I figured I would take this time to not only update, but close this travel teaching blog since I have returned home to America. What an interesting journey it has been. I have morphed from the girl I once was, waltzing into the education department at my university with dreams of student teaching abroad, and prayers of not watching these dreams become crushed rubble underneath the feet of the department in charge of approving it, to the girl I am now. I am only a year older in age, but miles ahead of where I ever dreamed of being in my life. I would like to thank everybody who made this experience possible for me. You've all been so supportive, and I couldn't have done this without you. I accomplished SO much in the four months that I was back in Australia. I went through a lot mentally and emotionally, and it all made me a stronger, more capable, productive person. Relationships ended, new ones began, friendships were made, and rekindled. There were days where I felt like I was the best teacher in the world, and there were days where I felt like the worst teacher in the world, but through it all I knew that every move I made gave me another opportunity to learn. No matter how many times I fell down, at the end of this thing, I had something, and it was my thing, and that matters to me.
The last time I wrote was around the second week of October, and the month leading up to my departure was both busy and bittersweet, but not at all a blur. In fact, I soaked it all in, and I managed to soak up a little sunshine as well. My last few weeks at Newcastle High School were filled with experiences, hopefully for both my students and myself. I spent quite a bit of time teaching to standardized tests that the students at Newcastle High School are required to take, the "School Certificate Exam" and the "HSC exam". If you are American, and you have taken the SAT exam, these exams are similar. Most of the teaching I was doing revolved around reading comprehension, grammar, writing techniques, and the dreaded essay. While not all days were smooth, I did my best to make the "boring stuff" more interesting for my students. For my year 10 class, I picked stories to read that I thought they hadn't heard of, were challenging, and were fun to read (or at least I thought they were fun to read when I was their age), for example "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe and "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke. I also chose to analyze these stories with them because I knew we could hit a few points with each in the short period of time I had left with them...Things like metaphor, symbolism, irony, and concepts such as one piece of work having multiple interpretations, were vibrant in both pieces. What I found with my year 10 class was that as intelligent as they ALL are, I think as a teacher I made the mistake of assuming that EVERYTHING I said was important enough to remember. This caused me to forget that I was once a 16 year old, and things did go in one ear and out the other...actually, that still happens. Just because I told them in the beginning of the year what multiple interpretations meant didn't mean they would know how to find them on their own 12 weeks later, and it didn't give me the right to be frustrated with them for it. I simply had to spend a lesson or two reviewing and practicing it with them before we could crunch down on an actual poem that had multiple interpretations. What I found to be helpful was even when I taught lessons where I felt I had failed, I could at least gauge were my students were at. Being a teacher takes an incredible amount of patience, and if you find yourself saying, "I told you this a thousand times already", perhaps consider a different occupation. because You will it a thousand times more, and it's your job to say it as many times, and in as many different ways as you can muster, until they finally pick up what you put down. By the end of the two weeks, most of the students in my year 10 class were getting between 8/10 and 10/10 on the practice reading comprehension exams we were taking. I look at that as a huge success.
Of all my classes, I think I learned the most about MYSELF from my year 11 class. It's funny how much you assume you know going into a class that everyone has warned you about, and how easy it became for me to defend them against people, like myself, who judged them. It was a class that reaffirmed my dislike for bullshit, and rebuilt the way I deal with it. And it's interesting how much students change once they realize the person who they think is there to make their lives miserable, is actually a person who wants to make their lives easier, and better. And on days where the students said "Aw miss you're expecting way too much of us", I smiled and said "Well somebody has to", and we all carried on. Some of my favorite memories with this class included the battles. Helping students struggle with putting their feelings on paper, and applauding them when they had a piece of work they were proud of, was one of the most humbling and gratifying experiences. I had to find ways to make English seem relevant to this class, as it was a class designed for students who decided taking the HSC and going to college was not their lifestyle. Sometimes this meant having them practice writing cover letters and sitting for mock job interviews, or reading sports news articles to understand the difference between objective and subjective. It was a class that really taught me how to teach to my students needs, and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to work with them.
On my last day at Newcastle High School my classes threw me surprise parties, and I hadn't realized I had made a difference until I saw the amount of work my students put into my last day. One class ordered a bunch of pizzas and we talked about the 14 weeks together. I asked for feedback about what worked and what didn't work, and they asked me questions about America. We laughed over the times they drove me crazy, and reflected over the things that made them really think. Another class also threw me a surprise party, and each student brought in something different. We played a game of English Jeopardy, ate, laughed, and a few students wrote thank you speeches. One girl wrote me a really nice letter and handed it to me on the way out the door.
Doing things for the last time is a weird feeling. You can do something a hundred times and take no notice, but when you know it's the last time, sometimes that reminds you how much you love something. Walking out of Newcastle High School for the last time was very sad, and I'll never forget the feeling of looking back over my shoulder at the school before leaving and thinking, "Wow, this is the last time." The school told me if I wanted to come back later on down the road, all i would have to do was call ahead so we could get the paperwork started.
I don't know when I'll be back, but I do have a feeling that I will make that call someday, and that it wasn't actually the last time,
just the last time for a while.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Some days the crowd will go wild...
All days simply won’t be triumphant. It’s just not the way teaching works. Some days your “best students” become your biggest nightmares, and some days the students that wear you out, surprise you. Most days here at Newcastle High School have been pleasant, with the exception of a few minor bumps and bruises.
I could tell it was going to be an off day when I asked my advanced year 10 class to take their laptops out, and only ten students reacted.
“Wait a minute, where are everyone’s laptops?”
“We don’t have them” Cindy retorted.
“What do you mean you don’t have them? You know it is part of student conduct to always be prepared, including your laptop.” –Immediately I thought, right Carley, because when YOU were 16, YOU ALWAYS had your book, your notebook, and a writing utensil…not
“Well we haven’t used them in a week or two, so we just stopped bringing them.”
“Alright, well we will just have to improvise!” I said cheerfully. I wasn’t about to can the lesson. This was true; we hadn’t used the laptops for a few weeks. We had been preparing for the advertisement assessment so we had been working mostly with magazine and newspaper articles.
I had a brilliant lesson planned out, based around the school certificate. The school certificate is an exam that the year ten students will be taking a few weeks after I leave Australia, which basically allows them to graduate high school. My lesson for today revolved around having them independently log on to the state board website and take the year ten English literacy school certificate practice exam, and afterward, answering a few questions in their notebooks which revolved around reflecting on personal strengths and weaknesses, along with class strengths and weaknesses. How could we do this with less than half of the class having laptops? I logged on to a school computer and checked the lab bookings, and every lab except for the Art lab had been booked, and the Art lab only had 15 computers, how inconvenient. This day was not running smoothly. I split my class of 28 up and those who brought their student laptops stayed in the classroom with my cooperating teacher, and took the practice test. The other half who did not remember their laptops came with me to the Art computer lap.
Once we reached the computer lab I noticed something interesting. ALL of the girls in my class had followed me to the lab. I thought perhaps they had done this just to stay together, but I counted, and the number of people who had previously raised their hands for not having their laptops was still the same. All of the girls forgot their laptops, and all of the boys remembered theirs. This intrigued me, because it is a class that can at times be female performance based. Two girls had to double up, Cindy and Sara. Cindy and Sara are the kind of girls who can perform excellent…without each other. With each other? They choose not to. Cindy does well when Sara is not in class, and Sara is able to focus when Cindy is absent as well. I thought about splitting them up, but there weren’t any more computers, and things were already hectic enough with my class taking the practice exam in two separate locations. I decided to let it slide. Once everyone was on the state board practice page, I explained the directions, that they had 40 minutes to complete it, and asked the class to treat this like it were the real thing. Once they began, Cindy, Sara, and a girl named Barbara all began talking.
“Girls, please take this seriously.” The girls looked at me and ignored my request. “Girls, stop talking.” For a minute or two it was quiet, until I heard Barbara’s voice again.
“Barbara, please stop talking”
“OKAY!”
“Barbara, please don’t yell at me, I only asked you to stop talking.”
“Alright I fucking get it!”
“WOAAAAAAAH!” I took a step back, and wore a look of complete shock and disbelief. Yes, I realize that ‘WOAAAAAH!” probably was not the most sophisticated initial response that could have escaped my lips, but it’s what came out either way. Barbara is a great student. Barbara is always pleasant, always participates, and does well on her assessments. Sure, she can be chatty, but she’s never been disrespectful.
“Barbara, if you want to use that language, you can go to the principal’s office.”
“I’M GOING!” She yelled. She stood up, kicked her chair over, and stormed out of the class.
About ten minutes later Barbara returned.
“I asked you to leave.”
“Well the principal wasn’t there.”
“Here are your options, we can talk outside about what just happened, or you can go wait for the principal to return.”
“Let’s talk outside.” Barbara followed me out to the hall and I asked her if everything was ok, and if anything else was going on outside of school that caused her to react like that.
“No Miss, I’m sorry, I think I’m just going through a phase. It’s not you.”
“Okay, I’m going to ask you not to return to class. However, I understand that you might be going through something. Go for a walk, I’ll write you a pass, and try to cool off. We’ll start again on Monday.”
Barbara seemed to appreciate the chance to cool off, and I returned to the girls taking the practice exam. Most of the girls were taking the exam properly, quietly reading the questions to themselves, and answering the multiple choice. However, out of the corner of my eye I saw Sara and Cindy Google imaging.
“Girls you shouldn’t be looking at Google images, you should be doing this practice exam.”
“We’re finished!” Cindy laughed.
“Cindy, you have 40 minutes to complete it, and it took you girls not even 10.”
“Yeah, we just clicked through it randomly.” Said Sara.
“But we got 7 out of 20!” Cindy giggled again.
“Ok girls, if that’s your score, go back to the classroom. There is a question on the board for you to answer in your notebooks.” Once Cindy and Sara left, and with Barbara gone, the whole lab was quiet, and one girl sighed in relief that she could finally concentrate. Another girl expressed a ‘thank God they’re gone’, and things continued on.
Once the last few girls had finished their practice online exams we went back to meet the rest of the class back in the classroom, where my cooperating teacher had them answering the questions on the board. I walked back into the classroom and shut the door perhaps a little harder than I would have on an average day. At this point I was beyond frustrated with my ADVANCED year ten class. First, half of the class didn’t bring their laptops to class. I book a lab, and ask them to take the practice exam quietly, and they spend the first half of the class fooling around. I ask one last time for them to be quiet, and I am sworn at, and a chair is kicked over. I catch students doing what they aren’t supposed to be doing, and they say they are happy with 7 out of 20? THIS WAS ABSURD. My brain felt like it was going to explode, but I knew I had to remain collected. As a teacher, sometimes it’s very hard when you’ve had a shitty day to not flip out, but you have to remember that it’s your job to get through to them, not to be their parents, so that’s where I started.
“I am not your parent, I am not your mate, I am your teacher, and the behavior that was displayed today is not only unacceptable, and extremely disrespectful to me, but it’s cutting yourselves short of what you are all capable of. You are an advanced class, and if you are telling me that 35% is what you are happy with for yourselves, then perhaps you need to consider a different English class. I, however, have seen all of you do exceptional work. If you want your future universities, and your future employers, to see that the best you could have done on the school certificate exam was a 7 out of 20, let me know now, and that’s the level that I will teach you at. On the other hand, if you want to reach your fullest potential, and score in the 80’s and 90’s like I know you all can, then that’s what we’ll do. I REFUSE anything less than your best, so you tell me RIGHT NOW if 35% is your best.”
