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.