Tomorrow I am going into the school I will be teaching at to teach a fifth grade English class on staircase poetry and reading poems with punchlines.
And I am very close to petrified.
With 36 rowdy students (as I have observed) whose first language is NOT English, learning from a book with native-English colloquialisms, and taught by a licensed teacher with an American-style of teaching, I wonder how I am going to teach an effective lesson.
This marks the beginning of a very hard journey; am I motivated enough?
Do I not thrive on teaching children as I have discovered in lessons past? Please let that instinct come through.
I just came back from a fourth grade performance at the school that I'll be teaching at for the next two years. It was a remarkable show with dancing, singing, expressive speech, drums, instruments, sports, art, and so many other wonderful things that had blood and sweat poured into it. Truly remarkable.
Undoubtedly a time that students will look back on with fondness in their later years.
It's weird because this is something I whole-heartedly believe in: students in the performing arts... where a sense of community from the arduous journey, as well as the opportunity to shine just fulfills a part of a child's development in life and helps them to see a different side of themselves and to understand themselves better.
While watching it, though, a nagging feeling at the back of my head kept coming back with "but what about later in their development?" "what about when they become pressured to place their life value not in the arts, but in their examination results?"
And as a result, I continued to watch with a bittersweet confidence for the impact of this performance in their lives.
The notion of complexity has been central to my thinking about education as well as about life. There is no one road to democracy, no single method for teaching reading, no pat solution to a discipline problem or a question of motvation or hope. There is no single, simple canon that represents the best of human effort, no absolutely clear list of things every child must learn to be a successful human being. I believe that children, guided and informed by self-respect, respect for others, confidence, and compassion, can find many roads to decent and rewarding adulthood, few of which we can reliably predict. In my teaching I'm as concerned with the values children take with them into the future as with the specific things they learn.
Herbert Kohl, The Discipline of Hope (1998)
Tomorrow is my first job interview at the place that I want to go to the most.
Job interviews... very counter-intuitive time of playing my strengths and not focusing on weaknesses. My worry that I won't fully assimilate to the Hong Kong schools, yes,
has some truth, but, oh yeah, is also false in the many strenghts that
it brings as I mold the two worlds together and learn how to best teach
these students. Gotta be loud and proud. Place that teacher confidence at the forefront of this situation.
1) A group discussion in Cantonese with interjections of English. Spoken Cantonese all my life and yet still petrified.
2) Short teaching presentation of a lesson on poetry. A million worries to come with that. (ESL) Teacher instinct, please kick in.
3) Individual discussion with board members. English. Now this I think I'm more prepared for.
I just need to remind myself to zoom out. See the bigger picture. Needs of both the institution and myself, as well as of the city that they are both situated in.
***
Got the job!!!
I show the students how to write a word in cursive on the board two times before asking them to write it in their colorful wordstudy notebooks.
Then the floor begins to shake.
The world quakes.
Tables displaced. Ceilings and floors cave. Children scream.
And in a desperate attempt to save one of these children's souls that glimmer with potential and innocence, I throw myself around the closest one and hug him as tight as I can; taking the blows as I plummet to my death.
I cannot even begin to imagine what that teacher was thinking. What that mom was thinking. Or what that dad was thinking when they sacrificed themselves for their children.
Let the suffering end.
Please.
A Student-Taught Perspective on My Philosophy
School: While student-teaching, a
number of parent-teacher events were hosted that clearly fostered identity
development in children. At both multicultural night and the talent
show fundraiser, students practiced and performed acts that exhibited
their talents; shaping their culturally sensitive identities as future
musicians, comedians, actors, and dancers. I distinctly remember one girl
from Pakistan,
a proud Muslim in the predominantly Christian community, sharing her dance with
bells jangling from her costume, hair in a perfect bun, and a red dot lined in
the center of her head. This dance was special not because she taught others of
her identity or because she expressed her natural upbringing in a Pakistani
home. This dance was special because she was different, establishing and embracing
her identity as a minority in this country. Step by step, through experiences
such as these, this girl will learn to think of who she is and what that means
in school, America,
and the world.
