Week 7: 절대 포기하지 마

One trend that I've noticed in my blog posts lately is that many are inspired by something I heard my students say or tell me. Although this consistent trend in themes was unintentional, it caused me to realize that I am inspired by my students (no matter how misbehaving they may be at times).

This post is no different.

So there is this student in my class who has a tendency to have one of those too-cool-for-you attitudes. He's pretty smart and loves to tell everyone how what he thinks is always right. You get the picture. That is why what happened next was completely unexpected to me. He came up to my desk and handed me this...

"It says never give up in Korean," he told me as he placed it in my hands. Taken off guard, I just told him how cool it was and thanked him. This student isn't Korean, and I still don't know exactly why he gave me this, but it was more encouraging to me than he even knows.

He had no idea that I love languages and learning about them (especially Asian languages!).

He had no idea that two of my friends are Korean.

He had no idea that some of my students in a few weeks are Korean.

He had no idea that I really needed the reminder to never give up.

Never giving up is crucial in student teaching. Never give up on your students or yourself, especially when things have not changed yet. At this point in my student teaching, I'm starting to get sentimental and look back on these past six and a half months with my 6th graders, since I have to leave them next week. Illinois Teaching Standard 3 talks about how a "teacher plans for ongoing student growth and achievement." The key word is ongoing, not all at once. Looking back, I see so much ongoing student growth during this time with my students, as well as progress and change. If I had given up on certain things with them or with myself, that same growth could have been produced.


Here's how I've seen my students grow...

For awhile, my students seemed pretty bored with learning. There are still times where this seems to be the case, but I have seen such improvement. I have seen a lot more sparks of joy throughout our learning than I used to. Last week in social studies, we were going through an assignment where students were required to illustrate an economic achievement in this box on their paper. I decided to have one person from each group go up to the board and draw out these achievements. This exercise turned in to us laughing at the less-than-stellar pictures that appeared on the board, yet each student gave a detailed description of the economic achievement they were attempting to illustrate and why it was an economic achievement. It was funny and it was memorable. The students definielty learned and they definitely had fun, two things that seemed to be mutually exclusive in the past.

I have also seen progress on the individual level. One student who used to speak very little English in August has come so far and made immense improvement. I can now have a conversation with her and understand a majority of it. My other ELL student who arrived in January who spoke absolutely no English, can now say things like "bathroom," "twenty-four" (her class number), and "thank you teacher." These are small things, but improvements nonetheless. I've seen students who were timid about their math abilities become more outwardly confident, willingly volunteering to walk the class through a problem. I've seen students who were often unengaged make progress by more regularly participating in class discussions.


Here's how I've seen myself grow...

At the beginning of this week, my teacher told me that she was going to try to be out of the room as much as she could. She even told me that I should sit at her desk for the week rather than the side table! This suggestion both overwhelmed me and excited me, and I willingly accepted the challenge. And you know what? I did it. And it went extremely well. By the end of this week, I can look back and see how much growth was produced before and during this experience. A few months ago, I would not have so willingly done this, and I do not think it would have gone as well as it did. Throughout these past months I can see now that I was being prepared all the while, learning about the behavior managements in place, grading papers, learning about the curriculum, and so many other specific aspects of this classroom. Because of this ongoing preparation, I was able to hold my own in a classroom without the physical presence of my cooperating teacher, and it felt like real teacher.

I have also seen immense growth in my classroom management. Before, I was hesitant to discipline students. What was once hesitancy has now been replaced with confidence and firmness in the way I discipline. Part of it comes from imitating the behavior management style of my teacher, who has a very strict/stern/sarcastic tone, but I also have combined pieces of this with my own tone and my own beliefs in discipline. Because of the lessons I have learned in classroom management, I feel more prepared to manage behavior and a classroom in general in my next placement and even into a future job.


Here are a few things I need to never give up on, even though I have not seen much growth yet...

The reading curriculum is boring and there is no denying this. I have tried to make it more engaging at times, some of those times being successful, and other times not being so successful. Despite the successes and non-successes, I am still choosing to not give up and keep trying.

My students also seem to have gotten lazier on some of their assignments. When I grade them, it seems like their effort has taken a plunge and their missing slips are piling up. Last week they had the whole week to read 3 chapters in our novel, and when I got to the day it was due, I suspected that many of them did not get it done and needed more time. I asked them to answer honestly whether they had thoroughly read the chapters, and about five students' hands went up. I decided to give them grace and give them one more day, but it was discouraging to see this lack of effort. Nevertheless, I am not going to give up on the expectations that I have for them.