The whole class became a combination of horrified looks, shaking heads, and immediate no’s. I wrote the words ‘STRENGTHS’ and ‘WEAKNESSES’ on the board, and asked the class to think about what their strengths and weaknesses as a class were. The class listed debating, vocalizing, analyzing, media studies, and public speaking on the strengths side. On the weakness side of the board they listed following directions, listening, language, reading comprehension, and grammar. I then told the class that for the next two weeks we would be using our strengths to study our weaknesses, so that they could bring all of their grades up, whether they scored a 35% or an 80% in the practice exam, the goal was to improve for the next time we took it.
After I said 'the goal is to improve', the bell rang. I asked the class to wait a minute before leaving, and ended with one last statement
“Please come on Monday with your laptops.”
All days simply won’t be triumphant, some days your best students become your worst students, but if you can find a triumph within a day which seems to have failed completely, your day won’t seem quite as long. This can be said about life in general. I won’t always be triumphant. Some days I will be successful, standing on a fifty foot pedestal, beaming brilliantly, as I watch students transform their insecurities to confidence. Some days the crowd will go wild, the ball will be out of the park, a home run, a touch down, a break away goal, a three point shot with the fade away swish, to win the game as the crowd goes wild. And some days, I’ll be the one in the middle of the field, or the ice, of the court with my head in my hands wondering what I did wrong. The trick to not beating yourself up comes with a lot of practice, patience, and the ability to acknowledge that while I didn’t touch every single mind in the classroom, there WERE positives. The boys, who often contribute to 70% of the noise, all brought their laptops and completed their exams without a single disturbance. Some students WERE happy with their practice test scores, and as a class we were able to come up with a list of strengths, and a list of things to work on in the next two weeks. Although it took a few stumbles to get to that point, I’ll stand up and try again on Monday
Hopefully my students will too.
I could tell it was going to be an off day when I asked my advanced year 10 class to take their laptops out, and only ten students reacted.
“Wait a minute, where are everyone’s laptops?”
“We don’t have them” Cindy retorted.
“What do you mean you don’t have them? You know it is part of student conduct to always be prepared, including your laptop.” –Immediately I thought, right Carley, because when YOU were 16, YOU ALWAYS had your book, your notebook, and a writing utensil…not
“Well we haven’t used them in a week or two, so we just stopped bringing them.”
“Alright, well we will just have to improvise!” I said cheerfully. I wasn’t about to can the lesson. This was true; we hadn’t used the laptops for a few weeks. We had been preparing for the advertisement assessment so we had been working mostly with magazine and newspaper articles.
I had a brilliant lesson planned out, based around the school certificate. The school certificate is an exam that the year ten students will be taking a few weeks after I leave Australia, which basically allows them to graduate high school. My lesson for today revolved around having them independently log on to the state board website and take the year ten English literacy school certificate practice exam, and afterward, answering a few questions in their notebooks which revolved around reflecting on personal strengths and weaknesses, along with class strengths and weaknesses. How could we do this with less than half of the class having laptops? I logged on to a school computer and checked the lab bookings, and every lab except for the Art lab had been booked, and the Art lab only had 15 computers, how inconvenient. This day was not running smoothly. I split my class of 28 up and those who brought their student laptops stayed in the classroom with my cooperating teacher, and took the practice test. The other half who did not remember their laptops came with me to the Art computer lap.
Once we reached the computer lab I noticed something interesting. ALL of the girls in my class had followed me to the lab. I thought perhaps they had done this just to stay together, but I counted, and the number of people who had previously raised their hands for not having their laptops was still the same. All of the girls forgot their laptops, and all of the boys remembered theirs. This intrigued me, because it is a class that can at times be female performance based. Two girls had to double up, Cindy and Sara. Cindy and Sara are the kind of girls who can perform excellent…without each other. With each other? They choose not to. Cindy does well when Sara is not in class, and Sara is able to focus when Cindy is absent as well. I thought about splitting them up, but there weren’t any more computers, and things were already hectic enough with my class taking the practice exam in two separate locations. I decided to let it slide. Once everyone was on the state board practice page, I explained the directions, that they had 40 minutes to complete it, and asked the class to treat this like it were the real thing. Once they began, Cindy, Sara, and a girl named Barbara all began talking.
“Girls, please take this seriously.” The girls looked at me and ignored my request. “Girls, stop talking.” For a minute or two it was quiet, until I heard Barbara’s voice again.
“Barbara, please stop talking”
“OKAY!”
“Barbara, please don’t yell at me, I only asked you to stop talking.”
“Alright I fucking get it!”
“WOAAAAAAAH!” I took a step back, and wore a look of complete shock and disbelief. Yes, I realize that ‘WOAAAAAH!” probably was not the most sophisticated initial response that could have escaped my lips, but it’s what came out either way. Barbara is a great student. Barbara is always pleasant, always participates, and does well on her assessments. Sure, she can be chatty, but she’s never been disrespectful.
“Barbara, if you want to use that language, you can go to the principal’s office.”
“I’M GOING!” She yelled. She stood up, kicked her chair over, and stormed out of the class.
About ten minutes later Barbara returned.
“I asked you to leave.”
“Well the principal wasn’t there.”
“Here are your options, we can talk outside about what just happened, or you can go wait for the principal to return.”
“Let’s talk outside.” Barbara followed me out to the hall and I asked her if everything was ok, and if anything else was going on outside of school that caused her to react like that.
“No Miss, I’m sorry, I think I’m just going through a phase. It’s not you.”
“Okay, I’m going to ask you not to return to class. However, I understand that you might be going through something. Go for a walk, I’ll write you a pass, and try to cool off. We’ll start again on Monday.”
Barbara seemed to appreciate the chance to cool off, and I returned to the girls taking the practice exam. Most of the girls were taking the exam properly, quietly reading the questions to themselves, and answering the multiple choice. However, out of the corner of my eye I saw Sara and Cindy Google imaging.
“Girls you shouldn’t be looking at Google images, you should be doing this practice exam.”
“We’re finished!” Cindy laughed.
“Cindy, you have 40 minutes to complete it, and it took you girls not even 10.”
“Yeah, we just clicked through it randomly.” Said Sara.
“But we got 7 out of 20!” Cindy giggled again.
“Ok girls, if that’s your score, go back to the classroom. There is a question on the board for you to answer in your notebooks.” Once Cindy and Sara left, and with Barbara gone, the whole lab was quiet, and one girl sighed in relief that she could finally concentrate. Another girl expressed a ‘thank God they’re gone’, and things continued on.
Once the last few girls had finished their practice online exams we went back to meet the rest of the class back in the classroom, where my cooperating teacher had them answering the questions on the board. I walked back into the classroom and shut the door perhaps a little harder than I would have on an average day. At this point I was beyond frustrated with my ADVANCED year ten class. First, half of the class didn’t bring their laptops to class. I book a lab, and ask them to take the practice exam quietly, and they spend the first half of the class fooling around. I ask one last time for them to be quiet, and I am sworn at, and a chair is kicked over. I catch students doing what they aren’t supposed to be doing, and they say they are happy with 7 out of 20? THIS WAS ABSURD. My brain felt like it was going to explode, but I knew I had to remain collected. As a teacher, sometimes it’s very hard when you’ve had a shitty day to not flip out, but you have to remember that it’s your job to get through to them, not to be their parents, so that’s where I started.
“I am not your parent, I am not your mate, I am your teacher, and the behavior that was displayed today is not only unacceptable, and extremely disrespectful to me, but it’s cutting yourselves short of what you are all capable of. You are an advanced class, and if you are telling me that 35% is what you are happy with for yourselves, then perhaps you need to consider a different English class. I, however, have seen all of you do exceptional work. If you want your future universities, and your future employers, to see that the best you could have done on the school certificate exam was a 7 out of 20, let me know now, and that’s the level that I will teach you at. On the other hand, if you want to reach your fullest potential, and score in the 80’s and 90’s like I know you all can, then that’s what we’ll do. I REFUSE anything less than your best, so you tell me RIGHT NOW if 35% is your best.”
The whole class became a combination of horrified looks, shaking heads, and immediate no’s. I wrote the words ‘STRENGTHS’ and ‘WEAKNESSES’ on the board, and asked the class to think about what their strengths and weaknesses as a class were. The class listed debating, vocalizing, analyzing, media studies, and public speaking on the strengths side. On the weakness side of the board they listed following directions, listening, language, reading comprehension, and grammar. I then told the class that for the next two weeks we would be using our strengths to study our weaknesses, so that they could bring all of their grades up, whether they scored a 35% or an 80% in the practice exam, the goal was to improve for the next time we took it.
After I said 'the goal is to improve', the bell rang. I asked the class to wait a minute before leaving, and ended with one last statement
“Please come on Monday with your laptops.”
All days simply won’t be triumphant, some days your best students become your worst students, but if you can find a triumph within a day which seems to have failed completely, your day won’t seem quite as long. This can be said about life in general. I won’t always be triumphant. Some days I will be successful, standing on a fifty foot pedestal, beaming brilliantly, as I watch students transform their insecurities to confidence. Some days the crowd will go wild, the ball will be out of the park, a home run, a touch down, a break away goal, a three point shot with the fade away swish, to win the game as the crowd goes wild. And some days, I’ll be the one in the middle of the field, or the ice, of the court with my head in my hands wondering what I did wrong. The trick to not beating yourself up comes with a lot of practice, patience, and the ability to acknowledge that while I didn’t touch every single mind in the classroom, there WERE positives. The boys, who often contribute to 70% of the noise, all brought their laptops and completed their exams without a single disturbance. Some students WERE happy with their practice test scores, and as a class we were able to come up with a list of strengths, and a list of things to work on in the next two weeks. Although it took a few stumbles to get to that point, I’ll stand up and try again on Monday
Hopefully my students will too.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Risk Taking
Many people think that teachers are the ones that administer the learning experiences, and the students are to take away what the teacher presents, but until you stand in front of 25 lower level students, who 10 weeks ago wouldn’t even open their notebooks, and realize that they are now asking clarifying questions, digging for examples, cooperating successfully in groups to find answers, and standing in front of the class to present their work, you don’t realize how much they have actually taught you.
If you asked me three months ago after my first day with this group of students, or even two months ago after practically being sexually harassed by the entire class of teenage boys, if I ever though that they would reach this point in ten weeks, I think I honestly would have laughed. I was hopeful, and positive, because I forced myself to be. I knew if I didn’t convince myself to be hopeful and positive, I would have given up on their learning abilities like many people have. These kids are not stupid, but they can be lazy, and rude. Teaching takes a certain mental toughness, to convince yourself to believe in somebody no matter how many times they insult you, no matter how many times they tell you that your class is “gay”, no matter how many times they walk out on you and slam the door in your face, to keep believing that there is something deep inside of them that you can bring out is mentally draining. It’s almost like being in an abusive relationship sometimes, and I’m choosing to stay in it.