Classroom: Peering through the
window of my student-taught classroom, I miss the intricately developed world
of relationships and systems of learning that took place. Every morning,
standing by the door and greeting students with my clipboard of lessons to
teach, I would watch as students systematically put their bags away, hung their
coats, and began morning work at their desk. Some students would visit the
responsibility chart, and as a result, the pencil sharpeners would sharpen
pencils, the newspaper people would retrieve the newspaper for word study, and
the calendar person would change the date on the board and calendar for
everyone to see. Thus, the day could progress, for without fulfilled
responsibilities of the classroom, there would be no pencils for writing, no
newspapers for word study, and incorrect dates on worksheets. Such simple tasks
that contribute in such magnitude to the ins and outs of this third grade
class. Just like the man who designed the container that the historical fiction
books sit in, or the woman who created the United States carpet that students
sit on for morning meeting.
Teacher: Revelation of self and
community remains one key purpose in childhood education. And yet, revelation
came to me as it became apparent that it could not be fostered without
structured management, clear expectations, and intricately but flexibly planned
detail of each lesson. Although learnt the hard way, revelation appeared while
wrapping up a 'bendable bone' lesson, where students discovered, with many
puzzle pieces and directions, that it was the vinegar that depleted
bones of calcium which caused them to bend. The classroom discussion picked up
speed, as student after student raised their hand to give and take from the
bigger picture; sharing in pairs and conjecturing what could possibly have
happened, before finally, in frantic victory, students placed the last 5 pieces
of 2-week, 1000-piece puzzle together. Then, in anticipation, they scribbled
observations and applications in their human body journals.
A teacher aims to individualize instruction to
guide students through a process. I learned and experienced how this could be
applied not only to the individual lesson, but on a larger unit scale, where
lessons are taught to achieve a series of objectives, the process is that much
more important. Teaching a research writing unit on countries, it was of
greatest importance to hone these aspiring researchers’ skills to extract
relevant information. Breaking it down, students wrote detailed questions on
categorized index cards before researching and recording their findings.
Creating developmentally appropriate stepping stones that remain differentiated
enough to strike a balance in challenging and supporting a student was by far
the most difficult – and yet exciting – task to accomplish.
Justice: Every child deserves to have an education of
challenge and discovery. This applies to all populations from all backgrounds
of all opportunities. School is the one place where students can be treated
equally from a teacher who approaches their learning with an equal attitude. To
challenge, to instill, to inspire from wherever they may be. Only after
student-teaching did I realize the impact I had on my students, of all
populations from all backgrounds of all opportunities. Those who I thought had
not been challenged enough thanked me for challenging them. Those who I thought
would never understand the basic principles continued to persevere. And yet, I
also realized that justice could be expressed in more ways than providing
opportunity and challenge in the academic, school setting. The impact of
teaching, through social interaction, behavioral reaction, and unconditional
yet learned compassion, is inevitable. A teacher in a child’s life will make
an impact, and it is in the teacher’s shaping, inspiring and molding
attitude that justice is sought.
This semester while student-teaching, there
have been a lot of lessons: on classroom management, on transitions, on
scanning, and on so many teacher techniques that make lesson plans teachable
(especially when there are 27 children in one classroom). As a result of being
inundated by these internal and teacher-focused techniques, it has always been
hard to chart or see the external student-focused relationships that are being
developed: like in the value of having a one-on-one math conversation with
someone when you worry about the progress of the entire class; or the impact of
smiling and laughing at a student’s jokes that are geared to a different
audience, when the relationship is unnoticeably strengthened due to
developmental differences.
On the culminating day of student-teaching –
yes, the very last day – my students surprised me with a paper crown (making me
“king of third grade”) and a whole bunch of cupcakes for a party in the
courtyard. Although some students were sad, it was rather festive with students
(almost competing to) say, “I’m going to miss you Mr. Wong!” But among the
students who surrounded me, I noticed one girl in particular whose face was
hard to read. This was the girl who would always sit at the lunch table first
in her usual spot, almost like a loner since her seat placement was not
contingent on where her friends were located. Odd. Over the semester, I would
say, “oh! J is in her usual seat again eating away!” to which other students
would playfully laugh.