Lastly, not all of my students respect me as their teacher. This has been difficult, especially with discipline. I have seen growth in my ability to discipline and do it respectfully, but on the contrary, I have not seen that same respect from all of my students. My students are continually getting off task, forging signatures, and chatty as ever, even when I discipline them. It takes a lot of perseverance to not give up, especially when it feels like you're constantly fighting them at times. In this case, never giving up looks like patience, calmness even when you are frustrated, and consistency.


Never give up. As cliche as this statement is, it still holds a lot of value, especially in this student teaching experience. I showed my Korean friends what my student had made me, and they were both impressed by it. I then told my student about showing his work to my friends. A few days later, he comes up to me and hands me these...

"Can you give these to your two friends? I am not going to tell you what it says, so you'll need to ask them first." I thanked him, saying that I am sure that my friends will love it (whatever it says). After giving these notes to my friends, they translated it as "You will do great things. Always keep doing your best."

Despite a student's sometimes-slightly-arrogant attitude, don't give up on them. There is a sweet side to them, and it might just take a teacher who never gives up to draw that out of them.

Week 6: Highs, Lows, and Buffaloes

I recently learned of a game/activity called Highs, Lows, and Buffaloes. This is something I have encountered outside of the classroom, but could see it being incorporated into my classroom. If you have ever heard of Happy Crappy or Highs and Lows, it is basically the same thing. In small group settings, each member goes around and shares something about their week (or day or experience) that was a high, low, and buffalo. A high would be something that was a highlight or brought the joy. A low would be something that they struggled with or was difficult. Lastly, a buffalo would be something awkward or really anything else they want to share that does not fall into those two categories. Each participant's story is different, and no two are alike.

The same goes for my student teaching.

No two weeks of my student teaching experience are alike. In fact, no two days of student teaching are alike. Each week, each day, and each subject may contain consistencies, yet so many variables remain. There are high, lows, and buffaloes.

Let's start with the Lows since I would rather end on a high note.

Disciplining is something that is necessary, but not something that I enjoy doing. This week, I caught one of my students plagiarizing on an assignment and gave him a detention and wrote him up because of it and because of the rules/consequences that are already put into place for this type of misbehavior. I met with the student and talked with him calmly, asking him what he thought was wrong with his assignment, why what he did was wrong and why plagiarism is wrong, and what the consequences were. During that whole time, he did not say a word.

Another particularly low moment of this week was grading and the results of that grading. I had a lot of online grading to get done this week. As I progressed through my students' assignments, I was extremely disappointed with the lack of effort put into their submitted work, particularly in their vocabulary. The assignment was to define the word (which we did together) and then create your own sentence using that word. Each word contains the type of speech, yet in a majority of my students' sentences, they used the wrong type of speech. Some of their sentences did not even contain the vocabulary word. For some students, this was done out of pure laziness, and for others, it was done out of compete misunderstanding. Because of this, I have recognized the need for changing the way that this vocabulary is taught and learned. Illinois Teaching Standard says, "The competent teacher has foundational knowledge of reading, writing, and oral communication within the content area and recognizes and addresses student reading, writing, and oral communication needs to facilitate the acquisition of content knowledge." Using proper grammar and English conventions in writing is something that so many of my students struggle with, and it shows in their other class work as well. I had a chat with my whole class about the issues that I have been seeing in their vocabulary assignments. Rather than having vocabulary tacked onto the end of assignments, I am now taking more class time to discuss the meaning of words as a class more in depth and review what each type of speech means. Although they have a long way to go, I have seen some improvement already.

Next, we'll move to the Buffaloes.

This one is less serious, and can encapsulate a variety of instances this week in which odd, random, or embarrassing things happened. For example, I taught a science lesson with basketball hoops around the room (which the students loved!) but the basketball hoops kept falling off the wall when the students would shoot. In other instances I posted the wrong assignment, and on one occasion I tripped in front of half the school during an assembly, but that's a whole other story.

A few other random things that happened this week. I was able to have a conversation with my class about hallway behavior, and since then, their hallway behavior has dramatically improved. I was also able to be the teacher for the day on Monday since the school was short on substitute teachers and my teacher went and taught in a different room for the day. This was another memorable experience, and it is these days which make me all the more confident in my abilities for having my own classroom someday.

Despite the lows and buffaloes, I had many Highs throughout the week as well.