When the clinical faculty member who observes me, met with me, and filled out my mid term evaluation, he had mostly positive things to say, but the one piece of constructive criticism he gave me was that it’s ok to take risks with lower level classes, even if I fail miserably. I take plenty of risks in my advanced year 10 class, and even my standard year 9 class, but in my lower level year 11 class, where the students have been known for stealing cars, fighting, and verbal harassment, some days I feel like stepping into the class at all is a rink, so to convince myself to do something wildly different troubles me. They are a class that gets very flustered over change, and that is why they rebelled against me at first, because I was making them do work that nobody had ever asked them to do, and they were FINALLY comfortable with the work load, so I’ll admit it, to ask them to alter that scares me a little, but yesterday, I took a risk.
Newcastle High School has a fantastically expensive and elaborate classroom called “the connected classroom”. It’s a technologically advanced, specially designed classroom, and is brand new to the school. It has a smart board, a brand new projector, brand new laptops and a massive charging station, a new flat screen television, a few couches and coffee tables, and these impressive puzzle piece desks that you can arrange in any shape you want. I had brilliant idea for a lesson floating on one half of my brain, and $100,000 worth of student caused damage electrifying the other side of my brain, but I jumped at the opportunity to “take a risk” when I saw that the connected classroom was free first period.
The new unit for the start of this term is a sports literacy unit, focusing on the analysis of “sports language”. The start of the unit suggests beginning with a class discussion on national anthems at sporting events, and national athletic chants, but instead of just a starting class discussion, I decided to make the entire lesson about this. After some research I found four countries that have different sporting event chants, songs, or anthems.
Ireland – “Ireland’s Call"
England – “England til I die”
USA- “USA, USA, USA!”
Africa – “Shosholoza”
After an introduction to the lesson, what I was hoping to do for the main part of the lesson was to split the class up into groups of four or five, and give each group a country. Each group would have to research a YouTube clip that goes along with their chant (I had already researched these so I knew they existed), why the chant first originated, who sings it, and what the language and words say about the country’s national pride. Then, they groups would show their YouTube clips to the class, and give a five minute presentation to the class on their country and the national chant.
I arrived at school an hour early and went to the Tech staff room to speak with the head of the technical support. He and I went to the connected classroom and hooked up all the technology I would need to make my master plan work. I arranged the puzzle piece desks into clusters, and put two lap tops on each cluster. While those powered up, the tech guy set up the projector, the main computer, and the internet for me. I put my lesson on a desk at the front, made sure everything was in order.
When the bell rang I rushed back down to my classroom and met my rowdy group at the door. I was also being observed today, so I had a brief chat with the clinical faculty member who would be taking notes on me. Then, I had a chat with my class about responsibility. I told them that I was really trusting them with the technology in this classroom, and that I couldn’t afford to give first and second chances, if anybody was irresponsible or disrespectful to the opportunity they have been given to use these resources, they would leave immediately. The whole class listened to me speak, nobody spoke over me, and to my surprise they all seemed to take it seriously. I asked them when we first entered the connected classroom to sit in groups of four or five, to not move from the table unless I asked them to, and to not touch the laptops until it was time.
We then travelled across campus to the Math department, where the connected classroom is. All of the students sat four or five to a table like they were asked, and I walked to the white board, next to the smart board, and began to introduce the new unit. On the board, I started a “SPORT” web, and asked a few students to come up and web a few words and phrases that came to mind when they thought of sport. They grumbled a little bit over having to get out of their seats, but I told them if we were doing a sport unit that the exercise would be good for them. After we had web full of terms, we analysed the words as a class. With words like “footy”, “rivalry”, “pride”, and “team”, we looked at why these words are particular to sport. I wrote the words “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi! Oi! Oi!” On the board and as soon as I asked the class what it said, all of the boys chanted the words in perfect unison. It is a national Australian chant, and it was so cool to see the whole class say it together at the same time, in the same tone. We then discussed how this was a way of expressing national pride, and that many countries had chants like this, and that is when I handed out the assignment.
As I walked around, many students had questions that blew me away. The group that had been assigned Africa’s chant, “shosholoza” asked me why I thought they kept it in their language instead of translating it to English. Instead of giving my opinion, I told them that was a great thing to think about as a group and to discuss when it came time to present. The boys who had the “USA! USA! USA!” chant were fascinated by the fact that the chant started in the 1979 Olympics when the US played the Soviets, and I watched as they clicked on YouTube link after YouTube link of clips from different sporting events where they could hear the whole crowd chanting USA. They stumbled across the trailer for the movie “Miracle” and asked if it could be the movie we watch for the unit, and I said I would think about it. The groups who had Ireland and England, after listening to the songs on YouTube, looked up the lyrics to the on their own and wrote great responses to what they though the songs meant.
After about a half hour of this, it was time for the students to present. I asked the groups to close their laptops, and called each group one at a time. They were a little reluctant to speak in front of the class, but they didn’t challenge me or refuse like they would have months ago, and once they were presenting they had some really great things to say. The group who had Africa said they felt like keeping it in the native language kept it true to their culture, and the group who had England said the thought the words “England til I die” said that England was so proud of their nationality, that they would do anything for their country, even die. The boys who had been given USA chanted the USA cheer for the entire class, and enthusiastically talked about the “Miracle on Ice”.
With ten minutes of class left, I asked them to think about the fact that while all of the countries are very different culturally, sport is something that brings us all together, and that even though we may be competing for the same title, we all have this sense of national pride that binds us.
The clinical faculty member and I had a meeting after class and he said that he was happy to see I had taken a risk, and asked how I thought I did. I felt like the students had taught me so much about my own capabilities during this class, and that giving them a little more trust and responsibility also taught me more about their capabilities and how far they had come. He also said I have the natural ability to connect with the students on a personal level, and that I should always use that to my advantage. It really felt good to see that he acknowledged that I took his advice at our last meeting before the holiday, and it also felt good to see that taking his advice really payed off, not only for my students, but for myself as well.
I was so proud of my class that I went to the video store and picked up “Miracle”. Before class this morning I told them that I was extremely happy with the way they handled the lesson yesterday, and how far they had come. When I pulled out the movie the whole class began to cheer, and a few of the Aussie boys started the "USA" chant. Today we watched the first half of the movie, and tomorrow we will finish the movie and begin discussing what it means to “represent” your country, and sports jargon. I am hoping they continue to show me during my last three weeks here how much they have improved, and how much they will continue to improve once I leave, because I for one know I will take everything they have taught me into my next teaching experience.
If you asked me three months ago after my first day with this group of students, or even two months ago after practically being sexually harassed by the entire class of teenage boys, if I ever though that they would reach this point in ten weeks, I think I honestly would have laughed. I was hopeful, and positive, because I forced myself to be. I knew if I didn’t convince myself to be hopeful and positive, I would have given up on their learning abilities like many people have. These kids are not stupid, but they can be lazy, and rude. Teaching takes a certain mental toughness, to convince yourself to believe in somebody no matter how many times they insult you, no matter how many times they tell you that your class is “gay”, no matter how many times they walk out on you and slam the door in your face, to keep believing that there is something deep inside of them that you can bring out is mentally draining. It’s almost like being in an abusive relationship sometimes, and I’m choosing to stay in it.
When the clinical faculty member who observes me, met with me, and filled out my mid term evaluation, he had mostly positive things to say, but the one piece of constructive criticism he gave me was that it’s ok to take risks with lower level classes, even if I fail miserably. I take plenty of risks in my advanced year 10 class, and even my standard year 9 class, but in my lower level year 11 class, where the students have been known for stealing cars, fighting, and verbal harassment, some days I feel like stepping into the class at all is a rink, so to convince myself to do something wildly different troubles me. They are a class that gets very flustered over change, and that is why they rebelled against me at first, because I was making them do work that nobody had ever asked them to do, and they were FINALLY comfortable with the work load, so I’ll admit it, to ask them to alter that scares me a little, but yesterday, I took a risk.
Newcastle High School has a fantastically expensive and elaborate classroom called “the connected classroom”. It’s a technologically advanced, specially designed classroom, and is brand new to the school. It has a smart board, a brand new projector, brand new laptops and a massive charging station, a new flat screen television, a few couches and coffee tables, and these impressive puzzle piece desks that you can arrange in any shape you want. I had brilliant idea for a lesson floating on one half of my brain, and $100,000 worth of student caused damage electrifying the other side of my brain, but I jumped at the opportunity to “take a risk” when I saw that the connected classroom was free first period.
The new unit for the start of this term is a sports literacy unit, focusing on the analysis of “sports language”. The start of the unit suggests beginning with a class discussion on national anthems at sporting events, and national athletic chants, but instead of just a starting class discussion, I decided to make the entire lesson about this. After some research I found four countries that have different sporting event chants, songs, or anthems.
Ireland – “Ireland’s Call"
England – “England til I die”
USA- “USA, USA, USA!”
Africa – “Shosholoza”
After an introduction to the lesson, what I was hoping to do for the main part of the lesson was to split the class up into groups of four or five, and give each group a country. Each group would have to research a YouTube clip that goes along with their chant (I had already researched these so I knew they existed), why the chant first originated, who sings it, and what the language and words say about the country’s national pride. Then, they groups would show their YouTube clips to the class, and give a five minute presentation to the class on their country and the national chant.
I arrived at school an hour early and went to the Tech staff room to speak with the head of the technical support. He and I went to the connected classroom and hooked up all the technology I would need to make my master plan work. I arranged the puzzle piece desks into clusters, and put two lap tops on each cluster. While those powered up, the tech guy set up the projector, the main computer, and the internet for me. I put my lesson on a desk at the front, made sure everything was in order.
When the bell rang I rushed back down to my classroom and met my rowdy group at the door. I was also being observed today, so I had a brief chat with the clinical faculty member who would be taking notes on me. Then, I had a chat with my class about responsibility. I told them that I was really trusting them with the technology in this classroom, and that I couldn’t afford to give first and second chances, if anybody was irresponsible or disrespectful to the opportunity they have been given to use these resources, they would leave immediately. The whole class listened to me speak, nobody spoke over me, and to my surprise they all seemed to take it seriously. I asked them when we first entered the connected classroom to sit in groups of four or five, to not move from the table unless I asked them to, and to not touch the laptops until it was time.
We then travelled across campus to the Math department, where the connected classroom is. All of the students sat four or five to a table like they were asked, and I walked to the white board, next to the smart board, and began to introduce the new unit. On the board, I started a “SPORT” web, and asked a few students to come up and web a few words and phrases that came to mind when they thought of sport. They grumbled a little bit over having to get out of their seats, but I told them if we were doing a sport unit that the exercise would be good for them. After we had web full of terms, we analysed the words as a class. With words like “footy”, “rivalry”, “pride”, and “team”, we looked at why these words are particular to sport. I wrote the words “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi! Oi! Oi!” On the board and as soon as I asked the class what it said, all of the boys chanted the words in perfect unison. It is a national Australian chant, and it was so cool to see the whole class say it together at the same time, in the same tone. We then discussed how this was a way of expressing national pride, and that many countries had chants like this, and that is when I handed out the assignment.
As I walked around, many students had questions that blew me away. The group that had been assigned Africa’s chant, “shosholoza” asked me why I thought they kept it in their language instead of translating it to English. Instead of giving my opinion, I told them that was a great thing to think about as a group and to discuss when it came time to present. The boys who had the “USA! USA! USA!” chant were fascinated by the fact that the chant started in the 1979 Olympics when the US played the Soviets, and I watched as they clicked on YouTube link after YouTube link of clips from different sporting events where they could hear the whole crowd chanting USA. They stumbled across the trailer for the movie “Miracle” and asked if it could be the movie we watch for the unit, and I said I would think about it. The groups who had Ireland and England, after listening to the songs on YouTube, looked up the lyrics to the on their own and wrote great responses to what they though the songs meant.