I was very intentional and sensitive to
developing a rapport with this girl, as she always seemed excluded in class
discussions and would always humbly accredit other people, or grimace while
awkwardly looking down when receiving praise. There was something about this
girl that I knew I could make a connection with, and as a result, I would often
try to have her voice heard among the class in active participation, or I would
remember to praise her for sitting up straight, following directions, walking
quietly in the hall, etc. Small things.
Again, on my last day, I noticed this girl
on the periphery of students who were vying for attention. Her facial
expression often changed, as – similar to when she would grimace and look down
at praise – she didn’t realize that I could see her. An occasional glance at
the “jolly good fellow” with eyes immediately darting back to the ground in
refuse of the treat of saying goodbye. While, yes, this student might be shy or
may be particularly anxious, I wonder: is this how insecurity festers itself in
9-year old girls?
I heard the dialogue in her head.
I
want to give him a hug, too. It’s ok to give him a hug because everybody else
is around him giving him hugs. I’m going to miss Mr. Wong so I want to give him
a hug.
Ooh
maybe if I look up at him he’ll see me? Look up and immediately down. I
don’t think he saw me that time.
I
don’t know if Mr. Wong wants to give me a hug. Maybe I should just turn around
and leave.
But
other students are giving him hugs. Why can’t I?
But
what if I’m interrupting or bothering him?
But
you know he’ll want to give you a hug.
Just
like with everyone else?
Oh,
it’s not worth all this trouble. If I walk away then all these problems will be
gone.
I’m
turning around. I’m walking away.
“Julie*! I didn’t get a
hug from you yet!”
And Julie smiles from ear to ear – although
looking down in this awkward euphoria. She darts over to me and wraps her arms
around my legs. I pat her on the back.
“Did you think you’d get away without a hug
from me?!”
And in the span of 3 minutes, I was able to
see the impact I had on this one student. Maybe life-altering since someone saw
through her insecurity and chose her in spite of them. And maybe, at the same
time, not life-altering, yet the impact of that moment stays the same. The
moment when she lost sight and convinced herself not to be loved, but was loved
all the more when she was chosen to be hugged.
One thing I love about American elementary
schools (and in my own upbringing with American ideals) is parent volunteers.
The number of parent volunteers who lead book clubs in class with their child,
who come on field trips to chaperone with their child, and who prepare and play
and sing with their child at talent shows, never fails to make me smile.
Parent-volunteering always moves me because it
is such an obvious expression of love that is often taken for granted by the
child – which is not necessarily a bad thing. Studies give numbers that
devastate families with the absence of one parent. Patterns unravel that show
the mere presence of a father figure at home, who, let alone, is active in the
elementary school, yields immeasurable fruits to the holistic development of
their child. The wholesome development of a child is so important in this day
and age that in its prevalent absence I have wondered: to what degree can this
role be replaced by a teacher… or to phrase it better, how influential can a
teacher be in a child’s development – and furthermore, how influential can a
male teacher be in a child’s development?
While, no, I do not believe a father’s role (and
interaction with his spouse or family) can be replaced by a male teacher, I can
see a lot of merit – for just the right kid – in affirming and approving a
child in his or her development. Reflecting, I find it interesting that I would
want to be an elementary school teacher when, in fact, 3 of my 6 elementary
school teachers were male, and 5 of my 6 upper high school teachers were male.
On the surface, it has been hard to
distinguish children reactions to both myself and my female cooperating teacher,
and attributing these interactions to male or female teacher differences. Yet I
remember a conversation with another male teacher saying that in his experience
with parents, male teachers are harder to warm up to but easier to trust (once
earned) throughout the school year; and that on the contrary, female teachers
are easier to warm up to but often have a challenge in maintaining such a
degree of trust throughout the year. Additionally, male teachers tend to be
more playful with students and frequently establish a different relationship or
rapport with their students. Those words have stuck through my head during student-teaching,
and I have found myself almost wanting the generalizations to come true for the
sake of knowing that I was a good male (student-)teacher; that I was able to
offer what male teachers have to give to their students. Still, while I could
not discern the interactions that were attributable to either teaching style
and philosophy or male-female teaching, I remain confident in the effort that I
made this semester in my student relationships, and in the fact that with
experience in teaching and exposure to children, I will be able to develop my
own male- and philosophy-unique beliefs to be as fruitful and influential a
teacher as I can be.