This week, I had my final observation from my supervisor, which went well and sort of signified an end and an accomplishment, making me feel more ready to move onto my next placement in less than two weeks! Another high for me was teaching a math lesson that the students finally seemed to catch onto right away. As I have said before, math has been a struggle lately, and the students just did not seem to be grasping the concepts. They took a test on Monday, so we started a new unit this week, and right now, it seems to be going well.

Like last week, this week was a tough one and a tiring one. There were low moments were it seemed so difficult to reach the students or even see that I was having any impact on their learning, but there were still moments that made up for all of that. I saved my highest High moment for last. At our class Valentine's day party on Thursday, one of my students gave me one of the sweetest cards that I could receive and one which I really needed to hear....

Dear Miss Lins,

You are doing an amazing job at being a student teacher and helping all of the class with their weird questions that they ask, and on February 11, 2019 on keeping the class together and working productively. You are the sweetest ever and you have the slowest temper ever. You and Mrs. C work so well together. I thank you for all that you have done to help all of the class and do all you can to keep a class of 24 11-12 years old boys and girls. I give you full credit to all you do in all of the classes that you teach. Hope you have a good Valentine's day. 

Sincerely, 
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Classroom Confidential: Great Teachers Are Drama Queens
"The arts are ways of knowing" (page 189). I loved this quote because it highlights the way that art can find itself weaved into the learning processes that occur in the classroom. Often, we refer to knowing as answering questions on a test or in a discussion, when it could also take the form of art. Art gives us ways to communicate with each other without even speaking or writing. I could see this being especially helpful for my English Language Learners as speaking and writing are more difficult for them. There are times where they understand, but they do not know how to express it.

I also loved the section about movement. I have a tendency to think movement is dance, but they are two related yet very different things. One activity that stood out to me was the Galloping Grammar. First, it just sounds like a lot of fun (since I love grammar), but I also think my students would find so much value in this since grammar is something that they struggle with. I could use examples of student work that was done incorrectly, and we could correct it by showing the galloping grammar movements. I also think the Thesaurus Game would be especially helpful to use in my class because the students could use a little more spice to their writing. Right now, they use very basic words, even for sixth graders. They would be able to expand their horizons in writing and be able to communicate with more specific words.

One specific authentic assessment that I saw in this chapter was the students "show me" instead of "tell me." In this method, students can show an emotion, draw a picture, or represent any question without using words, but rather showing it. So often we ask a question in order for students to tell us. With this method of assessing students, you can see how well they understood/are able to answer the question. I could use this in my classroom during our reading times during times that we have a whole class discussion.

Week 5: That's Tough

"That's tough." I have heard those two words come out of the mouths of my 6th graders at least 40 times this week (I promise I'm not exaggerating!). It's one of those phrases that is suddenly trendy among the students and one in which they seemingly try to fit into every conversation, despite it being borderline irrelevant to most conversations that it surfaces in. It basically means what it says. That's tough. When something bad happens, you respond with "that's tough" or that's rough or that's unfortunate. Overall, there were a lot of tough moments this week, whether lighthearted or truly tough. Despite the week's toughness, growth was also produced in both me and my students.


Here are a few examples of a few "that's tough" moments from this week:


A student dropped all of their pencils. "That's tough."

The power went out. "That's tough."

A student gymnast in the talent show didn't make her landing. "That's tough."

I told a student to flip his card. "That's tough."

None of the students answered the math question correctly. "That's tough."

I came to school with my shirt on backwards. "That's tough."


Monday morning rolled around and I got a text from my CT saying that she was taking a sick day. So I taught the whole day. I had a sub, but she did not have to do anything (and she actually did not do a thing anyway). The day was a really good kind of tough, in fact, I think it was my favorite day of student teaching so far. Part of the reasoning behind this was that I felt comfortable to truly and fully take charge of the classroom. It was tough being the sole teacher in charge, but it was so rewarding!

Caring for others can be tough. Each month at Stony Creek, the school focusses on a character pillar. This month's pillar is caring. In our classroom meeting time this week, I had the opportunity to teach an entire lesson about caring. This was interesting, as it does not fall into the category of a particular content area. It was simply a social emotional learning lesson. For this lesson, I had the students use this website called PollEverywhere to respond to live polls about the topic of caring. We had great whole-class discussions about what it means to care for others as well as how the students have experienced caring from and towards others. In one activity, I asked the students to think of what words came to mind when they thought of caring, and with those responses, they created the word cloud attached below.
As you can see, spelling can be tough too :)

Per usual, disciplining has been tough for me, and especially this week. I have continually had a few students who are disrespectful towards me and do not listen to what I tell them to do. Hallway behavior has been a huge issue as well. I am learning to discipline with love, but to still be tough about it. Being viewed as "the nice teacher" comes with both benefits and downfall, and not being taken seriously with discipline is one of those downfalls. On Monday, I will have the opportunity to specifically address the topic of hallway behavior during our classroom meeting time by having a whole class discussion about it. I plan of doing this in order to clearly communicate my expectations for them and explain my reasoning behind those expectations.