After about a half hour of this, it was time for the students to present. I asked the groups to close their laptops, and called each group one at a time. They were a little reluctant to speak in front of the class, but they didn’t challenge me or refuse like they would have months ago, and once they were presenting they had some really great things to say. The group who had Africa said they felt like keeping it in the native language kept it true to their culture, and the group who had England said the thought the words “England til I die” said that England was so proud of their nationality, that they would do anything for their country, even die. The boys who had been given USA chanted the USA cheer for the entire class, and enthusiastically talked about the “Miracle on Ice”.
With ten minutes of class left, I asked them to think about the fact that while all of the countries are very different culturally, sport is something that brings us all together, and that even though we may be competing for the same title, we all have this sense of national pride that binds us.
The clinical faculty member and I had a meeting after class and he said that he was happy to see I had taken a risk, and asked how I thought I did. I felt like the students had taught me so much about my own capabilities during this class, and that giving them a little more trust and responsibility also taught me more about their capabilities and how far they had come. He also said I have the natural ability to connect with the students on a personal level, and that I should always use that to my advantage. It really felt good to see that he acknowledged that I took his advice at our last meeting before the holiday, and it also felt good to see that taking his advice really payed off, not only for my students, but for myself as well.
I was so proud of my class that I went to the video store and picked up “Miracle”. Before class this morning I told them that I was extremely happy with the way they handled the lesson yesterday, and how far they had come. When I pulled out the movie the whole class began to cheer, and a few of the Aussie boys started the "USA" chant. Today we watched the first half of the movie, and tomorrow we will finish the movie and begin discussing what it means to “represent” your country, and sports jargon. I am hoping they continue to show me during my last three weeks here how much they have improved, and how much they will continue to improve once I leave, because I for one know I will take everything they have taught me into my next teaching experience.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Tyler Clementi
As a teacher, this was something I felt compelled to write about.
What were you doing when you were 18 years old? I was a Freshmen at Plymouth State University, I had a boyfriend, and I was lucky enough to attend college with my best friend Becca, because when you’re 18 years old in college what could be better than going to college with your best friend? I couldn’t have asked for more. Every day first thing I would rush down the back stairwell, which reeked of booze and urine, but when you’re 18 in college you learn to wear flip flops everywhere. We would discuss the plans for the night, which involved being reckless at times, drinking because our parents weren’t around and we could finally get away with it, and dancing until the sun came up, and then we did it all over again the very next weekend. I studied, I did my homework, I made good grades, and I had a phenomenal time. I’m sure most students in the United States have stories which would be comparatively similar to mine, perhaps doing homework and making good grades could be substituted with other various non academic activities, but I feel safe in saying for most, college is fun, because when you’re 18 in college you learn that life is “too short NOT to have fun.”
True, life is short, and I am not 18 anymore, I am 22, and I am currently student teaching in Australia. Every day I am reminded that bullying is an international issue, and that when I decided to become a teacher, I wasn’t just deciding to teach kids how to structure sentences, what nouns and verbs are, and the difference between your and you’re. I decided to become a teacher because it gave me the opportunity to teach kids about society, morals, rights and wrongs, and about this thing called “life”. What I did not sign up to teach was how to destroy other people’s lives. I did not sign up to teach them to torment other students, how to be close minded, and how to completely forget that every human being, regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status, and sexuality, has parents, siblings, and friends, people that love, cherish, and respect them.
"Jumping off the GW bridge sorry”, was the facebook status 18 year old Tyler Clementi posted before committing suicide. The body of 18 year old Tyler Clementi was found by police, after jumping from the George Washington bridge because his roommate posted a video online of a sexual encounter Clementi had with another male. I feel as not only a teacher, but a human being, it is my job, all of our jobs, to consider how our behavior affects other people. Words are a powerful thing. We all have the power to say things and do things that could save somebody’s life, to make them feel wanted, cared for, and appreciated, but we also all have the power to say and do things that could end somebody’s life, to make them feel worthless. Our words and actions have the power to cause somebody else’s last words to be “Jumping off the GW bridge sorry.”
To all my fellow teachers, if you are reading this, remember that your students don’t often times wear their emotions on their sleeve. I was 18 years old once, and while life was fun, I had my struggles, we ALL did. If you hear bullying in your classroom, or in the halls, remember that your job doesn’t just involve teaching a subject, it involves teaching life skills, and one of the most important life skills is tolerance.
To my peers if you are reading this, please remember that we are all on this earth together and if we don’t work together, others will suffer. You can have your own view points, you don’t have to agree with other people’s life styles, but you also don’t have to be destructive. Anybody who has ever been a parent, daughter, son, friend, or sibling, remember that the people you come into contact with every day may also be a parent, daughter, son, friend, or sibling, and you do not have the right to take these people away from the ones that love them.
How often we forget that everything we do touches other people's lives, in both positive and negative ways. Life is so short, that while we are busy living our lives today, somebody else's life may have become a yesterday. So, today, take a moment and think about somebody other than yourself. Think about Tyler and the life he will never get to live because of this hideous cruelty. My heart goes out to the Clementi family and friends.
MTV Article:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1649057/20100930/story.jhtml?xrs=share_fb
Friday, October 1, 2010
Holiday and "Christmas" are NOT the same thing.
This will be a moderately pointless post with no educational relativity.
I am on holidays
That does not mean that Australia celebrates Christmas at a different time of the year just because the seasons are opposite.
It just means I am on what we like to call “vaca”.
That does not mean that Australia celebrates Christmas at a different time of the year just because the seasons are opposite.
It just means I am on what we like to call “vaca”.
Every day I take one of the several buses than run through Kotara, a suburb in Newcastle. The bus rides are always interesting. Let me paint you a picture of what a ride on a Newcastle city bus is like. Depending on the bus you take, you become familiar with some interesting characters. Two men in particular get on a few times a week when I am riding home from work. They both wear their hair long, greasy, and uncombed, one always wears his in a ponytail and the other lets his hang down his back. They are short, one is old, both reek of booze and body odor, and they always sit in the back. Once they’ve taken their seats at the back half of the bus, they wait until the bus stops at Westfield mall to begin their useless chatter about the length of the school girls skirts. I only catch these conversations on days that my ipod has died before the end of the bus trip, and lucky for me, this is when I press the "bus stopping" button, and usually where I get off.
I always wear my ipod on the bus. Let me rephrase that, I always wear my ipod, full stop. I’ve become moronically dependent on to the point where at times, I will get absolutely nothing done if I don’t have music. I lose myself in music. Music allows me to become a genius multi-tasker, but the moment someone starts speaking to me, a human voice with no harmony, especially one that nags or questions or talks to him or herself next to me, I lose focus. Many days at Newcastle High School when I have my free periods, I spend them in the teacher resource center in the library, because nobody goes there, it’s quiet, and I don’t feel antisocial or rude for wearing my ipod. On some level I think this allows me to be a more understanding teacher, because I get it. It’s hard to focus when the kid next to you is breathing heavy, cracking his gum, or clicking his pencil, and sometimes you just have to hear one song to feel complete.
My last few days on vacation have been calm, almost boring. I’m learning to accept being bored. I’ve always been a busy bee. I can come off incredibly laid back but to be honest, I will reduce myself to becoming a workaholic if I am given the opportunity. I like being busy. That being said, the last two months of student teaching, not getting paid, being in a foreign country, and having complete and utter independence, is mentally draining. I’m a fee bird, I like my independence, I like not knowing where I am going, not seeing faces I know, not having mom and dad around to help me, relying on common sense and survival skills, I like the feeling I get when I look in the mirror and acknowledge that I’ve made something out of myself, for myself, and by myself, but DAMN IT…I am exhausted. And not an accomplished, successful, good kind of exhausted, but rather a “bartender get me a tall drink” kind of exhausted. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel accomplished and successful, but I’m drained.
The last few days of holiday have been sincerely healthy on my brain. I didn’t mark anything, I didn’t read anything school related, I didn’t even look at my school bag, but I did manage to I spent an entire day in bed. Seriously, a whole day. I crawled out of bed to make tea, I ate yogurt for brekky, I watched 5 episodes of friends, listened to the new Sara Bareilles CD on repeat, wrote a few letters, and didn’t TOUCH my work. Other than that I have spent about 4 days at the beach, a mixture between alone time with my book and with friends, because the weather has been remarkable. One day crawled up to 79, and naturally I forgot that Australia is lacking ozone, and sunscreen. I’m sure you can guess how that ended.
Newcastle Beach takes my breath away. Many people our age cringe at Newcastle Beach, because it’s where all of the “Westies” go…or maybe it’s where the “derros” go, all of the colloquial language begins to blur together. Unarguably there are more spectacular beaches in Newcastle, but Newcastle Beach just represents a completely carefree time in my life when I was studying abroad, lived down the street, and was first finding my way around this city a year ago. Now, whenever things seem to get too hard or complex, and trust me as simple as I like to keep things complexities always seem to find me, going to Newcastle Beach brings me back to the mindset that everything can, and will be, simple again.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
"Sweet as"
Grading. Grading. Grading… (Or, if I’m going to be Aussie about it, “Marking. Marking. Marking.”) In the last two weeks I have marked roughly 60 school certificate exams, 25 year 9 Romeo and Juliet assessments, 25 year 10 vocabulary exams, and 25 year 10 written speech assessments, while lesson planning daily, attending faculty meetings/ parent teacher meetings, not getting paid, keeping up with student teaching work for back home, and your basic shower, get dressed, eat, breathe, sleep, scenario. I am HALF WAY through student teaching, exhausted, worn out, but somehow completely and genuinely happy. It’s a phenomenal feeling.
In the past few weeks I have been preparing my year 11 boys for their exams. During week eight and nine of the semester, all year 11 students go into an exam period, and these exams factor into their final grades. Each exam is quite extensive, and since this is the first year Newcastle High School has accepted the “English Studies” bottom level class as an option for students who don’t plan on continuing on to college, that also means there has never been an exam. I sat down with the assistant principal and we created the exam together, which I felt was a real honor because it is an exam that will be used in the future, and knowing they wanted my input seemed really special. We decided on three parts for the English exam, where in an exam setting they would utilise tools that I have been teaching them all term.
20 points Part a) they would be given 4 job advertisements, and they would have to pick one and write a formal, hand written cover letter, in correct format, addressing all the things that should be addressed in a cover letter.
20 points Part b) They would have to write a presentable speech for one of the movies that we have studied this term, and discuss it in terms of theme, plot, setting, character analysis, conflict, camera angles, special effects, etc.
10 points Part c) A multiple choice literary terminology test.
Last week being week eight, the year 11s began exam period, and this week being week nine, the year 11s will finish their exams. Before weeks eight and nine, each class period we practiced one part of the exam so that in the week leading up to the exam the student’s minds were fully refreshed on the material. I marked the speeches and the vocabulary, and I have to say that for a class who wouldn’t write a single sentence and couldn’t tell me that a “theme” was or what “drafting” meant, their exams looked pretty damn remarkable.
