Taking over

I'm into my third week of student teaching, and I have taken over two classes. I have the freshman and juniors. Once the sophomores finish up To Kill a Mockingbird I will get them as well.

So far, so good up at Harrison. The freshman have begun their mythologies unit. I started them out with an introduction to the Greek gods and goddesses. We went through the pantheon. I was happy when one of the students knew the myth of Hades and Persephone. After that, we read some Aesop's fables and other short myths. I gave the class an assignment on the last myth. They were to answer a few questions about it, to gauge their comprehension levels. They did fairly well with this, though I want to see a little more depth going forward. Still, a good start.

Tuesday week went over the hero's journey. The students seemed really engaged and were able to apply the concept well to stories they were more familiar with. I had them take one of those stories and explain how it fit within the hero's journey. 

Today we started the Odyssey. I think it went well. Students and myself took turns reading aloud, and sometimes I'd ask them to reflect on what they had read. I think they are a bit hesitant right now, because they don't really know what to expect out of me. But, the students are pretty sharp and they were able to think critically and answer questions. I'm hoping as we move forward, they'll develop these analytical skills.

For the juniors, we are giving them a bit of a break after semesters. We watched The Help. The film related well to some of the readings that they did, such as Huck Finn this year and To Kill a Mockingbird last year. We've started a discussion on it. As this week wraps up, we'll start in with their research paper unit. The students aren't very excited about it, but I think it will go well. I've got a plan and good support. 

Until next time....

Alan

School board meeting

In my previous career, I was a radio news journalist. Having worked in two small towns, this meant that I got to go to one of the few surefire news events each month: the school board meeting. When I worked in Illinois, I had the pleasure of going to at least four per month. We covered two towns, and each town had a high school and an elementary school district.

So, when I saw that I had to go to a school board meeting for student teaching, you can imagine how excited I was.

School board meetings, are ironically, the thing that pushed me out of radio. I don't like covering them. This is not to say that they aren't important. School boards do a lot of hard work and are often not recognized for their service to the community and the students.

Its just that the meetings are boring.

I attended Harrison's January meeting. Here's what I came away with:

~The science teacher gave a "staff report" in which she brought the board up to date with her classes and her professional development. Especially at a school the size of Harrison's, I thought this was a great way to keep the board (technically the public, they are invited) up to date with these things. I had seen teachers come in and share work and projects before, but this was unique to me. It was a planned part of the meeting and presumably takes place every month. I think there was also to be a student report, but the student that was to make it was sick that day.

~RESA 4 U was there. This is a professional development group for Montana schools. I don't know a lot about the issues facing rural teachers for professional development, but a professor candidate came to MSU and talked about that topic, so I'm a little familiar. From what I gathered, if Harrison joined the group, they would have access to some professional development opportunities. They might be also to get help with supply purchases and other things. RESA 4 U seemed to be a catch-all for education support.

~There are a lot of MHSA proposals. The meeting my mentor teacher went to last week where I got to watch over classes by myself was where this came from. I can't remember all of the proposals, they ranged from getting rid of the master schedule for basketball to whether or not students could wear jewelry during golf. There were some controversial proposals, such as allowing all 8th graders to play high school sports, regardless of school need. As of now, 8th graders can play at the HS level, if the HS team needs them in order to make up a team in a contact light sport (such as basketball, volleyball or track). This proposal would open it up to all sports.  The Harrison Board felt that this was a good system. They were worried about player safety (if a smaller 8th grader went out for HS football) and foresaw a lot of problems with this.

Outside of a few executive session items (which I did not stay for....no sense hanging out in an empty room just to get to the end of the meeting) that was it. A light meeting as far as business items went, but I've been to quite a few board meetings and know what to expect from them normally.

Lit Circles

I meant to post this last week, but then I got busy. So, you get it now!

Last week (and this week as well) I had the chance to witness a Lit Circle in action. The sophomores are reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and my mentor teacher is having them do a Lit Circle for it. I have heard of Lit Circles and I think I was sort of in one for a class last semester, but this was the first time I'd seen one executed well (my lit circle got off topic...oops).

The class has about five students in it and so a lit circle is a pretty good way to make sure that everyone stays involved. The students read on their own and then each one has a job. There is a connector, someone who makes connections to their life (and probably other works), a summarizer, who summarizes passages, a word finder, who looks up certain words that they are not familiar with, an artist, who draws out (stick figures are great, stresses my mentor teacher) certain sections, and a questioner, who asks questions of the text, and if possible answers them. Each student has an assigned role and must make six entries in a reading journal to complete the assignment for the designated section. Then, on lit circle day, the students get together and share their observations and questions.

I think this is a great way to get students to engage in the text. I think with most roles, they have to closely read the text and think critically about it. By rotating the roles, it helps to give the students a new perspective on things.

This is something that I will definitely use in my classroom. In a traditional lit circle, students have a choice of what to read in a group. Obviously, with five students, that won't work.  But, I think in a larger classroom, this would be a way to introduce differentiation and choice.

It was very nice to see how a lit circle is supposed to operate. I had heard that they work well, but I think there's always a bit of hesitation before introducing something into the classroom that you haven't seen before.

"Small but mighty"

It's time to update you on my first week at Harrison High School. As I noted earlier, Harrison is a small school...very small. On Tuesday, I went to a faculty meeting and found it very interesting that there was a lot of talk about teachers covering for each other. I figured I would do my part on Wednesday.

With my mentor teacher off to a regional principal's meeting, I got to cover some courses on day 3 of student teaching. This began with supervising the last fifteen minutes of an elementary PE class. That teacher was also going to the principal's meeting, so I watched elementary kids play basketball. No one got hurt, so I considered it a success. After that, there's advisory. This is sort of a study hall. My mentor teacher has the junior high (all 18 of them) and has them read the whole time. I was a bit nervous that they might not want to read, but it went well aside from a few short conversations

Third hour, I got to go teach English, as I led the seniors in a reading and discussion of John Keats poems. We all read aloud and discussed his life and poems a bit. Then the students started writing their own odes. 4th hour, I made sure the juniors turned in an assignment and we started watching Huck Finn.

Granted, none of these activities are all that taxing, but I did think about this being the first time I was alone in a class with students. It seemed to go well. The students did their work, there were no disciplinary issues, and the discussion that I led went well, with many students participating and adding input. If anything, it was a nice step up from the observing that I've been doing. That's been useful, but I did enjoy taking an active role.

This covering will happen again....I might be covering Spanish next week.

Some other notes:

~The title comes from a quote from my mentor teacher on Monday. She used it to describe the freshman class (five students). I think it could apply to the whole school.

~There's been a lot of catching up this week with the students coming back from break. Next week is also semester tests, so....good luck, kiddos!

~Next up: Lit circles.

Alan