Why can’t the girls play soccer with the
boys?
‘Cause girls don’t know how to play.
Girls can play soccer!
Fine! Then tomorrow at recess we’ll see who beats
who.
And so it was
determined that, at recess, the boys of Mrs. B’s class would take on the girls
in soccer. Little did I realize how blown out of proportion the differences
between boys and girls would be when one entered the ‘territory’ of another.
Wednesday, March
26, 12:10pm, recess.
All 27 boys and
girls ran to the playground and promptly began a game of soccer. Everything
seemed fine as I walked up and down the playground checking in on kids here and
there, while keeping another eye on the game. It’s highly amusing to watch a school
of 27 children swarm around one
single ball. At one point, two balls were thrown in (mixed from another class),
which immediately triggered the commencement an entirely different, parallel
game.
Everything seemed
fine.
Until the boys started winning.
Gloating. Jeering.
Tantalizing. boys
Frustrated.
Wronged. Serious. girls
And then suddenly,
one girl, T, comes running straight to me, followed by a boy, K, whose sharpened
eyes unflinchingly follow the girl with every turn she makes – like a cougar
ready to pounce on prey. She runs behind me and says “K is trying to kick me!”
[ugh]
In my ‘protecting’
shadow, I stop K to talk to him.
“She kicked me
first! Five times!”
Apparently she had kicked him five times in the shin,
really hard. Highly uncharacteristic of T. I looked up then to see another
relatively tame girl jumping up and down in front of a boy screaming at the top
of her lungs and letting her hair fling everywhere in frustration. The boy,
trying to scream back, gets so overwhelmed that he shoves her away from him.
[Ah! Physical
contact! You do not ever shove somebody.]
B! You come here RIGHT now. You do NOT shove
ANYbody no matter how angry you get.
B comes. At this
point I call the entire class in for lunch. Recess is over.
Needless to say, it
was the loudest, most ruffled and wired up line that I have ever had to lead to
class. I told students that we would deal with the situation at lunch (since it
is a rigid rotation that the school must follow), and that we were not to speak
of it in the hallway. Nevertheless, some students’ desire to seek justice by
telling me their side of the story kept escaping its way from their mouths to
my ears.
And to be perfectly
honest, while I was walking down that hallway with them, I had absolutely NO
idea what I was going to do to restore social justice in this war that seemed
to involve almost every single person.
When you arrive in the cafeteria, you will
sit on the yellow table if you were involved in the soccer game. If you were
not, you will sit on the blue table. [still… I don’t know what I’m going to say…]
Looking to listen
to what individual people had to say – without the interjection of others
slamming me with their perspectives and their warped witness accounts – I would
often find myself getting to the root of the problem: who were they angry with,
why and what could be done in order to seek peace of mind between the two?
I talked
extensively to one student who had qualms with at least four people at the
cafeteria. Not entirely sure of what to do, I talked to this boy about what he
wanted to say to the girl, and set up a conference with the two at the
neighboring, empty blue table. Following suit, I set up three other conferences
at the neighboring tables, and allowed students to channel their thoughts and
feelings in a removed and individualized environment, where they weren’t egged
on or lost in the voices of others chiming in. Slowly, but very surely,
students started smiling with each other at tables and coming back ready to
talk to the next person, or settling down to eating a lunch, content.
We stayed in the
cafeteria an extra ten minutes until most students were done talking to each
other.
Yet another fear
still loomed over my head. How was I
going to describe this entire situation to the whole class so that this doesn’t
happen again? And how can I (attempt to) restore balance in the classroom after
such a charged recess and lunch?
