The strangest thing happened yesterday when I walked into Sir Winston Churchill School: I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be at that point in time. It was like all the forces in the universe had aligned and just brought me there into that noisy, chaotic moment, where, surrounded by hallways far narrower than university corridors, students far younger than I ever wanted to teach, and lockers speckled in graffiti and slurs, I felt like I belonged. I was greeting Junior High School like I would an old friend, with a deep seated sense of familiarity and the realization that yes, I had in fact missed this.
Or maybe that was the adrenaline talking. I have the tendency to romanticize moments of extreme mental and emotional duress. It's a defence mechanism, really: if I convince myself that an event where the variables and outcomes are unknown is familiar, welcoming, and intended for me, I don't have to face the fact that I'm standing on the brink of catastrophe, one slight provocation away from running for the border and never coming back.
Defence mechanism or not though, yesterday was the greatest experience I've had as a teacher candidate so far. Over 60 students - two grade 7 classes - had gathered into the central hub of the school at four cafeteria-style tables. Unlike the previous team teaching sessions, my group was working alongside a second group to fulfill the third and final portion of our grade for this assignment. We had a bit of a different method this time; we had to. There wasn't enough time in the period to have monologues or presentations, nor did we feel our audience had the attention span to last through eleven presentations, some of them doubles of other presentations. The result was a compromise: my group had an activity we'd been planning for weeks, one that we felt could be implemented at the beginning of the period and used at the end to bring the group back together for some debriefing and review. That activity was geo-tiling, the not-extreme kind. Call me crazy, but I didn't think bear, mountain lions, poisonous snakes and European heavy metal were appropriate for a grade seven activity. Maybe for a high school class.
We divided the students into eight groups - one for each of the expert groups. Since we had one double, one group had two representatives. That left two of us - Janelle and I - to distribute the geo-tiles to groups, collect them, and assemble the geo-tile at the end of the period. Walking around, I couldn't help but feel a little jealous of my other group members. There was so much energy in the room, I would have loved to have a group of my own to teach. Being a sort of liaison was nice though. I got to see how all the groups were operating, to carry out some executive decision making on behalf of the representatives, and do my best to support everyone and keep the morning moving smoothly. When the time finally came to assemble the geo-tile, I was very excited to present it to the classes, because geo-tiles look spectacular, even more so when everyone has contributed to the finished product.
The geo-tiles went over really well with the classes, and the teachers seemed impressed with the way the period had gone. As one of the geo-tilers, I don't feel confident grading the students in any way, because I didn't work with them closely enough to observe their learning styles. I can say that the environment and the classes were an absolute joy to work with, and that I have seriously reconsidered my staunch stance on what grade I would like to teach when I graduate from the program. There was so much energy, so much excitement, in that school that I am more than a little overwhelmed by it all. I'm glad that this was our last team teaching; everything after this experience would have been anti-climax.
Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Teaching Pt. 1
A friend once asked me why I wanted to become a teacher. I replied jokingly, "I love the sound of my own voice." This statement isn't entirely true: I don't love the sound of my own voice. I find it fluctuates all too freely between my nose and my throat depending on who I'm speaking to and what I interpret their body language to be communicating. More importantly, when I speak pubicly, I tend to lose track of what I'm saying because I don't want to think about the fact that I'm public speaking. My mind would much rather wander while my mouth rambles on and on and on. But I do love to ramble, I do love to speak, and no matter how nervous I get or how far my mind wanders, there's not place I'd rather be than at the front of a room with all eyes on me as I explain something that I just learned, because knowledge, to put is bluntly, is awesome.
Needless to say, I had an absolute blast today. The assignment? Present a short monologue to a history class (today's was a grade 10 applied class) about a single facet of a whole unit (for instance: a particular country's involvement in World War I), and then, with a small group of three or four, engage in an activity that the group will then present to the class along with everything they learned. As a representative for France, I originally planned to perform a mock French accent. Unfortunately, I could never maintain my faux-French accent during practice. It always deteriorated into some wild variation of Russian and German, neither of which sound anything like French. I'll have to practice more for my next presentation when I play a Bishop of New France. My accent didn't matter though. The second I stepped out in front of the class and my initial bout of nervousness subsided, I was completely in my element. I spoke loudly, animatedly, and excitedly, at ease with the 24 sets of eyes that were watching me, 26 if you include the teacher and her EA. I think I was a little too enthusiastic in my approach though. The class was actually intimidated into silence at one point. Reigning myself in, I managed to deliver a semi-coherent explanation as to why France entered the war.
