Feeling a lot better as compared to yesterday. Read a nice little scripture that helped me to make sense of what was happening. Psalm 30:5 – Weeping may endure for the night, but joy will come in the morning. How true does God’s word ring in my ears right now! He has given me this uncanny ability to not worry about the things that happened in the past, but to move on and start fresh with every new day.
It feels as if we are going to be on our own for the next 8 weeks. The teachers don’t understand why we have to do a co-created curriculum with the students. The teacher’s put on a good front to the students by saying that the students are there to help us and we help them. They even explained to the students that we will be doing things a little differently this semester and it is okay to do different things. However, I know that as soon as those teachers get behind closed doors, the support is no longer there.
There are going to be several barriers to our success this semester. Aside from having no support, but there also seems to be a sexist card that the one teacher is playing. Every time I ask her about something or doing things a little differently, she always tells me that she has to run it by the other teacher (a male) first. In no way shape or form will the things I want to do interfere with his class, but it still has to be approved. I just wish that she could make decisions for herself and know that she has support for what she (and even I) is trying to do. I would have thought that our biggest resistance would have come from the students. However, this is not the case. It’s not student resistant, it’s teacher resistance.
It’s a shame that after one day of doing the student perceptions, one teacher is against what we are trying to do. This is definitely going to be a barrier to our teaching. Why do they have to be so resistance to change? We are not here to change the way you teach, but we are here to practice our teaching and just use the kids. He says, “You gotta do what you gotta do to pass, but the reality is not that. You can’t look at a study and think ‘I can do this.’ You have all these students who want to do something different and you can’t make them all happy.” I told him, “We aren’t going to please every student, but if we can reach the majority of students, then we have done our job. We aren’t going to try to do what every student says. We are going to take the results, look at what the majority wants, and adapt our teaching to them.” He is already basing judgments off of one day. He can’t see the end product or the bigger picture yet. Sitting down and getting to know the students only takes a few class periods. Like I tell the students, we have to do some of the boring stuff before we can get to what you want to do. I wish they would just open their ears and hear what the students are saying. They may have better participation and more engaged kids instead of them hating P.E., not participating, and dropping out. Don’t roll with the tides. Traditional ways hasn’t gotten us anywhere in P.E. You can’t be afraid to go against the flow of the river.
I can understand where they are coming from too. It is hard for me to see the end result just yet. I keep thinking, “Am I doing what I need to be an effective teacher?” “Am I doing this right and will it work out in the end?” It’s so easy to know what it looks like because I have already experienced this process on a smaller scale last semester, but now that I am doing it myself, I have to wonder if it’s going to really work. I am most certain that it will. It may not be like last semester and it probably won’t be because the students are different, but I can’t help but keep comparing what the students are saying to what was said last semester. It’s almost as if I am holding last semester as the standard and if the classes this spring do not meet those expectations, then I will think it’s a failure and I didn’t do my job.
After watching the teachers and their mannerisms over the past 3 days, it’s really hard to find the positives of what they are doing. I know it’s hard to come into a class hoping to student teach near the end of the school year, but some of the things they are doing, I think are things they do all the time. While students are stretching and running, a teacher might be on the phone or just sitting along the wall. You need to get up and be active with the kids. You’re job is to not just teach and leave, but to interact and create a relationship with the students. They respect you more and listen to you more than what they would if you didn’t know them.
It surprises me that after seeing all the students in the classes, there are maybe 3 or 4 students that are obese and a handful (6-7) that are overweight. I think that one of the reasons for this is the town that they live in. A lot of the schools around here are magnet schools and placed in the middle of the towns. A lot of students walk to and from school everyday day. This town is walker friendly and has plenty of opportunities for people to walk to and from places, not just the school. I think weather also helps out with this. It is typically sunny and warm and everywhere I go, there are always kids outside playing. Kids in this town have plenty of opportunity to be active; it’s whether or not they take advantage of it.
