Alright, so I have to apologize that I never did a second installment of my first week of school blog (kinda turned out like Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I fiasco). I had a lot of things rolling around in my head the first couple days, but I didn't want to say anything I'd regret later (being as this is a some-what public venue) and then I just simply forgot a number of the things that were occupying my mind those first couple days because I hadn't written them all down. So I think you may be waiting a while for the conclusion to that one...
This week is a whole new story however. I am doing something I am really excited about, namely, watching all the teachers in the entire English department in action. Kelli gave me a SIOP observation sheet at the end of last week and told me she wanted me to go take some notes on how all the teachers approached their classes differently. This was both of a benefit to her and to myself as she would be keeping tabs on what the people in her department were up to, and I just got to see what other teacher classroom management and teaching styles were like.
Mrs. Lumis (pseudonym) was the first teacher I sat in on. With nearly 30 years in teaching Mrs. L has probably the most diverse mixture of classes of any of the teachers. Her schedule is split up between Senior English, Junior Speech class and Freshman honors English. My first impression of Mrs. L's classroom? Well, lets just say the images of tigers scattered about her room pretty much sum up her classroom management style. She is loud, direct and very aggressive with the students who step out of line in her class, but there is something very odd in that, even though she can be very harsh, her classroom does not feel oppressive and the students seem to be very happy and productive (for the most part). I was quite amazed at the fact that only a week and a half into school, the policies and procedures of her class are already so well ingrained that she doesn't even tell the students what they have to do when they come in. Every class that I observed came in, retrieved their "of the day" folder (an idea which I 100% plan on stealing), wrote down the quote, responded to it, put their paper back in the folder and waited until they were informed of the next thing to do.
I think I really see how a teacher that uses the inquiry method properly can turn just about any lesson into something that all students can feel a part of. Mrs. L circled around the room and involved each and every kid at some point in the lesson, asking question after question after question, never answering her own questions and always re-asking a question if she felt some students didn't appear to be getting it or if they just weren't paying attention. The way she used her space and instinctually rephrased her question for clarity or to re-direct thinking was something that one could only hope to be able to re-create after years and years of experience! I recall watching the class and seeing a group of students that were getting sidetracked (either because they were talking/joking or they hadn't gotten past the last question) and worrying that she had lost a number of them (which in this kind of context, if you lose them even for a couple minutes, they will miss something major and probably never get caught back up), but she always seemed to realize and focus her attention on the group before they got too lost/sidetracked.
Going back to her "of the days" for a moment, one thing that I really like about Mrs. L's class that I do not like about Kelli's class, is that she has given them a special folder which they put that in every day, and she collects them all at the end of the week for grading, while Kelli just checks them every once and a while from their notebooks. For one, this seems to simplify the grading process much more (in addition to having a very logical/systematic way of assigning points to each entry), but it also gives the kids a sense that they are doing these entries for a reason. In Kelli's class I don't know, and have no way of really checking if the students are really doing anything in their journals, and if we wait too long to check them, there will be entirely too much material to go back and read them all for content, only completion. If you keep them a manageable size (such as five per student. per week), you make it easier on you and more justified in the students mind to do a good job on them.
My second class today was Mr. Stern's Senior Shakespeare class and his Freshmen Englsih class. Talk about a COMPLETE 180! MR. Stern's classroom (and please forgive the irony of this psudonym) is one of the most lax, easy-going classrooms I could possibly imagine. While I would think I would normally have reacted very positivly to this kind of environment, I think I was actually quite put off by it, becasue I think the students walked all over Mr Stern, and took full advantage of his laxity on behavioral issues. On a number of occasions, I saw students swearing, making inappropriate drawings, sleeping, and doing anything except what they were supposed to be doing (this was the Freshmen primarily, athough the seniors were not angels by any means). Mr. S didn't take it all without saying anything, he did get proactive about situations eventually, but it seems like it too longer than it should have, and a lot of class time was missed because it was not nipped in the bud quick enough.
Outside of his classroom management techniques however, I was very enthused by my talk after class with Mr. S! We both have very similar tastes in film, books, and theater. If I can do so without stepping on any toes, I dare say that he is the one teacher that I really see eye-to-eye with in term of the content and the ideas that I want to teach in my classroom.
Well, this blog already ended up a lot longer than I had thought it was going to, and I have way to much left to say to do all the others things I must do tonight, so that will have to do...
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