“Please sit at your tables and put your
heads down,” began the
discussion.
Third-graders
always surprise me with their desire to restore order with their friends who
wrong them. It’s as if the thing that causes conflict in the first place is
their lack in ability to take perspective.
A solution that
everyone came up with was to communicate better.
How?
And then it hit me!
A solution! I passed out index cards to every student, where they would have
the opportunity to apologize to someone they knew they’d wronged, and had the
opportunity to voice their perspective and emotions to a particular situation.
This was all done in the safety of knowing that others were apologizing to them
as they apologized to others.
We missed a chunk
of science class, which I had to rush through and sacrifice some content
knowledge, but in the end, communication is such an invaluably big lesson that
it made everything worth it.
Also, while I know I
did not handle the situation perfectly, I am so surprised at my ‘teacher
ability’ to think on the spot like that; a characteristic of teachers that I
have always seen in awe. And it’s funny, because all you need to do is to shut
your awe-ing jaw, and to really think about what the children need to learn and
applying it directly to their lives in the hopes that they will become
ingrained in them as they venture into the real world.
Why is it that I feel raising my voice or speaking curtly makes the message penetrate a child's mind more effectively?
...and how abnormal is it for teachers to go to school, project their voices, yell and scream before integrating themselves back into their community where they react with other humans - young and old - in a relatively humane manner.
Going into my second week of full-time student-teaching. And I'm feeling a feeling I've felt a lot this past week of 100%.
Fluctuating between sheer excitement at the idea of going in to teach the kids, and a sinking feeling that it's not going to go perfectly (which is understandable and expected given the profession).
Funnily enough, the sinking feeling subsides when I think of myself in the classroom ALONE (read: without my cooperating teacher inside). Then I get a different confidence and the excitement takes over again. Then it doesn't have to be perfect. A mentality I am trying hard to shake off.
It's weird to feel such polar opposite emotions to a job I really want to do.
Having just completed my 75% week, where I am about to begin
my no-cooperating-teacher 100% two-weeks, I realize - almost alarmingly - now
that one role of a teacher, that is often overlooked by myself, is to teach.
Writing lesson plan after lesson plan, I realize I am a believer of
inquiry-based learning. Where students learn through discovery and self-manipulation
of variables that lead to facilitated epiphanies of facts. This translates more
obviously to math and science, where knowledge can so easily be discovered
through these children's innate desire to ask questions and to find out more
about what the world is and why it is around them. This can also be seen in
writing and reading, where the teacher presents the value of a small skill for
students, before they are set to independently practice and apply the
particular skill.
And so it was weird/hard for me to learn that not only does a teacher establish
an environment, differentiate materials for students, and present lessons that
channel children curiosity to knowledge, but that, oh yeah, students are meant
to learn new facts as well.
In my human body science unit the other day, as students were piecing together
Mr. Bones' bones, I realized I didn't know exactly where the *** bone
was. I knew it was probably the bone that surrounded the sternum and that
connected the ribs in the front... but I didn't know confidently enough
to answer my student's question so that I would know that he could continue in
life knowing simple true facts. (or at least not learning something
wrong)
Why do grade schoolers look to teachers for all answers and believe
everything we tell them? That's one big responsibility.
And so I decided that, yes, me, who really doesn't know about anything other
than a little biology, psychology, math and English, had to take that extra
step to (joyfully) master fields of knowledge in order to become a teaching
teacher.
Here's an excerpt from a book I've been reading:
"The one-lesson-ahead morality is what makes so many elementary
school classes dull and uninspiring. The teacher doesn't understand
much of what he is teaching, and worse, doesn't care that he doesn't
understand. How can the children be expected to be alert, curious, and
excited when the teacher is so often bored?
The need for elementary teachers who are serious-thinking adults, who
explore and learn while they teach, who know that to teach young
children mathematics, history, or literature isn't to empty these
subjects of content or complexity but to reduce and present them in
forms which are accurate, honest, and open to development and
discovery, and therefore require subtle understanding and careful work,
cannot be exaggerated. The time has passed when the school-marm,
equipped to teach the three R's by rote and impose morality by
authority, has something useful and important to give children."
