The Long Distance Spartan
Written by: Jane Reynolds
November, 2011
I will never forget her face when I finally started to understand how to read; my teacher was so proud of me. I had a very difficult time learning to read. I was lucky to have found one particular teacher that worked with me for years to help me learn to read. She did an amazing job teaching me to love the written word and turned me into an avid reader. When I applied for the MAED program in the spring of 2009 I was completing my first year as a teacher, and had just moved across the country by myself. I was going though many changes, but knew that I wanted to continue my education at Michigan State University. I wanted to become that teacher who could inspire children to love reading the way my teacher had inspired me. I knew that the MAED would teach me to become that teacher, and I wanted to remain a Spartan. I nervously began my journey through the MAED program in the fall of 2009. My second year of teaching was going to be a challenge now that I was back in school.
The first class that I took was a very good introduction to the program and showed me that I had made a very good decision. TE 836 Awards and Classics of Children’s Literature taught by Dr. Laura Apol was an intriguing class that taught me a lot about children’s literature. During week one of this course, I looked back into my childhood and identified the books that really stood out in my mind. One of the books that I identified as being a “good” book, and a favorite book from my childhood was Goodnight Moon. As a child I did not know or care whether or not this book was an award winning or classic book. I loved this book for my own reasons. Children do not pick their favorite books based on how timeless or universal the story is, or if the book has won an award. Children choose their favorite books based on their personal feelings about that book. There were the books that I read throughout my entire childhood, such as Goodnight Moon, but there are others that will forever be one of my favorite books, such as The Giver. These books challenged me, inspired me, taught me something, or simply entertained me. I learned right away in this course that “classic” and award winning books were going to be based on very subjective criteria.
Before taking this course I had heard of the Coretta Scott King Award, the Newbery, and the Caldecott, but the other awards were brand new to me. Once being exposed to these other awards that children’s books could win, I started to realize that every single award-winning book was considered the best. How could there possibly be so many “best” books? The “best” book is supposed to be the top, the supreme, the ultimate book, so how could there be so many bests? Yes, these books were chosen to be the best of their category, but still the “best” is a very subjective thing. It was here that I realized how truly subjective the award process was. Each of these awards has a committee of people who chose which book best represents the award. These committee members work together to decide which book should receive the award based on set criteria. The criteria were very vague. I do believe that award-winning books are good books (a group of people agreed that they are good books) but these books are not necessarily going to be the books that children will love, or even be able to relate to. It is very unlikely that my classroom full of low-income African American students will agree that a book given the Sydney Taylor Book Award is the best book they have ever read. Even books that have been given awards are chosen for personal reasons. Yes, it is a group of people who choose the books based on criteria, but it is always just that, a choice.
I was also surprised to learn in this course that these awards are not given to booked based on their popularity. There were award-winning books we read and discussed in the course, such as The Secret of the Andes written by Ann Nolan Clark, that I would have never discovered without this course. Looking back on this course as I whole, I learned that teachers should choose a wide variety of literature to share with students. Sharing classic books, award winning books, and books that students will personally connect with is a way for teachers to create a well-rounded literary experience for children.
CEP 883 – Psychology of Classroom Discipline taught by Evelyn Oka was another course where I learned a lot of very practical ways to establish a welcoming, safe, supportive, and positive learning environment. After completing my student teaching, I felt very confident about my classroom management skills, but I wanted to take this course to learn classroom management best practices. I also was incredibly interested in collecting as many practical strategies that I could bring directly into my classroom. Upon buying the required and recommended textbooks for the course, I knew that I was going to learn a lot about discipline and classroom management.
One of the big ideas that struck me this course was that adjusting that student’s classroom work environment could solve a lot of the disruptive behaviors that happen in a classroom. If a student is acting in a disruptive way, perhaps changing their learning environment (whether that be the kind of work the student receives, the place in the classroom the student is in, the people around the student, the type of interaction that the student has with peers, and even the relationship with the teacher) will help to eliminate the problem behavior. The student may simply have a hard time focusing facing a certain direction in the class, or being near a particular student. Changing these aspects of the work environment may possibly help to eliminate the problem behavior. The student may not feel liked or wanted in the classroom. If there are no true connections within the learning environment, then the student will not have a reason to be successful. Part of the classroom work environment, is whether or not the student feels as though he or she can be successful. If the student has a difficult time with a certain subject matter, then the misbehaviors may be to avoid doing certain work. It is incredibly important that the teacher adjusts students’ work in order to allow every single student in the classroom to be successful. Before taking this course I never thought into why a student was misbehaving. During this school year I have used this understanding to determine why many of my “defiant” students were misbehaving; they were acting out in order to hide their frustration with not understanding the content. Since I discovered the motivation behind the misbehavior and have begun to address these other problems, the misbehavior has vanished.