With my advanced year 10 class, I have been working with a unit on the media. It’s been a really fun unit to study, analyzing advertising, commercials, magazines, newspapers, word choice, audience, and all of the other aspects that come together to create the media. In class on Monday, I worked with quite a controversial lesson, and I was not sure how it would go over, but it turned out to be one of the most fun and interesting lessons I have taught so far. Religion is always a touchy subject, so when I was given an Australian show to look at about religion in the media, I cringed a little. The show was hysterical, and posed some really appealing questions and ideas, but I knew I had to find a way to make it less about religion and more about a tool to analyse.
Before even watching the show, I asked if anybody would be offended by the material. I never want to show anything that will be offensive. The show was not about religion being good or bad, it was about how companies have used religion to advertise products, but I still felt obligated to ask. All of the students seemed excited to watch the show, so I went on with the lesson. I had the students complete a work sheet while watching the television show, and I tried to make all of the questions, questions that could be open for discussion with no right or wrong answer, and I made sure before we discussed the answers to remind the students what we don’t have to agree, but we do have to respect each other’s feelings and opinions. The class handled the subject matter beautifully, debated, argued, and came to individual conclusions. The questions that seemed to spark the most interest in class discussion were, “Which do you think is more controversial, religion using advertising or advertising using religion, and why?” and “What do the members of the show think about scaring people into religion? Example: The gun advertisement”
For the question regarding religion using advertising, one student felt that it was more offending because not everybody believes in one religion so advertising it seems wrong. I asked the student to think about religion as a product for a moment. Not everybody uses the same kind of shampoo, but each brand has a right to advertise their name. The student looked at it from that angle, but still felt it was wrong to advertise religion because it is a personal matter. I absolutely loved that the student argued back and forth with me, and I made sure to remain objective. I only ask my students to think about the opposite end of the spectrum to help them think critically before making a decision, I never ask them to think about the opposite end to sway them into believing something that I believe. In this case, I didn’t even say my opinion, because they did not ask for it, and the lesson wasn’t about my opinion, it was about helping them form their own.
The second question referred to a religious commercial that involved a young boy pointing a gun at the screen. The words on the screen then implied that if you didn’t choose to follow God, then you would make wrong life decisions. The commercial was shocking, but my students really got into analysing it. They made the connection that they had only noticed religious commercials in times of struggle, for example war or extreme poverty or in economic crisis. I asked them why they thought this particular commercial would be aired in a time like that and they came back at me with the idea that people are more likely to follow what seems to be a solution when they are scared, so using a commercial that scares people would be more convincing. It was really nice having this kind of mature class discussion about a controversial topic where the students bounced more ideas off each other than they did off of me. Being the teacher, it was seriously cool to watch the students teaching themselves and teaching each other.
And lastly my year 9 class has been working with documentaries. I had an interesting experience with a boy in my year 9 class; we’ll call him “Marcus.” Marcus is a bright boy, but terribly insecure. He goes through moods where he hates the world, hates me, and hates his classmates, and on Monday, he was in one of those moods. We were on week two of the new documentary unit, and we had just completed a week of watching a documentary called “The Buried Life”. Every day the show was “gay”, and it was really starting to frustrate me. The buried life is a documentary about four boys in their twenties who set out across the country with a list of 100 things they want to do before they die, and for each thing they cross off on their list, they help a stranger accomplish something amazing. Everyone EXCEPT Marcus reacted quite positively, some of the students on their own even came up to me after class to show me their own personal bucket lists that they had started on their own.
The following week, which would have been this past Monday, we were starting “Bowling For Columbine.”
“Why do we even have to watch this crap, it happened like 10 years ago this is gay.” Marcus put his head down on the desk. I could tell it was going to be a “gay day” for Marcus, and on top of that, I was being observed this period.
“I’m sorry you feel that way Marcus, maybe after you understand it a little better you will change your mind, but for now can we pick a different adjective.” The class discussion started off wonderfully. Everyone seemed very engaged in the idea of America’s gun laws being so different than Australia’s gun laws. In Australia, unless you have an occupation that requires you to legally have a gun, you cannot own one. After this law was enforced, everyone in New South Whales was required to turn their guns in.
The class discussion turned the Columbine High School Massacre.
“Why do you think it was so easy for these boys to get hold of these weapons?” I asked
“Because everyone is gay.” Marcus remarked. I ignored his rude comment and decided to pick my battles, and not waste my time giving this person the attention he was seeking when I had 25 other students in my class with thoughtful answers.
“Before watching the film, let’s discuss some possible motives for this kind of action, and after we watch some of the documentary we can see how we feel. Why do you think something like this could happen in a high school?”
“Because they’re gay.”
“Enough,” I said. Marcus laughed, and not just a giggle, he tossed his head back and cracked up. The person observing me looked up from taking notes. Did this boy really just laugh in my face? I thought. “Marcus,” I said very calmly “It disturbs me that when someone tells you that you’ve done something to upset them, that you laugh at them. It’s not very polite, especially in regards to the subject. Before you start laughing, I want you to just for a moment think about how it would feel to have 15 of your mates killed, and then tell me if it’s funny.” He didn’t say anything, and suddenly looked quite sad. “Is it still funny?”
“No Miss.”
“Okay then, let’s keep going with the lesson.” I picked up with the class discussion and then we watched 20 minutes of the documentary.
Marcus has also recently been suspended, and the school has put him on a restriction book, where each teacher has to mark a check if they have completed the task successfully and an X if they did not. For example, in this period I marked a check for attendance, but an X for respect. After class while I was filling out his book, I asked if could chat with him.
“I really like having you in class. I understand everyone has bad days, and if something else is going on and you want to talk about it I’m here, but you can’t be rude and offensive. I’ve asked you several times not to use the word gay, and you actually really offended me today because the subject matter is something very serious that happened to my country.
“I’m sorry miss, I had a really bad night, I got back from Sydney with my family at like 2 in the morning and had to catch the ferry at 6 and the bus at 7:30. I’m just really tired and cranky.”
“Ok, go home and rest. Try to come in tomorrow with a better attitude.”
The next day Marcus came in with a smile on his face and told me he went to bed extra early. I could tell Marcus was trying to make a conscious effort in class, participating without me even asking him to. After class I was happy to mark all checks in his book and told him I was much happier with him today.
I was at first worried that I had not handled it properly, because my evaluator wanted to speak with me after class to give me feed back, but he said I had far more patience than he would have, and it would have taken all of his power to not scream at the kid and kick him out of class. One thing I really try to remember with students is that they have bad days just like I do, the only difference is, as a teacher I have to try a little harder to not bring my bad day into the classroom. It’s harder for a 14 or 15 year old to do this, and sometimes they are going to come in and be cranky and I just have to remember it probably has nothing to do with me. I’ve also realized that aside from attempting to see my student’s bad days from their point of view, in MOST scenarios, if you explain to a student WHY their behaviour is inappropriate and offensive, instead of just telling them to stop and leaving it at that, they are more likely to see things from my point of view also.
So, with all of that being said, I feel completely content, comfortable, and as I said HAPPY with my life here in Australia and my work at Newcastle High School. I am eagerly looking forward to my last half of my trip here, and hopefully I will be successful and make everyone back home proud. This really is turning out to be an astonishing experience, and every day I find myself growing a little bit more.
As the Aussies would say, everything is "sweet as"
I’ll write again soon, school vacation is coming up and I’m sure I’ll be a busy bee over the holiday, but for now I have to prepare for the parent teacher meetings I will be attending tonight.
~Carley B
In the past few weeks I have been preparing my year 11 boys for their exams. During week eight and nine of the semester, all year 11 students go into an exam period, and these exams factor into their final grades. Each exam is quite extensive, and since this is the first year Newcastle High School has accepted the “English Studies” bottom level class as an option for students who don’t plan on continuing on to college, that also means there has never been an exam. I sat down with the assistant principal and we created the exam together, which I felt was a real honor because it is an exam that will be used in the future, and knowing they wanted my input seemed really special. We decided on three parts for the English exam, where in an exam setting they would utilise tools that I have been teaching them all term.
20 points Part a) they would be given 4 job advertisements, and they would have to pick one and write a formal, hand written cover letter, in correct format, addressing all the things that should be addressed in a cover letter.
20 points Part b) They would have to write a presentable speech for one of the movies that we have studied this term, and discuss it in terms of theme, plot, setting, character analysis, conflict, camera angles, special effects, etc.
10 points Part c) A multiple choice literary terminology test.
Last week being week eight, the year 11s began exam period, and this week being week nine, the year 11s will finish their exams. Before weeks eight and nine, each class period we practiced one part of the exam so that in the week leading up to the exam the student’s minds were fully refreshed on the material. I marked the speeches and the vocabulary, and I have to say that for a class who wouldn’t write a single sentence and couldn’t tell me that a “theme” was or what “drafting” meant, their exams looked pretty damn remarkable.
With my advanced year 10 class, I have been working with a unit on the media. It’s been a really fun unit to study, analyzing advertising, commercials, magazines, newspapers, word choice, audience, and all of the other aspects that come together to create the media. In class on Monday, I worked with quite a controversial lesson, and I was not sure how it would go over, but it turned out to be one of the most fun and interesting lessons I have taught so far. Religion is always a touchy subject, so when I was given an Australian show to look at about religion in the media, I cringed a little. The show was hysterical, and posed some really appealing questions and ideas, but I knew I had to find a way to make it less about religion and more about a tool to analyse.
Before even watching the show, I asked if anybody would be offended by the material. I never want to show anything that will be offensive. The show was not about religion being good or bad, it was about how companies have used religion to advertise products, but I still felt obligated to ask. All of the students seemed excited to watch the show, so I went on with the lesson. I had the students complete a work sheet while watching the television show, and I tried to make all of the questions, questions that could be open for discussion with no right or wrong answer, and I made sure before we discussed the answers to remind the students what we don’t have to agree, but we do have to respect each other’s feelings and opinions. The class handled the subject matter beautifully, debated, argued, and came to individual conclusions. The questions that seemed to spark the most interest in class discussion were, “Which do you think is more controversial, religion using advertising or advertising using religion, and why?” and “What do the members of the show think about scaring people into religion? Example: The gun advertisement”
For the question regarding religion using advertising, one student felt that it was more offending because not everybody believes in one religion so advertising it seems wrong. I asked the student to think about religion as a product for a moment. Not everybody uses the same kind of shampoo, but each brand has a right to advertise their name. The student looked at it from that angle, but still felt it was wrong to advertise religion because it is a personal matter. I absolutely loved that the student argued back and forth with me, and I made sure to remain objective. I only ask my students to think about the opposite end of the spectrum to help them think critically before making a decision, I never ask them to think about the opposite end to sway them into believing something that I believe. In this case, I didn’t even say my opinion, because they did not ask for it, and the lesson wasn’t about my opinion, it was about helping them form their own.
The second question referred to a religious commercial that involved a young boy pointing a gun at the screen. The words on the screen then implied that if you didn’t choose to follow God, then you would make wrong life decisions. The commercial was shocking, but my students really got into analysing it. They made the connection that they had only noticed religious commercials in times of struggle, for example war or extreme poverty or in economic crisis. I asked them why they thought this particular commercial would be aired in a time like that and they came back at me with the idea that people are more likely to follow what seems to be a solution when they are scared, so using a commercial that scares people would be more convincing. It was really nice having this kind of mature class discussion about a controversial topic where the students bounced more ideas off each other than they did off of me. Being the teacher, it was seriously cool to watch the students teaching themselves and teaching each other.
