In my posts, I will only use pseudo names to protect people's privacy. Marylhurst's MAT program believe in placing teaching candidates in real classrooms right away. This term we are placed in a classroom during our field experience. We get to observe how the teachers work and later on do a couple activities with the students. The teacher of the classroom is our cooperating teacher. They cooperate with the university to help prepare us for our own teaching profession. We learn from our cooperating teachers from their good example of being good teachers as they are recognized by other people.
I am placed in a first grade classroom at an elementary school in Oregon City. My cooperating teacher is Betty Rainer and she's on her fifteenth teaching year there. This year is her ninth year teaching first grade after a seven year break when she taught a year of third grade and six years of fourth grade.
Last Friday, I showed up to the elementary school as my first day there. I met with the principal, Mr. Laker who seemed to be everywhere in the school. The school secretary had to call him in for my meeting with me. I was surprised how young he is, I think he's in his 30s. The elementary principals I know of tend to be older women and sometimes older men in their middle ages. Mr. Laker gave me a quick introduction to the school. At this school, the teachers teaches each student with his or her own individual learning plan as best as they can.
After our meeting, we sneaked a peak in my cooperating teacher's classroom. The class was quietly reading to themselves while I saw a group working with the Instructional Assistant (IA for short) named Wendy.
Mr. Laker took me to a room where a cooperating teacher meeting was being held in which it was led by the Academic Intervention Specialist, Hannah. I was able to set in for half an hour listening to the three third grade teachers planning their own adult learning goals for the classroom with Hannah. The teachers reviewed their last year's goals and reflect on any success that happened end of last year. Last year, their main focus was the math curriculum and creating it that all students can learn what they need to learn for third grade. Next, they decided what they need to work on for this school year. This year, the third grade teachers agreed to work on reading strategies. Hannah is there for the teachers so they have a support person to help for curriculum building. I learned that Hannah meet with a team of teachers from each grade level twice a year. If a teacher needs extra support, she is willing to set an appointment with that teacher and work with him or her. While the teachers are at this meeting during school hours, there are substitute teachers in charge of the teachers' classroom.
The last two hours, I spent observing my classroom placement. I was so excited to sit and watch. The moment I entered the classroom I felt safe, calm and ready to learn. I soon realized that Betty created a calm and safe classroom because of her calm and caring attitude. Her classroom is organized and neat. Everything has their place and students have their own place for their backpacks and jackets as well as their own seats for school work. I think she is passionate in creating a warm, calm and safe classroom so her students can learn in an open-way without a heavy load of stress.
During the class morning recess break, the kids went outside to play where IAs monitor the morning break time. One child came back with her breakfast and hanged out in the classroom. Betty do let kids chose to hang out in the classroom during their morning break if they behave themselves. I was able to do an impromptu-to interview with the dark-haired girl. She told me that she like Mrs. Rainer a lot because she is nice, thoughtful and kind. The girl enjoys learning from her teacher because Mrs. Rainer explain things clearly, uses pictures and movement to illustrate a point. The girl's favorite part of the day is recess. She loves to read a lot and she said that she learns from books. Though, she believe that thinking is a hard thing to do. She insisted that she can really learn a lot from reading books.
Even though, I was observing during my first time there but I ended up interacting with some first graders a few times. I can't help to sit back and not do something. It was during math time when I was walking around the room checking out what the kids are doing as I wrote notes down in my notebook. Betty and Wendy was checking on students individually. I noticed a few kids off-task because they were done with the first worksheet. I asked what they are suppose to do next. One boy said,"I'm waiting for the teacher to check my work. I can't go on to the next page."
I suggested that they could work on the next page since their teacher was occupied with a student and Wendy was with another student. A couple kids took my suggestion and continue to work on their math packets. At one point, I saw this little girl on the floor laying down and doing nothing. She had started the worksheet. I redirected her back to work and she did work for a few minutes until she got bored again. Later I found out that she may have a severe case of AHAD in which is in the progress. Betty hopes to get some support so she can better teach the girl. She had mostly able to keep the girl's safe but she worries if the girl is learning at all. She has worked with the girl one-on-one before. But Betty can't do that all the time since she has other students' to assess and keep track of their learning.
When the kids went off to their lunch recess, I got to talk with Betty. She thanked me for helping monitoring the students during math time. I said that I didn't even plan it. I did admit to her that it's hard not to interact with the kids when I am suppose to just observe. Betty still appreciated the little help I can give her.