In my classroom I try to be very aware of creating a very supportive learning environment where students’ needs are met. Not only will they be supported enough in their work to be successful, but they will be an integral part of the learning community. I will take the time to know all of my students academic needs to know which students need support with certain topics. With a supportive environment students will be less likely to misbehave in order to avoid their work. They will be able to be successful with their work; success breeds success.
Another big idea from this course that really stuck with me is the true importance of having a positive teacher-student relationship. It is very easy to be caught up addressing disruptive behavior from students and is hard to remember to give more positive compliments to every single student. It is very easy for a teacher to get caught up in correcting misbehaviors, but after taking this course, I see that when giving complements to students who are behaving in the expected way often encourages the other students to correct their behavior. This leads to a much more positive learning environment where positive behavior is acknowledged and encouraged. I have found that communicating these positive things to parents also goes a long way in helping to eliminate disruptive behavior. Calling parents of a challenging student for something positive shows how much the teacher cares about, notices, and is working with that challenging student. These positive relationships need to be established with the parents as well as with the students.
Before taking this course I never really thought about how the arrangement of a classroom could affect the classroom management. The set-up of a classroom needs to reflect the work that the students will be doing. If students are going to be participating in group work, they should be sitting in groups. If the students will be working individually, then they should not be placed in groups because this would promote working together. It is very important to think carefully about how the classroom should be set up for the kind of interactions the students are expected to have. It is also very important to think about the individual students when deciding on an arrangement. If there are several students who need to be away from each other, the lay out of the room needs to accommodate their needs. Also, when designing and deciding on a lay out, it is important to think about where each student would work the best. It probably would not be effective to have all of the English Language Learning students together at one table, or all of the lower students together. The students need to be arranged so that the entire class is a supportive and successful learning environment. When all of the students are in the physical environment that will support them, then their behavior will reflect the support.
In my classroom, I have a general idea about how I would like to organize the desks. I always do a lot of group work, so the students will be in groups, but I will spend time teaching the students how to quickly move their desks into a more independent work oriented set up. There are times where the students need to do their work completely on their own (any kind of formal assessment). In the past, I did not take the time to teach the students any other way to set up the room. Whenever we had to move the desks into another formation, the room became very chaotic. I also plan on moving the students’ seats around a lot more this year. My students this past year had very strong personalities. As soon as I would find a combination of students that worked well together, I had those students working together a lot. Even though I was comfortable and confident in their pairings, the students got very tired of each other. I however was reluctant to move their groups around because of many conflicting personalities. Now I am not nearly as reluctant to move students around in my classroom anymore. The consistent change of seating arrangements and of partners will promote a more unified classroom (the kids will get to know and work with everyone) and will help them not feel stuck in a certain place.
Writing has always been the subject that I am least comfortable teaching. During my first year of teaching I felt as though my undergraduate education did not prepare me to teach writing. When it came time to take TE 848 Methods of Writing Instruction, I was scared. How did I teach writing in my classroom? I was unsure how to answer that question, but I quickly learned that I was not alone in my hesitation. In this course we explored writing in several different genres. I discovered that I had been nervous teaching different writing genres because I was uncomfortable writing in these genres myself. One very important lesson that I learned was that it was acceptable to show the students that the teacher is learning along with them. This taught me that if the students see the teacher learning and trying something new that they will be inspired to learn and try too. The teacher should be part of the learning that happens in the classroom.
I was challenged to explore and research a specific aspect of teaching writing. I decided that I wanted to learn more about conferencing with students about their writing. I spent a lot of time researching best practices, discussing conferencing with experts around my school, and trying different conferencing techniques in my second grade classroom. By the end of the project, I was much more comfortable and confident teaching writing. Teachers need to model then allow the students to write on his or her own. While students are writing, the teacher should be conferring with individual students. The teacher’s role in the conference is to teach the writer, not to fix the writing. Teachers who simply fix the writing are not teaching the writer how to improve their writing; the point of a writing conference is to teach the writer to become a better writer.
As my MAED program is coming to a close, I realize how much I have truly learned. My current principal recently asked me to do a presentation for my colleagues about what makes my classroom an effective learning environment. This task seemed daunting because there are so many things that I have learned over the past few years. How could I put years of education into a fifteen-minute presentation? I’m still not sure if any of my colleagues got anything from my presentation, but this task forced me to reflect on how I run my classroom. I have learned so much about teaching and classroom management, but I do know there is much, much more to learn.