And lastly my year 9 class has been working with documentaries. I had an interesting experience with a boy in my year 9 class; we’ll call him “Marcus.” Marcus is a bright boy, but terribly insecure. He goes through moods where he hates the world, hates me, and hates his classmates, and on Monday, he was in one of those moods. We were on week two of the new documentary unit, and we had just completed a week of watching a documentary called “The Buried Life”. Every day the show was “gay”, and it was really starting to frustrate me. The buried life is a documentary about four boys in their twenties who set out across the country with a list of 100 things they want to do before they die, and for each thing they cross off on their list, they help a stranger accomplish something amazing. Everyone EXCEPT Marcus reacted quite positively, some of the students on their own even came up to me after class to show me their own personal bucket lists that they had started on their own.
The following week, which would have been this past Monday, we were starting “Bowling For Columbine.”
“Why do we even have to watch this crap, it happened like 10 years ago this is gay.” Marcus put his head down on the desk. I could tell it was going to be a “gay day” for Marcus, and on top of that, I was being observed this period.
“I’m sorry you feel that way Marcus, maybe after you understand it a little better you will change your mind, but for now can we pick a different adjective.” The class discussion started off wonderfully. Everyone seemed very engaged in the idea of America’s gun laws being so different than Australia’s gun laws. In Australia, unless you have an occupation that requires you to legally have a gun, you cannot own one. After this law was enforced, everyone in New South Whales was required to turn their guns in.
The class discussion turned the Columbine High School Massacre.
“Why do you think it was so easy for these boys to get hold of these weapons?” I asked
“Because everyone is gay.” Marcus remarked. I ignored his rude comment and decided to pick my battles, and not waste my time giving this person the attention he was seeking when I had 25 other students in my class with thoughtful answers.
“Before watching the film, let’s discuss some possible motives for this kind of action, and after we watch some of the documentary we can see how we feel. Why do you think something like this could happen in a high school?”
“Because they’re gay.”
“Enough,” I said. Marcus laughed, and not just a giggle, he tossed his head back and cracked up. The person observing me looked up from taking notes. Did this boy really just laugh in my face? I thought. “Marcus,” I said very calmly “It disturbs me that when someone tells you that you’ve done something to upset them, that you laugh at them. It’s not very polite, especially in regards to the subject. Before you start laughing, I want you to just for a moment think about how it would feel to have 15 of your mates killed, and then tell me if it’s funny.” He didn’t say anything, and suddenly looked quite sad. “Is it still funny?”
“No Miss.”
“Okay then, let’s keep going with the lesson.” I picked up with the class discussion and then we watched 20 minutes of the documentary.
Marcus has also recently been suspended, and the school has put him on a restriction book, where each teacher has to mark a check if they have completed the task successfully and an X if they did not. For example, in this period I marked a check for attendance, but an X for respect. After class while I was filling out his book, I asked if could chat with him.
“I really like having you in class. I understand everyone has bad days, and if something else is going on and you want to talk about it I’m here, but you can’t be rude and offensive. I’ve asked you several times not to use the word gay, and you actually really offended me today because the subject matter is something very serious that happened to my country.
“I’m sorry miss, I had a really bad night, I got back from Sydney with my family at like 2 in the morning and had to catch the ferry at 6 and the bus at 7:30. I’m just really tired and cranky.”
“Ok, go home and rest. Try to come in tomorrow with a better attitude.”
The next day Marcus came in with a smile on his face and told me he went to bed extra early. I could tell Marcus was trying to make a conscious effort in class, participating without me even asking him to. After class I was happy to mark all checks in his book and told him I was much happier with him today.
I was at first worried that I had not handled it properly, because my evaluator wanted to speak with me after class to give me feed back, but he said I had far more patience than he would have, and it would have taken all of his power to not scream at the kid and kick him out of class. One thing I really try to remember with students is that they have bad days just like I do, the only difference is, as a teacher I have to try a little harder to not bring my bad day into the classroom. It’s harder for a 14 or 15 year old to do this, and sometimes they are going to come in and be cranky and I just have to remember it probably has nothing to do with me. I’ve also realized that aside from attempting to see my student’s bad days from their point of view, in MOST scenarios, if you explain to a student WHY their behaviour is inappropriate and offensive, instead of just telling them to stop and leaving it at that, they are more likely to see things from my point of view also.
So, with all of that being said, I feel completely content, comfortable, and as I said HAPPY with my life here in Australia and my work at Newcastle High School. I am eagerly looking forward to my last half of my trip here, and hopefully I will be successful and make everyone back home proud. This really is turning out to be an astonishing experience, and every day I find myself growing a little bit more.
As the Aussies would say, everything is "sweet as"
I’ll write again soon, school vacation is coming up and I’m sure I’ll be a busy bee over the holiday, but for now I have to prepare for the parent teacher meetings I will be attending tonight.
~Carley B
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
What do I make?
This man sums up every reason why I became an English teacher.
He says the problem with teachers is
What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life
was to become a teacher?
He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true
what they say about teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite conversation.
I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor.
Be honest. What do you make?
And I wish he hadn’t done that, asked me to be honest
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time
with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question, so put your hand down.
Why won’t I let you go to the bathroom?
Because you’re bored.
And you don’t really have to go to the bathroom, do you?
You want to know what I make?
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home around dinner time
Hi. This is Mr. Mali. I hope I haven’t called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something your son said today.
he said, “Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?”
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder,
I make them question,
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful
over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math
and hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand if you’ve got this [ points to brain]
Then you follow this [points to heart],
and if someone ever tries to judge you
based on what you make, you give them this [puts middle finger in the air]
Here, let me break it down for you [Brings middle finger down]
So you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! Now what about you
He says the problem with teachers is
What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life
was to become a teacher?
He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true
what they say about teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.
Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite conversation.
I mean, you’re a teacher, Taylor.
Be honest. What do you make?
And I wish he hadn’t done that, asked me to be honest
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time
with anything less than your very best.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question, so put your hand down.
Why won’t I let you go to the bathroom?
Because you’re bored.
And you don’t really have to go to the bathroom, do you?
You want to know what I make?
I make parents tremble in fear when I call home around dinner time
Hi. This is Mr. Mali. I hope I haven’t called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something your son said today.
he said, “Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?”
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.
I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder,
I make them question,
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful
over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math
and hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand if you’ve got this [ points to brain]
Then you follow this [points to heart],
and if someone ever tries to judge you
based on what you make, you give them this [puts middle finger in the air]
Here, let me break it down for you [Brings middle finger down]
So you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! Now what about you
Friday, August 27, 2010
long overdue
Part of learning to become an adult means learning to face different challenges, and as I’ve stated while more often than not we have the opportunity to celebrate the mighty triumphs, life also presents us with a number of potholes along the way. You can dodge them, maneuver around them, hit them at 100 miles per hour in hopes of speeding right over them, but eventually we all end up with a flat tire at some stage. You can either ride with a flat tire and pray that your wheels don’t fly off, OR you can change the flat and continue in life with a brand new set of wheels. That being said, here I am changing my flat.
Newcastle High School has offered me a job placement for a year. I am not even half way through my practice teaching and it’s come as one of the biggest shocks and most wonderful compliments I’ve ever received. However, when I stop and really reflect on my needs, I know my need for adventure and perhaps even a bit of rebellion has been met, and my passion for teaching still remains. The comfort of knowing my passion for teaching still burns as brightly as before regardless of where I choose to do it is a relief, and I know deep down in my heart that although my love for Australia may have previously exceeded many desires, being away from home has made me appreciate home perhaps a little more. That’s not to say I don’t passionately adore this country to my very core, because I do, and these last 2 months and the next two months to come have pushed me so far out of my comfort zone and into a world of accomplishments I never dreamed of being capable of, but sometimes it’s human to just want to be comfortable with the familiar. Until then, I’ll see if I can get everyone up to base with my life and work.
A week ago during fourth period with my 11th graders, I stood at the board with my back to the class, writing out the plan for the next week or two leading up to the student’s exam period. As I turned around I noticed a little beam of light coming from the right hand corner of the classroom and then it dawned on me that a 17 year old boy was actually filming me.
“Miss looking good today” the boy filming me on his phone called out
“Yeah Miss, next time it would be sexier if you wore heels with that skirt.”
“Yeah miss, and you have a run in your stocking, it looks good though leave it.” I did have a hole in my stocking, a small one right on my knee cap. As one by one my year 11 boys began to make comments on my body and outfit(which was a below the knees black skirt, black stockings, a blue button up polo, and a black blazer...I assure you nothing provocative) I turned around, walked over to my desk, and sat down. I took the camera phone from the boy who had been taping me and said “This is unacceptable behavior. I am a professional, I work very hard for you guys, and you are treating me with more disrespect than I have ever been treated in my life. For the rest of the class period, we will sit here in silence. If you want to leave, I won’t stop you. I won’t even report you. I’m done for the day.” Nobody left, and we sat in silence.
That evening a staff member called me to see if I was okay, and I was. I was just frustrated. I felt like a joke. A bunch of 17 year old boys had not only been harassing me during class period, but it was the group of boys I’ve been working so hard for, and my feelings were not hurt, but I felt like they had completely insulted my intelligence.
The next day I walked into class and waited at my desk for the boys to come boisterously pouring into the room as they usually did, but one by one they came in and took their seats. I stood up in front of the board, shoulders back, head high, and began speaking.
“If I am going to work this hard to make sure you all pass your assessments, we need to set a few ground rules. What happened yesterday was sexual harassment, and I will NOT tolerate it. I have already passed high school English, I have already graduated from college, and I do NOT need to put up with that kind of disrespect. You are not here to comment on my body, you are not here to comment on my clothing, and you are not here to video tape me or ask for my phone number. You are here to learn, and I am here to teach you, and there will be zero tolerance for any other type of behavior. Do you all understand?”
The boys all nodded, and I began the lesson.
I want the boys to start thinking about their lives more deeply. They are more than bodies in seats, and while some of you may think I am absolutely crazy to want to hear anything they have to say after being treated that way, I am still here to do my job and I will do it to the fullest. I wrote the words “what is your biggest fear” and “what is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in life” on the board and gave the boys 30 minutes to free write. Many of them have never been given a writing prompt before, and many of them didn’t even know what free writing was, but many of them wrote their hearts on the paper. One boy wrote about losing his aunt who had only been given a short time to live, another wrote about being scared of not being a good boyfriend and husband some day and always wanting to be there for the person he loved. Another boy wrote about bees, but he wrote about bees in a way that was comical, yet made everyone listening shiver at the sting of a bee. It was a wonderful follow up to the previous shaky class.
I took their class notebooks home with me that night and read them, making comments where I thought they could elaborate and noting grammar and spelling errors. The next day we worked on revision because again, most of these boys have been asked to hand in paragraphs instead of papers, been given a pass or fail, and the boys have never done anything further with their writing, perhaps because nobody ever thought they had anything worth writing about. I didn’t expect the boys to be interested in rewriting and editing their own work, but sure enough after I went through what revising and editing meant, almost every hand shot up for help, and the more they revised their own work, the more they sought my approval that they were doing a good job. I gave them the feedback I felt they needed and deserved and a few of the boys even said they really liked revising their own creative writing and they hoped we would get to do more of it.
