for next year. 

I have learned that there is a lot more that meets the eye in every situation. 

Blog Post #2

Due to Spring Break and Holly week, aside from testing problems (I have arrived at Southside and not be able to go in the classroom because of testing) I could finally go to my field experience. I waited in the office until the teacher was notified that I was there so I could go up to the classroom. As I walked in the office, several people kept asking me "Why are you studying education?" and telling me "Quit it while you can, we are here because we could not afford to do anything else." Both of the times that I have been in my field experience I have gotten these type of comments and they make me uncomfortable. I just look at them when they speak, give them a smile a turn around.

In the office came a teacher with a kid. The kid could not stay seated, he was running around and jumping all over the office with his backpack and his juice. The teacher seemed desperate, she grabbed him and sat him down with her force, but he kept getting back up until she finally gave up and let him jump around. She had a frown in her face and looked really, really tired and bored. As I saw this, I was finally called to go upstairs to the classroom. I went and sat in the back of the class so that children would pay attention to the teacher.

It was Science class and they were learning about tides. The teacher, in front of them, asked me "are you sure you want to be a teacher? They don't do their homework, and they behave very bad". They were all looking at here with anger, while I just nodded. Although they did not like what she said, they respected her. They never spoke while she did, and they raised their hand most of the times, I believe they were a bit frightened since she is pretty serious.

Berliner Blog #3

Regarding reading the article, "An Educator's Guide to Teacher Reflection," there were a lot of example that coincided with my experiences in my fieldwork.  The section that most overlapped with my fieldwork was when they discussed the idea of repositioning.  According to the article, reposition connotes the idea of changing your perception by moving out of your old position and creating new positions from which to a view a situation.  It involves developing the capacity to look at what’s happening, withholding judgment, while simultaneously recognizing that the meaning you attribute to it is no more than your interpretation filtered through you cumulative experience. This applies to my fieldwork because although I judge my fieldwork teacher a lot for most of her actions, it is her classroom and she clearly sees those actions appropriate.

            For example, when a student acts out, one teacher sees a personal attack while another sees a cry for help.  The other day, a fifth grader wasn’t working on his packet and she took it as the student was being lazy and not doing his work.  In my perspective, the student is having problems at home and he is unable to fully concentrate because his mind is balancing so many different ideas at a time.  Knowing that his parents are going through a divorce, the teacher continued to yell and punish this student instead of keeping in mind the factors outside of school.  I thought she should’ve pulled him aside and spoke to him… maybe even have him talk to a school psychologist, but she didn’t see this fit.  In this case, we both must reposition our ideas to fully understand one another’s point of view.  Conferring to the article, it is the teacher’s interpretation of the student’s behavior that determines how the teacher will respond.  It’s a teacher’s personal framing that shapes how he or she attributes meaning to classroom experiences.  After reading this article, I now judge my teacher less because her point of view is very different than mine, and I am now able to reposition my view to fit hers in some ways.

            The article discusses seeing new ways of interpreting a situation which enables the teacher or myself to move beyond a limited perspective and assign new meaning to the classroom situations encountered.  In this case, by repositioning a seemingly negative event, I was able to seize the opportunity to discover the potential in a situation.

Blog Post #3

After reading the article, "An Educator's Guide to Teacher Reflection," the section that most stood out to me was The Capacity to Reframe. This part of the article discusses how when a teacher is faced with a problem, there are two ways to handle it. Since teachers can’t always change the situation, they are only left with deciding how to respond by learning to reframe or reposition classroom situations and school circumstances. The teacher can either change the situation or change their reaction to the situation. I wish I was able to say that my clinical teacher does any of those in her classroom. 

Throughout each of my observations, my clinical teacher does not think before she reacts to any situation and simply shames the student(s) in front of the entire class. When I asked her how she deals with unexpected problems in class, she states to me, “These kids are incapable of learning and it is too far along in the school year to try something new to help make any classroom situation better or positive.” When I asked my clinical teacher if she takes the time to self-reflect within a journal or videotaping, she tells me, “I kept a journal in the beginning of my teaching career but that was it. I find that since I have been in this profession for almost 15 years, I have mastered it. Since I will be retiring soon, I don’t find it to be necessary either.” I was appalled yet not surprised with her answers.

When my clinical teacher is faced with a situation she decides not to handle, she scares the student with cutting words and takes them to the principal’s office with no care in the world. My clinical teacher has shared with me throughout my observations, that majority of the students in her class come from broken families, live in government assisted apartments, and don’t have access to resources such as a computer. For example, one family consists of a single mother with 7 children who all live in a two bedroom apartment through the government. The mother does not work or own a car and the father is incarcerated. I feel as though it is even that much more important for my clinical teacher to become a greater role model for her students because they can’t seek one anywhere else. My clinical teacher blames low academic scores on her students’ home living and does not put forth any extra effort in helping them succeed. But, those students who come from wealthy families, my clinical teacher blames their low academic scores are because “they can’t comprehend the material.” 

Although my experience in first grade was completely different from these students’, it is still important for the teacher to create a safe and positive learning environment. All students must feel important and respect from the teacher. Looking back to my childhood in school, I always had nurturing, effective, and passionate teachers guiding me throughout the way. I never had a teacher embarrass me in front of my peers, yell at me, talk down to me, etc.  My clinical teacher exemplifies none of these qualities in which a teacher should, especially in the younger grades like first.

As future educators, we should always become self-reflective practitioners and should constantly be improving in order to increase our effectiveness. This is clearly what my clinical teacher needs improvement on, including many other factors. 

Below are two brief videos that discuss the importance of teacher reflection and another on how to train teachers to make a greater student impact. I hope you enjoy them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT2bEZhx8C8

https://youtu.be/5vl7b-0jQGc