November, 2011
I will never forget her face when I finally started to understand how to read; my teacher was so proud of me. I had a very difficult time learning to read. I was lucky to have found one particular teacher that worked with me for years to help me learn to read. She did an amazing job teaching me to love the written word and turned me into an avid reader. When I applied for the MAED program in the spring of 2009 I was completing my first year as a teacher, and had just moved across the country by myself. I was going though many changes, but knew that I wanted to continue my education at Michigan State University. I wanted to become that teacher who could inspire children to love reading the way my teacher had inspired me. I knew that the MAED would teach me to become that teacher, and I wanted to remain a Spartan. I nervously began my journey through the MAED program in the fall of 2009. My second year of teaching was going to be a challenge now that I was back in school.
The first class that I took was a very good introduction to the program and showed me that I had made a very good decision. TE 836 Awards and Classics of Children’s Literature taught by Dr. Laura Apol was an intriguing class that taught me a lot about children’s literature. During week one of this course, I looked back into my childhood and identified the books that really stood out in my mind. One of the books that I identified as being a “good” book, and a favorite book from my childhood was Goodnight Moon. As a child I did not know or care whether or not this book was an award winning or classic book. I loved this book for my own reasons. Children do not pick their favorite books based on how timeless or universal the story is, or if the book has won an award. Children choose their favorite books based on their personal feelings about that book. There were the books that I read throughout my entire childhood, such as Goodnight Moon, but there are others that will forever be one of my favorite books, such as The Giver. These books challenged me, inspired me, taught me something, or simply entertained me. I learned right away in this course that “classic” and award winning books were going to be based on very subjective criteria.
Before taking this course I had heard of the Coretta Scott King Award, the Newbery, and the Caldecott, but the other awards were brand new to me. Once being exposed to these other awards that children’s books could win, I started to realize that every single award-winning book was considered the best. How could there possibly be so many “best” books? The “best” book is supposed to be the top, the supreme, the ultimate book, so how could there be so many bests? Yes, these books were chosen to be the best of their category, but still the “best” is a very subjective thing. It was here that I realized how truly subjective the award process was. Each of these awards has a committee of people who chose which book best represents the award. These committee members work together to decide which book should receive the award based on set criteria. The criteria were very vague. I do believe that award-winning books are good books (a group of people agreed that they are good books) but these books are not necessarily going to be the books that children will love, or even be able to relate to. It is very unlikely that my classroom full of low-income African American students will agree that a book given the Sydney Taylor Book Award is the best book they have ever read. Even books that have been given awards are chosen for personal reasons. Yes, it is a group of people who choose the books based on criteria, but it is always just that, a choice.
I was also surprised to learn in this course that these awards are not given to booked based on their popularity. There were award-winning books we read and discussed in the course, such as The Secret of the Andes written by Ann Nolan Clark, that I would have never discovered without this course. Looking back on this course as I whole, I learned that teachers should choose a wide variety of literature to share with students. Sharing classic books, award winning books, and books that students will personally connect with is a way for teachers to create a well-rounded literary experience for children.
CEP 883 – Psychology of Classroom Discipline taught by Evelyn Oka was another course where I learned a lot of very practical ways to establish a welcoming, safe, supportive, and positive learning environment. After completing my student teaching, I felt very confident about my classroom management skills, but I wanted to take this course to learn classroom management best practices. I also was incredibly interested in collecting as many practical strategies that I could bring directly into my classroom. Upon buying the required and recommended textbooks for the course, I knew that I was going to learn a lot about discipline and classroom management.
One of the big ideas that struck me this course was that adjusting that student’s classroom work environment could solve a lot of the disruptive behaviors that happen in a classroom. If a student is acting in a disruptive way, perhaps changing their learning environment (whether that be the kind of work the student receives, the place in the classroom the student is in, the people around the student, the type of interaction that the student has with peers, and even the relationship with the teacher) will help to eliminate the problem behavior. The student may simply have a hard time focusing facing a certain direction in the class, or being near a particular student. Changing these aspects of the work environment may possibly help to eliminate the problem behavior. The student may not feel liked or wanted in the classroom. If there are no true connections within the learning environment, then the student will not have a reason to be successful. Part of the classroom work environment, is whether or not the student feels as though he or she can be successful. If the student has a difficult time with a certain subject matter, then the misbehaviors may be to avoid doing certain work. It is incredibly important that the teacher adjusts students’ work in order to allow every single student in the classroom to be successful. Before taking this course I never thought into why a student was misbehaving. During this school year I have used this understanding to determine why many of my “defiant” students were misbehaving; they were acting out in order to hide their frustration with not understanding the content. Since I discovered the motivation behind the misbehavior and have begun to address these other problems, the misbehavior has vanished.