Math has been painfully tough to teach lately. The students seem to have lost interest and are just not participating in the lessons like they used to. I feel like I have been teaching them the same thing for a week and it is just not sinking in. Honestly, it has been pretty frustrating and has left me questioning my own abilities to teach and explain this particular topic. My CT has jumped in a few times and tried to reach them, but that has not been working either. It's tough to see the students struggle, but it's also tough to feel like they are not putting forth their full effort. Nevertheless, it is crucial to persevere despite the tough nature of the situation, and to continue to seek new ways to teach them, even if it means starting at the basics. Working with percents is what the students have been struggling with, so during math intervention time, I brought it all the way back to the basics of percents, and what they mean. This is a slow process of learning, but I think it has already proven to be beneficial.

Our reading curriculum is tough. Not just tough, but it's dull, monotonous, and disengaging for the students and the teachers. BUT we are required to use this curriculum.  That's tough. This online curriculum is called StudySync, also commonly referenced to as "study stink" by my 6th graders. The unit we are currently working on is called Ancient Realms, which includes historical fiction, legends, and some mythology. As exciting as that sounds like it should be, the curriculum is incredibly dry, and many of my students have come to despise reading. However, I had the idea of bringing in a graphic novel series Olympians by Geroge O'Conner, which was introduced to me in my Children's Literature course at Trinity. (In fact, I even met the author for Young Authors!) I rounded up nine of the eleven books in the series and brought them in for my sixth grader to read as supplemental material since they connect so closely to what our unit is (should be) about. These graphic novels are unique because they depict the stories of various Greek gods in a layout similar to a comic book. My 6th graders love these books, and even fight over who gets to read them during our independent reading time. It has been so fun to watch my students get excited about reading again!

Teaching is tough, but you learn roll with the punches. There have been moments this week that left me feeling down and defeated, but there were other moments where I felt so excited about teaching. I was enthusiastically describing my caring lesson to one of my friends when she stopped me mid-sentence, looked at me and said, "Han, you're having fun." Huh, I guess I am. Teaching is full of "that's tough" moments, but it is still fun and still such a joy despite that. Through those tough moments, you become tougher too. Now, when my students respond with "that's tough," I turn to them and say, "that's tough, but so are you."



Classroom Confidential: Great Teachers Are Power Brokers
In chapter 2, Schmidt talks about the concept of eptness. Before reading this chapter, I had never hear of this term before. Eptness basically means the opposite of ineptness, which is a quality that signifies someone is without skill or ability to do something. Eptness is the opposite. It is a classroom culture where each student is believed to possess great potential, and the ability to contribute to the class a whole. Each student brings different strengths to the table and can be useful and helpful towards the betterment of the class. In doing this, you see what students can do, not what they cannot.

Schmidt also talks about behaviors that teacher should use to promote eptness in their classrooms. One of the behaviors that stood out to me from this list was the first one right off the bat that talked about Approximations. When reading this, I realized my own faults with only observing students with the intention of catching their bad behaviors, rather than their good ones. The students often have independent/partner work, and so I often walk around the room from group to group observing their behaviors. I would like to start being on the lookout for good behavior and not only noticing it, but naming it out loud. The next behavior that stood out to me was Feedback, the fourth behavior listed in this chapter. Schmidt specifically mentioned feedback that uses words that are unusual which get the students' attention. Another part of this feedback that I would like to implement is more directly quoting the words used by my students when giving them my feedback. Lastly, the 10th behavior, Do Nothing for Students That They Can Do for Themselves, stood out to me. My CT does a great job of this. She assigns her students jobs and constantly gives them odds and end things to do for her. This is something that I need to make sure to do in my future classroom. I have a tendency to just do things myself, for the sake of thinking I am being helpful, when in reality, it is more helpful to have students put those responsibilities into practice. Simply having students hand out the materials for a lesson, write something on the board, or bring something to the office is an example of putting this behavior into practice.