When we were finishing our talk, she mentioned that she was going off to lunch with her students in the cafeteria. There is only one lunch monitor in the cafeteria. She said that she tries to eat lunch with her students as much as she can (if she wasn't busy with administration work) to stay connected with them but she also help manage the cafeteria. I suggested that maybe the school can start a lunch volunteer monitors through the parent volunteer program. Betty said that is a good suggestion and she will bring it up in the next staff meeting.
Today I also had about 3 1/2 hours in my field classroom. That is a bit more than expected. My field experience is 3 hours one morning per week. After observing, I had to catch up with Betty to ask my questions that I want answers to. Today's big excitement was getting new math white boards. I will share my reflection about this experience another day. I have so much homework. This Thursday, I have my first group project presentation for my child and adolescent development and learning theories class.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
What Makes a Good School?
I have been so busy with reading and doing some work on the Moodle since I first started the program. I will post something about my child and adolescent development and learning theory class. Anyways, I hope I am able to set a study schedule for each of my classes.
Last night, I had the EDU 501 class. We recap on what we should have as class norms. Courtney uses practices in the classroom through us doing stuff. Last week, we discuss what we want to have as class norms. As a class, each of us were given 5 blue dot stickers to place which of the class norms we wanted. Class norms by the way is the guidelines on how we want the class to be. They are kind of like class rules. Courtney said that this is one way to build a classroom community. So by the majority of the stickers next to some rules, Courtney knows which one is important to the class. We had a final discussion on them. Courtney will edit our responses and in next class, we will see the final version. By the way, next Tuesday, I don't have class because there is a seminar for the secondary endorsing students.
Next, we had a discussion on our class textbook called The Children in Room E4:American Education on Trail by Susan Eaton. This book is a good read because it's in narrative form. The main character is a bright, 8 year old Latino boy who loves to learn who lived in Hartford, Connecticut (where Mark Twain used to live about one hundred years ago). Here is my summary of what I read so far and my personal reflection:
I learned a lot on how the government and ordinary people made decisions that created ghettos. This trapped many poor Black and Latino families in one place where they can't better themselves and be able to live in safer neighborhoods. I didn't realized that Hartford is the capitol of Connecticut where it once was beautiful city that Mark Twain lived for many years. The Hartford neighborhoods reminded me that there are so many of them around this country like Camden. I just can't believe that mainstream America let a city like Hartford to become so horrid.
As I am reading the required section of the book this week, it's funny how many urban cities that are made for the poor or working class for people of color. These once beautiful cities are now in squalor and violence. These are the places where many bright children grow up and end up still there or end up in jail or died. It was over a hundred years ago when cities were places to go live and work because of the industrialization. Many White farm folks couldn't farm anymore because of the cost of farming and other issues that pushed them to move into cities for work in factories. They created nice neighborhoods where people are safe, children go to school, families go to their place of worship in the weekend and people working at good wage jobs. Today's world, the best neighborhoods are out in the suburbs where good jobs and schools are located.
On p. 61, a newspaper reporter's reaction about the Puerto Ricans are so unfair. Does he realized that the American government and employers who started the migration of Puerto Ricans to filled job openings in making things at factories? When he said that the Latinos should stay in downtown or "go back where they came from," his words made me mad. Over 30 years ago, many Puerto Ricans immigrated to Hartford for a better life because their homeland was having economical issues. They wanted their families to have a better life without poverty's effects of losing love ones from starvation, disease and unsafe living conditions. By 2000, most of the Latinos were born there. The youth has no ties to their ancestors' homeland because they only knew the tough streets of America and American culture. The older folks lived in Hartford for so long that Puerto Rico is just a foreign country to them. If they all moved back to their homelands with their American-born children, they will be seen as foreigners by the locals.
I had never had anyone telling me to go back to "my" country before. But I read accounts about young Chinese-Americans who were told that and how it confused them greatly. I remember back in 10th grade when an American missile shot down at an old Chinese base; I was worried. The reason I even know about this was because of my U.S. history class. My teacher assigned us a weekly commentary paper on a current event of the week. I was looking in the Oregonian to find a good current event when a title popped out at me. I don't remember the exact wording. I think it had something like "U.S. accidentally shot off a missile in China." Is China mad at this? How could the U.S. shoot a missile using an old map? It was good that no one was hurt. What if this event caused a war between the U.S. and China? Whose side am I on? Since I am born here, I want to support my birth country. But since China is the homeland of my ancestors and where my relatives come from, I just want peace. I never want a war between China and the U.S. at all.
As a class discussion, we talked about what kind of issues many students are struggling with in American society and how they can still be left behind even if the "No Child Left Behind" policy is enacted to try to protect that. In my opinion, the concept behind "No Child Left Behind" is good but the accountability and the implementation of it is done so poorly that there are so many students being left behind especially the minority children who are living in poverty.