There have definitely been struggles, they say your student teaching year is one of your hardest years of teaching, and being here alone means I often times have to encourage and support myself. It has been a long and tumultuous week or two, reliving the day my brother died, followed by my dog being put down, some discouragements at the school, and even personal difficulties occurring in my life, have all seemed troubling. Just when support seems like all I need, I realize I may be a little more alone than I thought I was.
I know that sometimes we think that by being heroes and doing what seems to be “the right thing” it logistically should make everything easier, but in doing so what we forget is often times what is comfortable and familiar IS exactly what we need. Whether that’s two arms thrown around you from the person you care about, encouraging words from a parent, funny video clips from a friend, or a job offer that makes you realize that home really is where the heart is, even if it scares us, we fight back against what we know to be comfortable, against all reason, because we're scared settling. I know at the end of all of this my growth, development, and leaps and bounds I will have made will be all worth it, and I will be ready to return to the United States confidently with a smile on my face, a fire in my heart, and a new set of tires.
After bending over backwards, a number of my lunch times given up, and my breaks spent working on trying to get disorganized students re focused, the final assessments in my year 11 class have all been handed in to me and the results are astounding. A boy who has never handed in a single assessment and just returned from suspension came and saw me at lunch on Thursday, and we worked through his assessment together piece by piece. He also told me that my class is the only class he doesn't "wopp" (an Aussie term for skipping class) and that I'm the only one who has ever made him feel like he could do something.
I also realized one of the main offenders who had been giving me a hard time, was struggling with his writing, and couldn't figure out what his greatest lesson in life was. Finally he figured out that his greatest lesson was to be a hard worker, because it taught him things other than just making money. When I asked him what kinds of other things he said "I don't know miss, like you have a lot of patience for teaching this class. We're hard. Nobody else would do this for us." He later apologized for acting the way he had last Friday, and we moved on from there, because I still believe in him.
Sometimes when people push you away, like my students for example, it's only because they've never really had anyone go to that length and effort to show them they are cared about. All you can really do is be there for people and hope they will also be there for you. Sometimes they might fight against you like my students did, but at some point they'll realize that you might actually be the one they need to get through it all.
Newcastle High School has offered me a job placement for a year. I am not even half way through my practice teaching and it’s come as one of the biggest shocks and most wonderful compliments I’ve ever received. However, when I stop and really reflect on my needs, I know my need for adventure and perhaps even a bit of rebellion has been met, and my passion for teaching still remains. The comfort of knowing my passion for teaching still burns as brightly as before regardless of where I choose to do it is a relief, and I know deep down in my heart that although my love for Australia may have previously exceeded many desires, being away from home has made me appreciate home perhaps a little more. That’s not to say I don’t passionately adore this country to my very core, because I do, and these last 2 months and the next two months to come have pushed me so far out of my comfort zone and into a world of accomplishments I never dreamed of being capable of, but sometimes it’s human to just want to be comfortable with the familiar. Until then, I’ll see if I can get everyone up to base with my life and work.
A week ago during fourth period with my 11th graders, I stood at the board with my back to the class, writing out the plan for the next week or two leading up to the student’s exam period. As I turned around I noticed a little beam of light coming from the right hand corner of the classroom and then it dawned on me that a 17 year old boy was actually filming me.
“Miss looking good today” the boy filming me on his phone called out
“Yeah Miss, next time it would be sexier if you wore heels with that skirt.”
“Yeah miss, and you have a run in your stocking, it looks good though leave it.” I did have a hole in my stocking, a small one right on my knee cap. As one by one my year 11 boys began to make comments on my body and outfit(which was a below the knees black skirt, black stockings, a blue button up polo, and a black blazer...I assure you nothing provocative) I turned around, walked over to my desk, and sat down. I took the camera phone from the boy who had been taping me and said “This is unacceptable behavior. I am a professional, I work very hard for you guys, and you are treating me with more disrespect than I have ever been treated in my life. For the rest of the class period, we will sit here in silence. If you want to leave, I won’t stop you. I won’t even report you. I’m done for the day.” Nobody left, and we sat in silence.
That evening a staff member called me to see if I was okay, and I was. I was just frustrated. I felt like a joke. A bunch of 17 year old boys had not only been harassing me during class period, but it was the group of boys I’ve been working so hard for, and my feelings were not hurt, but I felt like they had completely insulted my intelligence.
The next day I walked into class and waited at my desk for the boys to come boisterously pouring into the room as they usually did, but one by one they came in and took their seats. I stood up in front of the board, shoulders back, head high, and began speaking.
“If I am going to work this hard to make sure you all pass your assessments, we need to set a few ground rules. What happened yesterday was sexual harassment, and I will NOT tolerate it. I have already passed high school English, I have already graduated from college, and I do NOT need to put up with that kind of disrespect. You are not here to comment on my body, you are not here to comment on my clothing, and you are not here to video tape me or ask for my phone number. You are here to learn, and I am here to teach you, and there will be zero tolerance for any other type of behavior. Do you all understand?”
The boys all nodded, and I began the lesson.
I want the boys to start thinking about their lives more deeply. They are more than bodies in seats, and while some of you may think I am absolutely crazy to want to hear anything they have to say after being treated that way, I am still here to do my job and I will do it to the fullest. I wrote the words “what is your biggest fear” and “what is the greatest lesson you’ve learned in life” on the board and gave the boys 30 minutes to free write. Many of them have never been given a writing prompt before, and many of them didn’t even know what free writing was, but many of them wrote their hearts on the paper. One boy wrote about losing his aunt who had only been given a short time to live, another wrote about being scared of not being a good boyfriend and husband some day and always wanting to be there for the person he loved. Another boy wrote about bees, but he wrote about bees in a way that was comical, yet made everyone listening shiver at the sting of a bee. It was a wonderful follow up to the previous shaky class.
I took their class notebooks home with me that night and read them, making comments where I thought they could elaborate and noting grammar and spelling errors. The next day we worked on revision because again, most of these boys have been asked to hand in paragraphs instead of papers, been given a pass or fail, and the boys have never done anything further with their writing, perhaps because nobody ever thought they had anything worth writing about. I didn’t expect the boys to be interested in rewriting and editing their own work, but sure enough after I went through what revising and editing meant, almost every hand shot up for help, and the more they revised their own work, the more they sought my approval that they were doing a good job. I gave them the feedback I felt they needed and deserved and a few of the boys even said they really liked revising their own creative writing and they hoped we would get to do more of it.
There have definitely been struggles, they say your student teaching year is one of your hardest years of teaching, and being here alone means I often times have to encourage and support myself. It has been a long and tumultuous week or two, reliving the day my brother died, followed by my dog being put down, some discouragements at the school, and even personal difficulties occurring in my life, have all seemed troubling. Just when support seems like all I need, I realize I may be a little more alone than I thought I was.
I know that sometimes we think that by being heroes and doing what seems to be “the right thing” it logistically should make everything easier, but in doing so what we forget is often times what is comfortable and familiar IS exactly what we need. Whether that’s two arms thrown around you from the person you care about, encouraging words from a parent, funny video clips from a friend, or a job offer that makes you realize that home really is where the heart is, even if it scares us, we fight back against what we know to be comfortable, against all reason, because we're scared settling. I know at the end of all of this my growth, development, and leaps and bounds I will have made will be all worth it, and I will be ready to return to the United States confidently with a smile on my face, a fire in my heart, and a new set of tires.
After bending over backwards, a number of my lunch times given up, and my breaks spent working on trying to get disorganized students re focused, the final assessments in my year 11 class have all been handed in to me and the results are astounding. A boy who has never handed in a single assessment and just returned from suspension came and saw me at lunch on Thursday, and we worked through his assessment together piece by piece. He also told me that my class is the only class he doesn't "wopp" (an Aussie term for skipping class) and that I'm the only one who has ever made him feel like he could do something.
I also realized one of the main offenders who had been giving me a hard time, was struggling with his writing, and couldn't figure out what his greatest lesson in life was. Finally he figured out that his greatest lesson was to be a hard worker, because it taught him things other than just making money. When I asked him what kinds of other things he said "I don't know miss, like you have a lot of patience for teaching this class. We're hard. Nobody else would do this for us." He later apologized for acting the way he had last Friday, and we moved on from there, because I still believe in him.
Sometimes when people push you away, like my students for example, it's only because they've never really had anyone go to that length and effort to show them they are cared about. All you can really do is be there for people and hope they will also be there for you. Sometimes they might fight against you like my students did, but at some point they'll realize that you might actually be the one they need to get through it all.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Kryptonite
Teaching can be full of mighty triumphs, though what I may consider to be a mighty triumph, some may consider being pitiable examples of daily expectations. The tragedy to teaching is, you can think you’re getting through to somebody, and they can end up being a bag of charm with no intentions of following through. You can literally bend over backwards and they’ll turn around and pull the carpet right out from underneath you. Teaching has forced me into becoming this superhuman capable of putting up with extreme amounts of what used to be my kryptonite: bullshit.
It used to be that if somebody was bullshitting me, I would just turn my back on them, because I’ve never been able to deal with dishonesty. Playing games is not on my resume. Being a teacher has made me immune to this evil type of social interaction, because let’s face it, kids bullshit, A LOT. I did it all the time. Example:
Dad: Carley did you finish your homework?
Carley: Uh huh.
Consciously, I knew I had been on instant messenger for the past two hours, inhibiting me from doing my homework.
Dad: Carley, if you don’t pass in your assignments I’m turning the internet off for the whole summer
Carley: I did.
After 5 months of missing assignments, I was still furious with my dad when he turned off the internet for the summer, and the brilliant thing was IT WAS HIS FAULT my internet was turned off, not because I didn’t hand in my assignments, but because he was in control of the internet cord.
I think I've caught onto the fact that kids have a set vocabulary for assignment related conversation: “Uh huh” “I understand” “I will” “Don’t worry” “Yup” “Okay” “I promise”
Scenario:
Identical twins in my class “Allan” and “Jimmy”, whom I’ve mentioned before, have quite the repertoire of suspensions, police run ins, and missing assignments, and the school has decided that it has had enough of their “bullshit.” Letters were sent home to their parents, signed, and returned to class on Tuesday. The remarkable thing about “Allan” and “Jimmy” is that these boys are sharp, witty, and likable characters, they’re just lazy and a bit manipulative. All week during class we have been working on final assessments for the film unit we are currently on. I have given the entire class multiple chances to work on their assessments in the computer lab where I can help them individually and answer specific questions. Last Friday, I noticed the twins struggling so I pulled a chair up between them. After 80 minutes of struggling, I had successfully gotten the twins to type a paragraph each. “Jimmy” and “Allan” both had 6 substantial, thoughtful, original sentences which made up the introductory “recap” of the film before they write the next 3 paragraphs of their film reviews. I’ve never been fantastic at math, but that’s roughly 13 minutes per sentence. If it took the boys 13 minutes to SAY every sentence on a daily basis, particularly during my class, they would spend a majority of the class in silence. However, they were so proud of themselves and I was proud of them as well, and in my eyes it was a mighty victory.