-- Herbert Kohl,
36 Children (1988)
Every lunchtime, Jc methodically takes out his food in the order in which it will be eaten (read: from dessert to snack to sandwich).
Today, he took out his prized fruit roll-up, undoubtedly the highlight of his lunch, and then wandered away from the table for a second or two. Upon his return, and to his horror and disbelief, his fruit roll-up was nowhere to be found.
Jc searched the perimeter of his table, crawled underneath, traced his footsteps back to the classroom... before defeatedly coming to me.
Mr. W, I don't know what happened to my fruit roll-up. I think someone stole
it.
Well, when was the last time you had it? When did you take it out of your lunchbox?
I specifically remember sitting it right here beside my lunchbox. Then I walked away and when I came back it was gone.
A wave of disbelief came over him.
I can't believe someone would just... [eyes well up]
steal it. Why would they steal it?
Exposure to the real world. A fruit roll-up, a bank, a place in line, or a business, welcome to the real world.
And I'm sorry.
Next time, what can you do?
I thought it would be safe beside my lunchbox. But I guess... not.I guess it's not. You'll have to keep it in your lunchbox and eat from there in the future.
***
On another note, I started my 50% today and began teaching writing.
In teaching kids to write non-fiction, we're making "How-To" books, where students practice sequencing detailed writing. Today, as an introductory lesson, students had to brainstorm six different things that they could write about in their new how-to books. Oh, the imagination!
How to be a Magnificent Muslim (girl)
How to make a stawberry smothyHow to make puppy pancakes
How to get to school from my homeHow to put your leg over your head
How to draw a same shape getting smallerHow to put some "B.E.E.F." in your jumpshot
How to make my mom's Famous Red Velvet cake!How to get a fairy to come to you (start to believe in them)
Sometimes I feel like kids exist to be creative and to let imagination fly in, out and through boxes upon boxes. Sometimes they need structure to help channel their thoughts, but sometimes structure confines their thinking too much and demands that they demonstrate a certain amount of specific knowledge. I feel like a lot of instruction aims to catch pieces of their imagination so that they can piece their thoughts together... but I also don't think imagination is meant to be so simply threaded together.
I can just see it. If I hadn't asked them to plan what they wanted to write before starting their how-to books, and to commit to the first thought or glimpse of inspiration in them, then they would never discover that ingenious or creatively flooring third or fourth idea. And so I think, what if I hadn't made that worksheet to help guide their thinking, where they had to draw an illustration and write a focused, detailed "How-To" idea? Would another structure (or lack of structure) have benefitted them more? How do I know how large the diameter of my butterfly net should be in order to catch their colorfully-patterned imaginations?
Something I have realized since taking up more responsibility in front of my students, and setting and following through with expectations, is that I've started to become a less forgiving person.
It's weird. Yes, in the elementary school I seek to manage behavior so that students can learn and function in a harmonious environment. Every other second there are students who blatantly wrong others, who follow-through with (inherently) individualistic decisions, and who do not follow rules and therefore do not function as citizens of a classroom community. Hence, every other second - or what seems like every other second - I'm calling people out, making people re-think their actions, solving conflicts with groups of students at a time, and restoring - with reason - a safe environment for learning...
And while I do believe it's what needs to be done in a classroom since these children must learn to function in a society where there is responsibility, reward and consequence.... I have seen and now started to wonder how my hardened attitude applies when I'm in the real world with fully developed, "functioning" adults. I know it's ok to have a schizophrenically strict and loving side to kids when you raise/teach them... but what does it mean when I catch myself doing the same thing to peers and obviously functioning citizens?
I have especially noticed this in my school's a cappella group that I lead. It's amazing how many teacher-tendencies I've picked up, and how these have affected my tolerance. Just the other day, at practice, for example, we were all standing in a circle ready to sing. The pitch was played and then two members began to discuss something irrelevant which caused everyone to wait. This happens only on occasion where the responsibility lies in each individual member to be conscientious of our practice time together.