My class came up with a short list of why many students are still being left behind:
*mobility=students are moving around a lot because they are either from migrant working families or low-income families where they caregiver keep moving around to find jobs or for other reasons.
*poverty
*continuity of care=many students don't have a stable home life because their parents are in jail and living with relatives who are probably so stressed out with no community support or children in foster care that can be bounce from one home to the next or for other reasons.
*labeling of the students=when we label kids with AHAD or whatever label, many people box them in a category that it makes it hard for the student to want to learn and be able to be productive in society. With labels, some teachers see these students as "un-teachable." This is still happening even in the 21st century.
We finish off our discussion on what make good schools:
*Healthy food options
*Enrichment programs such as field trips to the art museum or cultural museum
*Strong leaderships in the schools so teachers have the support to really educate all students from diverse backgrounds
*Community resources for students and families who are struggling
*Safe school environment meaning students are free to be themselves and not having to feel like they are stupid or be bullied by teachers and classmates
*Safe school buildings so students don't need to worry if the ceilings are falling on them and other safety issues.
I want to add to the class list because I didn't really have a chance to share much. It's hard for me to do a whole class discussion because of the time limit and trying to jump in when I don't know when since my classmates are still new to me. I prefer small group discussions which I can be heard better. Though, we do have some group discussions. Okay, here is my add-ons to the list above:
*All school staff need to work together. Have a continuity of school norms as well as some basic class norms. For example, I noticed in Woodstock School that every classroom has the same noise level rules. So if one student goes to another classroom for reading, this person is familiar about how loud or quiet he or she need to be.
*All school professionals need to get good professional development training periodically. In doing so, it will check the attitudes of school staff to remind them to have a pure belief that all students can be taught and share their believes to their students that they will learn and able to move on to good things in life. Plus the training will give teachers some techniques and resources to teach students from diverse backgrounds.
This is a lot that I shared. I didn't even covered some other things we discuss in class. I written so fast that I don't have time to really edit my posts. I'm so busy with grad school. I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say. I will focus my energy on my papers and group projects for my classes. This blog is to really keep you updated in what's going on in my learning journey as a future educator. Yes, we have a lot of issues in our education systems in the U.S. I hope some of you are going to be good advocates to help make all our public school systems fair. I know that the PPS district (Portland) is trying their best. They have made some good strides to make sure all their students from diverse backgrounds have a good education. They are not perfect but at least they are trying and learning how to be better. For example, Franklin High School had bigger numbers of minority students to graduate last school year (Class of 2011). The rate of the minority students to graduate is about the same as the white students. I am so proud of that because it's my alma mater and I had some good teachers when I attended Franklin years ago.
Last night, I had the EDU 501 class. We recap on what we should have as class norms. Courtney uses practices in the classroom through us doing stuff. Last week, we discuss what we want to have as class norms. As a class, each of us were given 5 blue dot stickers to place which of the class norms we wanted. Class norms by the way is the guidelines on how we want the class to be. They are kind of like class rules. Courtney said that this is one way to build a classroom community. So by the majority of the stickers next to some rules, Courtney knows which one is important to the class. We had a final discussion on them. Courtney will edit our responses and in next class, we will see the final version. By the way, next Tuesday, I don't have class because there is a seminar for the secondary endorsing students.
Next, we had a discussion on our class textbook called The Children in Room E4:American Education on Trail by Susan Eaton. This book is a good read because it's in narrative form. The main character is a bright, 8 year old Latino boy who loves to learn who lived in Hartford, Connecticut (where Mark Twain used to live about one hundred years ago). Here is my summary of what I read so far and my personal reflection:
I learned a lot on how the government and ordinary people made decisions that created ghettos. This trapped many poor Black and Latino families in one place where they can't better themselves and be able to live in safer neighborhoods. I didn't realized that Hartford is the capitol of Connecticut where it once was beautiful city that Mark Twain lived for many years. The Hartford neighborhoods reminded me that there are so many of them around this country like Camden. I just can't believe that mainstream America let a city like Hartford to become so horrid.
As I am reading the required section of the book this week, it's funny how many urban cities that are made for the poor or working class for people of color. These once beautiful cities are now in squalor and violence. These are the places where many bright children grow up and end up still there or end up in jail or died. It was over a hundred years ago when cities were places to go live and work because of the industrialization. Many White farm folks couldn't farm anymore because of the cost of farming and other issues that pushed them to move into cities for work in factories. They created nice neighborhoods where people are safe, children go to school, families go to their place of worship in the weekend and people working at good wage jobs. Today's world, the best neighborhoods are out in the suburbs where good jobs and schools are located.
