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.