Instinctually, I opened my mouth to say,
We're waiting. A statement completely uncharacteristic of me that would obviously rub off more condescending with this group than with a child in elementary school where the line of authority allows me to do so. Luckily, I didn't say anything but a simple
shhhh which put everyone back on track. But the experience and desire to restore social order by pointing it out to a member so that they become clearly aware, took be aback. Just not me.
Again, while with the group last night, I constantly found myself looking directly into the eyes of people who were speaking when they obviously should have been listening. Instead of ameliorating my gaze with a smile, I felt that strict desire to make sure the "student" understood my expectation there and then, and to cease the talking while learning to be more respectful in the future. And it just didn't feel good. There is such a clear distinction between dealing with children - where you are expected to command authority - and dealing with adults. And I just hope it doesn't start/continue(?) to harden my compassionate, seeing-the-other-side-of-the-coin person that I know I mean to be.
So this week has been my 25% week, where I teach or lead the kids for a quarter of the day.
Next week is 50%. Then 75%. Then 2 weeks of 100%.
Today, I taught a number corner lesson (Bridges Curriculum) which went pretty well. Students understood my expectations, worked independently and got stuff done! They didn't fight. They just worked quietly and efficiently.
But something bothers me. While I feel I'm getting better at managing the class, and am getting used to the transitions where I suddenly have authority, I'm still not 'teaching' like I expect myself to... I'm still not 'teaching' like I've known myself to teach.
Before, people would tell me that I have that teacher presence that no one can teach. People would tell me I have a real patience and connection with kids that puts everyone on the same page; that makes me a good teacher. While I realize being a good teacher constitutes so much more, my biggest anxiety about teaching - or the thing I long or wait to shine the most - is my personality in teaching.
Not being able to teach with my own persona makes me feel like a robot: so worried about managing, restoring order, setting expectations, having authority, churning template lesson plans, preparing manipulatives, psyching myself up to teach and introduce a lesson... Like slowly breaking down different skills of teaching so they pass through a sieve... and yet the chunk of personality that needs to pass through is nowhere to be seen.
I worry. Will I still want to educate if I can't bring that out of me? Why am I so timid (or whatever the feeling is) in front of my cooperating teacher? Is there a confounding element of culture where I'm unable/less able to identify with American kids? Do I have a stronger connection or better understanding of humor to local Chinese children? I'm so confused... but I miss that feeling of confidence where I can engage and gauge students learning. Like when you walk in and command a room. Where did that skill go? Isn't that the solution to many classroom management problems? Or, is it so entirely different in a classroom of 27 with mixed first-to-seventh-grade abilities? Are there hurdles of classroom management strategies, raising behavioral expectation, and commanding authority that need to be sieved through first? And is this all related to the switch of relief or optimism I get when my cooperating teacher (whom I really enjoy working with) leaves the classroom?
So many questions.
I wish there were a textbook that could teach me all of this. Or someone to tell me exactly what to do.
But... so often, the best thing to do is to try, endure and improve it yourself, because then it comes from the good stuff - the inside. The intention and struggle because without struggle, there is no progress.
The difference between when I last posted and now with this post is that I have now taught a handful of lessons.
I really wonder
how I am supposed to pick up the skills to teach full-time (in just THREE weeks) when I can't even control the class during a short 20-minute lesson, and sometimes, even read-aloud.
It is so overwhelming.
Thoughts of creating expectations, using positive reinforcement, following through with consequences, presenting and projecting with authority, rewarding swirl, swirl and swirl in my head. And I just can't seem to jump high enough to grab enough of these strategies to piece together to use consistently and confidently.
It's hard to set expectations when you don't know what expectations you have of yourself.
It's hard to set expectations when you don't know what expectations people have of you (with your cooperating teacher or university supervisor).
A teacher can't teach if he doesn't believe he's a teach-er.
I'm just praying for it all to click; to fall into place.
Failure looms over my head this weekend as I try to absorb, digest, reflect and create solutions.
It will work.
It's just a little overwhelming.