I have worked up enough energy to blog about yesterday. After I explain the events of Wednesday, you'll understand what an accomplishment gaining some energy has been.
First, let me start by telling you how much my "warm" personality and internal thermos dislike the weather here. Laying by the beach, it's wonderful. In a classroom with no air-conditioning and flustering situations... not so much. Not to mention, having a "good" hair day is about as common as getting the high school boys to see me as more than "the student teacher who lives with (insert fellow high school student name here)." So that's where I'll start my day... in the 10th grade classroom.
I always knew teaching high schoolers would be a challenge. That's part of the whole deal I look forward to the most. I want to teach kids about my content area, certainly. But that's not all I want to give my students. I want to give them a trustworthy role model, someone they can look up to, someone they can talk to, and someone they respect. That's hard to do when I stand 5 foot 4 and don't understand the first language of many of my students. It's even harder to do when I let that get to my head... about 45 seconds into the lesson.
Paragraph structure-- that was the topic of my 25 minute mini-lesson. "The students know what that is... they just need a refresher. Would you like to do it?" the American and Brit Lit teacher asked me. I pounced on the opportunity instantly. High school Literature and ESL all in the same classroom-- my kind of paradise. I began prepping that night (this was Saturday). I was going to have the best mini-lesson on paragraph structure ever-- the perfect balance of teacher input and student intake. I couldn't imagine a single thing that could go wrong...
Fast-forward to 11:50AM on Wednesday. The students had walked in, completed their "morning work," and all eyes were on me. I gave a really simple introduction, since I had never worked with or observed these students before, and then began. I heard a soft laugh from the left side of the room. There sat a rather tall boy, smile on his face, arms folded. I wondered what was funny but kept going. Seconds later 2 more boys joined in on the whispered laughs, this time making eye contact with each other after several glances up at me. I looked at one of them with my best "teacher look" possible and pressed forward. As I kept racking my brain for the points I had planned to make, the boys returned to their childish laughs and high school boyish interactions. I could feel my body getting warm and could feel my face turn red (more so than typical). Suddenly, everything I had prepared was lost in the back of my mind, and I could hardly find enough words to keep the lesson flowing semi-smoothly. I decided it was best to hand out the mentor text, ask the students to turn to their neighbor and find the intro, supporting, and conclusion sentences and to be prepared to share their answers.
I took a minute, plugged in my flashdrive, sat down, and fanned my warm face with my notes to gain a normal complexion and some more composure. After a minute or two, I glanced in the direction of my three biggest fans in the class. I approached one of their desks and asked how it was going.
"Eh." He responded. I looked at his paper and asked if he knew what we were doing. He said no. I took the opportunity to ask one of the other two boys to help him. They couldn't. "We're looking for the sentence types we talked about during the discussion. See if you can find a few and be ready to get called on for an answer." I gave them a few more minutes before I opened up the floor for discussion. The answers and questions were fine-- very basic, hardly any discussion, and very unenthusiastic-- but fine. The boys continued their childish behavior and the girls continued acting mindless. I knew I hadn't accomplished even half of what I wanted. I left the room feeling, warm and flustered, down and out, and defeated. I failed at a mini-lesson... how on earth to I expect myself to be prepared for a lifetime of teaching when I can't even gather my composure from high school boys' nonsense laughter?
I returned to the ESL classroom a few minutes before my next class-- 1st graders. There was just enough time to vocalize my frustration to my cooperating teachers and refocus on my 1st graders. That lesson went so well. We reviewed vocab words, watched a short video on a very colorful chameleon, read the story with cue cards, and then watched the motion picture of the story. The students loved it, and at the end of the lesson, every single student was able to answer my comprehension questions. Success!
Literally a minute later, I left for my 8th grade class-- Debate time. The students were very passionate about the debate. While their supporting facts and information wasn't as strong as I would have hoped, they really nailed the "defend your argument" part of it. We kept them to a very formal procedure, limiting the time, the talking, and the discussion time. At the end of the lesson, the students were supposed to have a thesis statement and several supporting examples to prepare them for my writing workshop the next day, but that never happened. No problem: they can do it in the first 15 minutes. They have so many examples; all they have to do is choose a side... this should be easy.
About 3 minutes after that class, I walked back to the high school. I was scheduled to give the same mini-lesson to the second class-- the group I spend 2 hours with a week. I knew this would be a little easier, but even the thought of another failing lesson was enough to make my stomach ache. I talked to the teacher for a few minutes outside before entering. "Tell me what went well" She asked. The only positive running through my head was that I didn't cry. "I don't know," I responded. "You have to think of the positives. There were good things, so just think," she smiled and waited. "Ok... they recalled some information? They participated towards the end, but not like I anticipated." She nodded in agreement and gave me some pointers. The next lesson went great. I adjusted the intro, engaged the students immediately, and held them more accountable, but most importantly I maintained my composure... something I couldn't manage the first class.
I'll skip to the lesson learned. Yes, the teacher recognized that she had put me in a tough situation-- jumping into a class I had never met, teaching a mini-lesson in the middle of a unit, and it was the lower of the two classes. That would have been good to know beforehand, but it wasn't her fault.
As someone who desires to teach in high school, I can't let three 15 year old chucklers cause me that much fluster. And I can't lose sight of what I'm there to do. I'm not there to impress them, and I'm not there to care about what thoughts about me are running through their minds, and I'm not there to experience only success (though that would be a lot easier). I'm there to develop my teaching skills, to experience the real world of teaching-- good and bad, to learn from my mistakes and to adjust accordingly. Teaching isn't easy, and yesterday that really hit me hard. But giving up isn't something I was taught to do. I've heard stories of lesson disasters and I've seen them, too. I knew it wouldn't be fun to "fail" in front of my students, but it's something I needed to experience. It's just the test I needed.
So what did I learn? In 25 minutes of first-time exposure to students and classroom, there is no way that I can expect my 3 big aspects of teaching to get accomplished: developing good teacher-student relationships, delivering the content I need, and gaining my student's respect as the authority-figure in the classroom. So instead, I focused on two things for the next lesson: deliver clear and accurate information and instruction, and maintain my composure. That was it. Everything else that went well was a bonus. Luckily, I was able to end the day on a good note.
I also learned that my confidence isn't unshatterable, but my perseverance is. I don't like being embarrassed; it's not fun, but I do like a challenge.
After the second dose of 10th graders, the teacher asked if that felt better. "Yeah," I said. "And I'd like to try it again, if that's OK. With the first class, too." She smiled, "Of course! I'll look at what else we have coming up and let you know."
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