I was going to write extensively about how my activity failed. Apparently, my brain stuck around to help deliver my monologue, but then it ran for the hills the second I needed to give my group instructions. Another mistake I made: allowing the students to pick groups for themselves. Next time, I'll be sure that the group numbers students off or imposes groups so that we don't run into any problems. But otherwise, I think this week's teaching exercise was a big success: my group and I ended up talking about pictures of post-War France, German political cartoons, grandparents' war stories, and violence in war movies. That conversation generated more knowledge than my activity could have done had it been successful. The students learned a little about World War I and a lot more about World War II, which was the war they were more interested in. They learned about Germany's economy and France's devastation post-World War I.
I learned more than I have in any class I've taken at teacher's college so far: when in an unfamiliar teaching environment, let the students talk first. They'll tell you (in so many or so little words) what they want to learn and how they want to learn it. Seek first to understand and then to be understood, as the old saying goes. The students seemed much more at ease when it didn't seem like I was evaluating them, and I got a lot more participation by allowing them to direct the focus of our study with only occasional hints as to what we should discuss next. The primary source documents I brought were also a huge help. Mental note to me: no one wants to listen to an adult ramble. They want to see cool pictures of a decimated French country side and German political cartoons. Thank goodness I made the last minute decision to print those off. They said more than anything I possibly could have, and they said it better.
Ultimately, I think that my group sits at a low Level 3 or a high Level 2. They were clearly listening and attentive, and were able to recite several key points of the lesson.
I can't wait to do this again in two weeks.
Needless to say, I had an absolute blast today. The assignment? Present a short monologue to a history class (today's was a grade 10 applied class) about a single facet of a whole unit (for instance: a particular country's involvement in World War I), and then, with a small group of three or four, engage in an activity that the group will then present to the class along with everything they learned. As a representative for France, I originally planned to perform a mock French accent. Unfortunately, I could never maintain my faux-French accent during practice. It always deteriorated into some wild variation of Russian and German, neither of which sound anything like French. I'll have to practice more for my next presentation when I play a Bishop of New France. My accent didn't matter though. The second I stepped out in front of the class and my initial bout of nervousness subsided, I was completely in my element. I spoke loudly, animatedly, and excitedly, at ease with the 24 sets of eyes that were watching me, 26 if you include the teacher and her EA. I think I was a little too enthusiastic in my approach though. The class was actually intimidated into silence at one point. Reigning myself in, I managed to deliver a semi-coherent explanation as to why France entered the war.
I was going to write extensively about how my activity failed. Apparently, my brain stuck around to help deliver my monologue, but then it ran for the hills the second I needed to give my group instructions. Another mistake I made: allowing the students to pick groups for themselves. Next time, I'll be sure that the group numbers students off or imposes groups so that we don't run into any problems. But otherwise, I think this week's teaching exercise was a big success: my group and I ended up talking about pictures of post-War France, German political cartoons, grandparents' war stories, and violence in war movies. That conversation generated more knowledge than my activity could have done had it been successful. The students learned a little about World War I and a lot more about World War II, which was the war they were more interested in. They learned about Germany's economy and France's devastation post-World War I.
I learned more than I have in any class I've taken at teacher's college so far: when in an unfamiliar teaching environment, let the students talk first. They'll tell you (in so many or so little words) what they want to learn and how they want to learn it. Seek first to understand and then to be understood, as the old saying goes. The students seemed much more at ease when it didn't seem like I was evaluating them, and I got a lot more participation by allowing them to direct the focus of our study with only occasional hints as to what we should discuss next. The primary source documents I brought were also a huge help. Mental note to me: no one wants to listen to an adult ramble. They want to see cool pictures of a decimated French country side and German political cartoons. Thank goodness I made the last minute decision to print those off. They said more than anything I possibly could have, and they said it better.
Ultimately, I think that my group sits at a low Level 3 or a high Level 2. They were clearly listening and attentive, and were able to recite several key points of the lesson.
I can't wait to do this again in two weeks.
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