In my classroom I try to be very aware of creating a very supportive learning environment where students’ needs are met. Not only will they be supported enough in their work to be successful, but they will be an integral part of the learning community. I will take the time to know all of my students academic needs to know which students need support with certain topics. With a supportive environment students will be less likely to misbehave in order to avoid their work. They will be able to be successful with their work; success breeds success.
Another big idea from this course that really stuck with me is the true importance of having a positive teacher-student relationship. It is very easy to be caught up addressing disruptive behavior from students and is hard to remember to give more positive compliments to every single student. It is very easy for a teacher to get caught up in correcting misbehaviors, but after taking this course, I see that when giving complements to students who are behaving in the expected way often encourages the other students to correct their behavior. This leads to a much more positive learning environment where positive behavior is acknowledged and encouraged. I have found that communicating these positive things to parents also goes a long way in helping to eliminate disruptive behavior. Calling parents of a challenging student for something positive shows how much the teacher cares about, notices, and is working with that challenging student. These positive relationships need to be established with the parents as well as with the students.
Before taking this course I never really thought about how the arrangement of a classroom could affect the classroom management. The set-up of a classroom needs to reflect the work that the students will be doing. If students are going to be participating in group work, they should be sitting in groups. If the students will be working individually, then they should not be placed in groups because this would promote working together. It is very important to think carefully about how the classroom should be set up for the kind of interactions the students are expected to have. It is also very important to think about the individual students when deciding on an arrangement. If there are several students who need to be away from each other, the lay out of the room needs to accommodate their needs. Also, when designing and deciding on a lay out, it is important to think about where each student would work the best. It probably would not be effective to have all of the English Language Learning students together at one table, or all of the lower students together. The students need to be arranged so that the entire class is a supportive and successful learning environment. When all of the students are in the physical environment that will support them, then their behavior will reflect the support.
In my classroom, I have a general idea about how I would like to organize the desks. I always do a lot of group work, so the students will be in groups, but I will spend time teaching the students how to quickly move their desks into a more independent work oriented set up. There are times where the students need to do their work completely on their own (any kind of formal assessment). In the past, I did not take the time to teach the students any other way to set up the room. Whenever we had to move the desks into another formation, the room became very chaotic. I also plan on moving the students’ seats around a lot more this year. My students this past year had very strong personalities. As soon as I would find a combination of students that worked well together, I had those students working together a lot. Even though I was comfortable and confident in their pairings, the students got very tired of each other. I however was reluctant to move their groups around because of many conflicting personalities. Now I am not nearly as reluctant to move students around in my classroom anymore. The consistent change of seating arrangements and of partners will promote a more unified classroom (the kids will get to know and work with everyone) and will help them not feel stuck in a certain place.
Writing has always been the subject that I am least comfortable teaching. During my first year of teaching I felt as though my undergraduate education did not prepare me to teach writing. When it came time to take TE 848 Methods of Writing Instruction, I was scared. How did I teach writing in my classroom? I was unsure how to answer that question, but I quickly learned that I was not alone in my hesitation. In this course we explored writing in several different genres. I discovered that I had been nervous teaching different writing genres because I was uncomfortable writing in these genres myself. One very important lesson that I learned was that it was acceptable to show the students that the teacher is learning along with them. This taught me that if the students see the teacher learning and trying something new that they will be inspired to learn and try too. The teacher should be part of the learning that happens in the classroom.
I was challenged to explore and research a specific aspect of teaching writing. I decided that I wanted to learn more about conferencing with students about their writing. I spent a lot of time researching best practices, discussing conferencing with experts around my school, and trying different conferencing techniques in my second grade classroom. By the end of the project, I was much more comfortable and confident teaching writing. Teachers need to model then allow the students to write on his or her own. While students are writing, the teacher should be conferring with individual students. The teacher’s role in the conference is to teach the writer, not to fix the writing. Teachers who simply fix the writing are not teaching the writer how to improve their writing; the point of a writing conference is to teach the writer to become a better writer.
As my MAED program is coming to a close, I realize how much I have truly learned. My current principal recently asked me to do a presentation for my colleagues about what makes my classroom an effective learning environment. This task seemed daunting because there are so many things that I have learned over the past few years. How could I put years of education into a fifteen-minute presentation? I’m still not sure if any of my colleagues got anything from my presentation, but this task forced me to reflect on how I run my classroom. I have learned so much about teaching and classroom management, but I do know there is much, much more to learn.