The first class today was really good. I know all their names now. I even got them motivated to run, but I told them they could only start running if I called them by name. At this challenge, a few ran up to my face so that they could be called and begin their laps. They were really eager to see if I remembered their names and eager to begin their walk/run. The only challenge is remembering them the next time they come to class. The thing that is hard is they look so different in their gym clothes as compared to when they get ready for class again. After 15 minutes of the walk/run, we came back inside and did the Tae-Bo video. This class really enjoys doing the video and they don’t put up a big fuss like the other classes have.
The second hour is the adapted physical education hour. There’s nothing like being thrown into teaching a class you haven’t met yet. One of our cooperating teachers told us we would be teaching them bowling today. There are only 4 students: 2 boys and 2 girls. These kids are the best. It just reminds me of working with my other student at my last placement. I enjoy going in and being with them because they are always smiling. Their hearts are genuine and you don’t have to worry about all the drama that can be found everywhere else in the schools. Yes, they may throw temper tantrums and fight with one another, but they still can be friends at the end of the day. There is something to be said about these students. They are just like any other student, but trapped in a body that is not their own. It will be interesting to see where this experience leads us. I have worked with students with disabilities before but my colleague has not. It will also be interesting to see how he develops over the course of 8 weeks while working with these students.
My third class was definitely the best class of the day. It is an honors class made up of eighth grade girls. It is a gender segregated class in which it is only the girls. With them, I started doing the student perceptions. I kind of changed up how I approached the class as compared to yesterdays. I didn’t hand out the materials right away and then explain it. I explained it first and then had them start. I tell you what! It was like night and day. The first class was chaotic but now this class was amazing. I loved this class! There was so much information and content that the students brought forth. They were really respectful towards each other and it was interesting to hear their opinions about being in a class of all girls. It was fascinating to be in the all girls’ class. After it was over, I thought to myself, “That was awesome. It was such a success. This is what co-creating a curriculum with the students looks like.” I think I am going to really like working with this all girl’s class. I don’t think it would be bad if it were all boys too. The dynamics are definitely different with these segregated classes.
My last class of the day was interesting. It was like a mix between the one the day before and the one I had earlier. They were not as chaotic, but they also were hard to get information from. I handled it a lot better than yesterday. I just let the kids talk and would bring them back sooner or later. I think that the content is there, it’s just hard to get them to talk about it. I am going to have to really look at what they wrote down in order to get the information. I also realized that what looks like chaos to me may not actually be chaos but just students talking. The content is there, I just have to open my eyes and ears to hear it and see it.
At first, I thought that this type of teaching/co-creation of curriculums could occur at the higher levels of high school. I thought that the middle school students weren’t mature enough to handle something different than what they knew and I couldn’t wrap my head around them being able to understand the implications of co-creating a curriculum. After doing three of the six classes with student perceptions, I see that this can be done. I was wrong to think that these students wouldn’t be able to do something like these. They want their voices to be heard just like any other student. I love looking the students in the eye while we are doing this project together and it’s almost as if they are speaking and saying “Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to us and care enough to want to know what we are thinking.” You can just see it in their eyes that they are glad we are listening to them.
I think it might be hard to keep all these classes straight all the time. I have all of these classes with separate folders and labels to try to make it easy, but I still can foresee some of the problems of doing all these classes at once. I don’t even know if it will really matter that much because it appears that the students are consistently saying the same things across the board, but it is those unique things of each class that I need and want to remember. I am pretty sure that as I get to know the students and work with each class, the differences and my ability to distinguish between each class will be evident.
It is so nice to have my colleague here to go through the same process as I am going through. I don’t have to worry about being alone. He really helps me to think about things I might have forgotten and help me to see things in different perspectives. I like the times that we get together and have a debriefing session amongst ourselves between classes or during breaks. I love the intellectual talks that we have and I really enjoy just listening to him talk. He helps me to think at a higher level and more critically about things and situations that are occurring in class. The only thing about being paired with this is his relationship with the one teacher. They go way back and there is some bad blood between them. While it is not overly evident or that big of a hindrance, I can see it spilling over and effecting the way we both are teaching, maybe him more so than me.
Tomorrow should be another good day. The weather is supposed to be good and I will be seeing that last class tomorrow (the one I cried after). We will have to see how it goes this time.
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