Week 4: Snowed In

Before the morning announcements finally began at 8:45 on Monday morning, there had already been eight announcements on the loud speaker. These announcements ranged from "Bus 2 is running late" to "we need a teacher in so-and-so's room" to "can we get a teacher at the back door to help the students in?" After driving through snow and rolling into school around 7:45, I not only arrived to these numerous announcements, but I also arrived only to find that my cooperating teacher (and many others) were not at school yet. As the clocked ticked towards 8:15, my mind jumped ahead and thought, Oh boy, full takeover is about to have a whole new meaning. Fortunately, it did not come to that (and it probably would not have come to that) because my cooperating teacher got there in the knick of time. It ended up that eight out of our twenty-two homeroom students were absent. Classes also ended up being delayed and even switched because of other teachers' absences.

This hectic Monday morning only boded an impending weather-filled week.

Tuesday went as normal, but throughout the day, there was chatter about the imminent Polar Vortex that was to arrive within the next day, and then stay a few days. That's when I first heard the term eLearning. Before this week, eLearning was an unfamiliar concept to me (and one that I am still skeptical of). To sum it up, a law was passed as of January 1st that allows schools to assign school work on snow days which then exempts the school from having to make up that day later on in the school year. Students must complete at least one assignment during the day, or else they would be counted absent. On Tuesday, the school decided that we would be piloting these eLearning days on both Wednesday and Thursday. Leading up to this, we had confirm that both the students and parents understood what eLearning was, and what their role in it was. On Tuesday, we opened up the dividing wall and had the entire sixth grade class come into the conjoined rooms for a big conference about eLearning to clear up some of the confusion. The sixth grade teacher team explained how the next few days would go, and the students asked questions. This conference was also helpful for me in coming to understand the upcoming eLearning days.

After school on Tuesday, my CT and I were hard at work discussing what to assign for the coming days of eLearning. This was interesting for me, as I am technically in full-takeover mode now. During these eLearning days, the students will most likely have questions that need to be answered throughout the day, so I would be the primary teacher that they should direct their questions towards. After leaving school on Tuesday, I felt as ready as I'd ever be to be in the role of teacher while being snowed in.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up to subzero temperatures and lots of emails from confused students. However, as the day went on, we got things figured out, and Thursday ended up going a lot smoother. I ended up spending most of those two days staying in and grading tests, which was a completely separate learning experience in and of itself.

On Friday, we returned from our snow days and jumped back into our usual learning routines. After having those two days off, the students surprising had way more missing work than two days ago. Overall, the eLearning days had some benefit, but I am still critical as to how effective they are. We got more behind in the curriculum for Math, because we were not able to assign any learning that would be even slightly intensive. Instead, we assigned problems that were more of a review, and now those are two days that will never be made up. As for science, all the students had to do was their vocabulary homework, which would have taken 20 minutes at the most during a regular class period. The rest of that time is lost time in which the students were not learning, and it is time that will never be made up. I think that these days of eLearning days have a lot of potential, especially when students are at home and snowed in anyways, but there is still so much work that needs to be done before these days will be effective.

A few weeks ago, I made the goal of speaking up and gaining confidence in my own classroom management. Much of the reasoning behind this was classroom management. My class is not the most well-behaved, so I think I have come further in being able to manage them, but I still have a long way to go.

Goals for next week:
-Teach a full five day week (weather dependent, of course).
-Film activities for my showcase.
-Find ways to make the reading curriculum more engaging.

Classroom Confidential: Teachers are Curiosity Seekers
Describe how your understanding of culture was enhanced or changed by your reading of chapter 4

When I first began to read this chapter, I was captured by the description of the classroom in which the author was teaching in her first year. This diverse group of students sounded like such a rich environment of cultural diversity, and an environment in which I would love to teach. Being an ESL minor, I have been taught a lot about diversity in the classroom, but this chapter from Schmidt added some perceptive insights. I love the phrase that was used on page 68 as an overall approach to teaching any student, no matter the culture: "See your students as capable learners, tap into their world, then link school learning to who they are and what they know." This quotation shows how students all possess potential that is just waiting to be tapped into. Teachers just have to take that step. By teaching kids "what they're not supposed to know," you are already recognizing their capability for learning and growing and understanding.

As teachers, we cannot claim to be color blind, and we cannot claim that we are just "one big happy family." This overlooks the differences that we all possess and the unique qualities that we all bring to the table. Our students have differences, and we need to recognize that. We can do so by possessing the intentionality and curiosity to get to know them-- their strengths, their weaknesses, their likes, their loves, their quirks, and their rhythms. Rather than viewing these things as things that need to be fixed (as recognized in the deficit model) we view them as starting ground for real education to occur. When this happens, the environment becomes culture-colored rather than color-blind.