On p. 61, a newspaper reporter's reaction about the Puerto Ricans are so unfair. Does he realized that the American government and employers who started the migration of Puerto Ricans to filled job openings in making things at factories? When he said that the Latinos should stay in downtown or "go back where they came from," his words made me mad. Over 30 years ago, many Puerto Ricans immigrated to Hartford for a better life because their homeland was having economical issues. They wanted their families to have a better life without poverty's effects of losing love ones from starvation, disease and unsafe living conditions. By 2000, most of the Latinos were born there. The youth has no ties to their ancestors' homeland because they only knew the tough streets of America and American culture. The older folks lived in Hartford for so long that Puerto Rico is just a foreign country to them. If they all moved back to their homelands with their American-born children, they will be seen as foreigners by the locals.
I had never had anyone telling me to go back to "my" country before. But I read accounts about young Chinese-Americans who were told that and how it confused them greatly. I remember back in 10th grade when an American missile shot down at an old Chinese base; I was worried. The reason I even know about this was because of my U.S. history class. My teacher assigned us a weekly commentary paper on a current event of the week. I was looking in the Oregonian to find a good current event when a title popped out at me. I don't remember the exact wording. I think it had something like "U.S. accidentally shot off a missile in China." Is China mad at this? How could the U.S. shoot a missile using an old map? It was good that no one was hurt. What if this event caused a war between the U.S. and China? Whose side am I on? Since I am born here, I want to support my birth country. But since China is the homeland of my ancestors and where my relatives come from, I just want peace. I never want a war between China and the U.S. at all.
As a class discussion, we talked about what kind of issues many students are struggling with in American society and how they can still be left behind even if the "No Child Left Behind" policy is enacted to try to protect that. In my opinion, the concept behind "No Child Left Behind" is good but the accountability and the implementation of it is done so poorly that there are so many students being left behind especially the minority children who are living in poverty.
My class came up with a short list of why many students are still being left behind:
*mobility=students are moving around a lot because they are either from migrant working families or low-income families where they caregiver keep moving around to find jobs or for other reasons.
*poverty
*continuity of care=many students don't have a stable home life because their parents are in jail and living with relatives who are probably so stressed out with no community support or children in foster care that can be bounce from one home to the next or for other reasons.
*labeling of the students=when we label kids with AHAD or whatever label, many people box them in a category that it makes it hard for the student to want to learn and be able to be productive in society. With labels, some teachers see these students as "un-teachable." This is still happening even in the 21st century.
We finish off our discussion on what make good schools:
*Healthy food options
*Enrichment programs such as field trips to the art museum or cultural museum
*Strong leaderships in the schools so teachers have the support to really educate all students from diverse backgrounds
*Community resources for students and families who are struggling
*Safe school environment meaning students are free to be themselves and not having to feel like they are stupid or be bullied by teachers and classmates
*Safe school buildings so students don't need to worry if the ceilings are falling on them and other safety issues.
I want to add to the class list because I didn't really have a chance to share much. It's hard for me to do a whole class discussion because of the time limit and trying to jump in when I don't know when since my classmates are still new to me. I prefer small group discussions which I can be heard better. Though, we do have some group discussions. Okay, here is my add-ons to the list above:
*All school staff need to work together. Have a continuity of school norms as well as some basic class norms. For example, I noticed in Woodstock School that every classroom has the same noise level rules. So if one student goes to another classroom for reading, this person is familiar about how loud or quiet he or she need to be.
*All school professionals need to get good professional development training periodically. In doing so, it will check the attitudes of school staff to remind them to have a pure belief that all students can be taught and share their believes to their students that they will learn and able to move on to good things in life. Plus the training will give teachers some techniques and resources to teach students from diverse backgrounds.
This is a lot that I shared. I didn't even covered some other things we discuss in class. I written so fast that I don't have time to really edit my posts. I'm so busy with grad school. I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say. I will focus my energy on my papers and group projects for my classes. This blog is to really keep you updated in what's going on in my learning journey as a future educator. Yes, we have a lot of issues in our education systems in the U.S. I hope some of you are going to be good advocates to help make all our public school systems fair. I know that the PPS district (Portland) is trying their best. They have made some good strides to make sure all their students from diverse backgrounds have a good education. They are not perfect but at least they are trying and learning how to be better. For example, Franklin High School had bigger numbers of minority students to graduate last school year (Class of 2011). The rate of the minority students to graduate is about the same as the white students. I am so proud of that because it's my alma mater and I had some good teachers when I attended Franklin years ago.
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