However, they came into class 4 days later with glum faces and notices from the office. They asked if they could speak to me and I told them to each pull up a chair while the rest of the class worked on their assessments. The first thing they told me was that they didn’t understand what they were supposed to do.
“Boys, you didn’t do your work, it’s as simple as that.”
“Yes miss but…we don’t know what we have to make up!”
“Do you boys even WANT to pass? Because I want you to pass, but you have to want to.”
“Yes miss!” They both said eagerly and simultaneously the way twins do.
“Look boys,” I began “I’m going to be 100% honest with you, because I think you’re both very smart and very capable, but you’re both very lazy, and very good at not encouraging each other to get work done. From what I understand one of you is BARELY passing, and one of you is failing. I will do whatever is humanly possible to help you pass, but I need you boys to step up to bat. I won’t do the work for you but I’ll work WITH you,”
here comes the set list of vocabulary...brace yourself
“Am I being clear?” I asked after my pregame speech was over.
“Yup!” One of the twins answered.
“Can you two come in for lunch on Thursday?”
“We will.” The other replied.
“Okay, come see me in the faculty room and we’ll start getting you caught up.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t disappoint me, I’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t worry” One replied
“We promise” the other added.
Today was Thursday.
I waited for 10 minutes.
The twins never showed up.
My brain said wait longer but my stomach said feed me, so I let a fellow intern know where I was going and if the twins happen to stop by to tell them to wait in the computer lab for me. Walking back from the canteen where all the students eat, I heard familiar voices chiming out my name.
“You look very nice today miss!” The twins were standing with 5 or 6 other boys from my year 11 class, one nonchalantly sitting hunched over his meal and the other standing.
“I thought we had a deal?” I asked
“What deal?” Jimmy let out a Cheshire cat grin. Allan laughed. All the boys at the table laughed.
“You were supposed to come see me.”
“Aw Miss, you can see us now, here we are!” Allan added.
“Not today boys.” I smiled, and walked away.
When I returned to the staff room my fellow intern told me the twins never stopped by.
“Of course they didn’t I just saw them on the canteen.” I laughed.
Now the human Carley would have grabbed onto her pride for dear life in frustration and said “Make ME look stupid? Keep ME waiting? I don’t think so! You’re on your own.” But with this new found tolerance to kryptonite (aka bullshit) I find myself suddenly having a rapidly developed amount of patience, which somehow keeps me from pulling my hair out or giving up. I’m not looking for a palpable ‘white American girl from wealthy town comes to save lower socioeconomic “below standard” English students’ storyline, but I just believe I’m both persistent and clever enough to get through to these guys, even if it means making them so sick of me that they do their work just to get me to shut up, but when (not if) the twins pass, I will add it to my list of mighty triumphs.
That’s all for now
Stay tuned
~Carley B
It used to be that if somebody was bullshitting me, I would just turn my back on them, because I’ve never been able to deal with dishonesty. Playing games is not on my resume. Being a teacher has made me immune to this evil type of social interaction, because let’s face it, kids bullshit, A LOT. I did it all the time. Example:
Dad: Carley did you finish your homework?
Carley: Uh huh.
Consciously, I knew I had been on instant messenger for the past two hours, inhibiting me from doing my homework.
Dad: Carley, if you don’t pass in your assignments I’m turning the internet off for the whole summer
Carley: I did.
After 5 months of missing assignments, I was still furious with my dad when he turned off the internet for the summer, and the brilliant thing was IT WAS HIS FAULT my internet was turned off, not because I didn’t hand in my assignments, but because he was in control of the internet cord.
I think I've caught onto the fact that kids have a set vocabulary for assignment related conversation: “Uh huh” “I understand” “I will” “Don’t worry” “Yup” “Okay” “I promise”
Scenario:
Identical twins in my class “Allan” and “Jimmy”, whom I’ve mentioned before, have quite the repertoire of suspensions, police run ins, and missing assignments, and the school has decided that it has had enough of their “bullshit.” Letters were sent home to their parents, signed, and returned to class on Tuesday. The remarkable thing about “Allan” and “Jimmy” is that these boys are sharp, witty, and likable characters, they’re just lazy and a bit manipulative. All week during class we have been working on final assessments for the film unit we are currently on. I have given the entire class multiple chances to work on their assessments in the computer lab where I can help them individually and answer specific questions. Last Friday, I noticed the twins struggling so I pulled a chair up between them. After 80 minutes of struggling, I had successfully gotten the twins to type a paragraph each. “Jimmy” and “Allan” both had 6 substantial, thoughtful, original sentences which made up the introductory “recap” of the film before they write the next 3 paragraphs of their film reviews. I’ve never been fantastic at math, but that’s roughly 13 minutes per sentence. If it took the boys 13 minutes to SAY every sentence on a daily basis, particularly during my class, they would spend a majority of the class in silence. However, they were so proud of themselves and I was proud of them as well, and in my eyes it was a mighty victory.
However, they came into class 4 days later with glum faces and notices from the office. They asked if they could speak to me and I told them to each pull up a chair while the rest of the class worked on their assessments. The first thing they told me was that they didn’t understand what they were supposed to do.
“Boys, you didn’t do your work, it’s as simple as that.”
“Yes miss but…we don’t know what we have to make up!”
“Do you boys even WANT to pass? Because I want you to pass, but you have to want to.”
“Yes miss!” They both said eagerly and simultaneously the way twins do.
“Look boys,” I began “I’m going to be 100% honest with you, because I think you’re both very smart and very capable, but you’re both very lazy, and very good at not encouraging each other to get work done. From what I understand one of you is BARELY passing, and one of you is failing. I will do whatever is humanly possible to help you pass, but I need you boys to step up to bat. I won’t do the work for you but I’ll work WITH you,”
here comes the set list of vocabulary...brace yourself
“Am I being clear?” I asked after my pregame speech was over.
“Yup!” One of the twins answered.
“Can you two come in for lunch on Thursday?”
“We will.” The other replied.
“Okay, come see me in the faculty room and we’ll start getting you caught up.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t disappoint me, I’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t worry” One replied
“We promise” the other added.
Today was Thursday.
I waited for 10 minutes.
The twins never showed up.
My brain said wait longer but my stomach said feed me, so I let a fellow intern know where I was going and if the twins happen to stop by to tell them to wait in the computer lab for me. Walking back from the canteen where all the students eat, I heard familiar voices chiming out my name.
“You look very nice today miss!” The twins were standing with 5 or 6 other boys from my year 11 class, one nonchalantly sitting hunched over his meal and the other standing.
“I thought we had a deal?” I asked
“What deal?” Jimmy let out a Cheshire cat grin. Allan laughed. All the boys at the table laughed.
“You were supposed to come see me.”
“Aw Miss, you can see us now, here we are!” Allan added.
“Not today boys.” I smiled, and walked away.
When I returned to the staff room my fellow intern told me the twins never stopped by.
“Of course they didn’t I just saw them on the canteen.” I laughed.
Now the human Carley would have grabbed onto her pride for dear life in frustration and said “Make ME look stupid? Keep ME waiting? I don’t think so! You’re on your own.” But with this new found tolerance to kryptonite (aka bullshit) I find myself suddenly having a rapidly developed amount of patience, which somehow keeps me from pulling my hair out or giving up. I’m not looking for a palpable ‘white American girl from wealthy town comes to save lower socioeconomic “below standard” English students’ storyline, but I just believe I’m both persistent and clever enough to get through to these guys, even if it means making them so sick of me that they do their work just to get me to shut up, but when (not if) the twins pass, I will add it to my list of mighty triumphs.
That’s all for now
Stay tuned
~Carley B
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Word Choice.
Many days I walk away knowing exactly why I went into teaching, I feel like everything has gone according to plan, and even if I was not able to go according to plan, because let’s face it sometimes as teachers we have to improvise, I at least feel that everybody walked out of the room with something to think about. Today was not one of those ‘run smoothly’ days.
Third period I had my year 9 class, freshmen as we would call them in the US. While they are not the most mature human beings, they are typically a fun class to work with. Half way through most classes I find myself needing some sort of energy shake because they are an excitable class, the slightest side comment could get them off track, but MOST days with some guidance they find their track again and we are back in business. Again, today was not one of those days either. Things started out alright. No class ever starts with “SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FAGGOT” or “YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS” but some classes certainly end that way. Today WAS one of those days.
The lesson was on word choice, specifically in Shakespeare, however the kids were having a bit of trouble with it and understandably, going through the motions of literary techniques and devices can be boring. I decided to try to get my year 9’s to connect on a more personal level of word choice by again relating it to music. I figured since 99.9% of my class comes in every day with their ipods in, that they must actually be LISTENING to something. First I wrote on the board “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.” I asked the class what it meant and they diligently decoded shakespearespeak into normal human talk. Then I asked the class “Well, why didn’t Shakespeare just say… “Yeah, Juliet is pretty hot” The class laughed, one of my favorite sounds. “Jake” a smart boy with a lot of potential, a charismatic personality, but a deep lazy streak replied, “…Because he was using specific words that would sound more interesting.” Bingo, nicely done “Jake”.
I asked the students to open their laptops and to spend the next 10 or so minutes thinking about a song that really grabs them lyrically. Then they were to type a few of the lyrics of the song that they felt spoke to them and write a brief 4-5 sentence response on who they felt the musician was speaking to, what they were trying to say, and why the words they chose were effective.
“Any song we want Miss?” Asked “Stephen”
“Yes Stephen, ANY song you want.” Stephen sat at his desk with a devious smirk on his face. Stephen doesn’t ever do his work. Actually, correction: Stephen isn’t USED to doing his work, but in my class, he will do it, even if it means altering the way I approach it with him, and even if it means I can only get him to connect for 15 minutes. I knew Stephen was going to choose an inappropriate song just to see what buttons he could push, and I also knew I had two choices: I could make him choose a different song, or I could take a gamble and work with what he choose. If you know me at all, you won’t have to ask which choice I sided with.
“So what do you have for me Stephen?”
“Fuck the police by NWA, but look I wrote it out like this.” Stephen pointed to his paper and on his paper he had written ‘f**k the police’, at least he was being courteous.
“Good Stephen.” Stephen looked at me a little confused. “I can’t tell you what music you listen to, and if this is what you listen to, let’s do something with it. Why would NWA say this?”
“I donno.” Stephen mumbled.
“You chose the song, you listen to it, what do you think it means?”
“I think it means he thinks the police are racist.” LIGHTBULB!!!!! I almost jumped up and down at the thought of Stephen connecting racism to a song about hating the police, by an early 90’s rap group. Ecstatic.
“Why do you think he uses the f-word? Why not just say he hates the police?”
“Because it’s more powerful, it makes a statement.” He replied. AGAIN, EUREKA!!! Stephen willingly wrote his answers down and when I went around the room to ask people to share, he voluntarily raised his hand, a gesture I’ve never seen from him.
You may be thinking geez, not such a bad day, but trust me I’ve been focusing on Stephen’s achievement all afternoon whenever I’ve had negative thoughts about what happened next.
-two girls had an altercation and “Amanda” yelled across the room to “Sharon” to shut up and that she had no friends
-“Mark” said the word “Faggot” approximately 30 times, and when I asked him politely to pick a different word he said “why miss, a faggot is a bundle of sticks according to the dictionary.”
-“Amanda” then told “Stephen” to pull up his pants, because like every teenage boy he was wearing his pants below his bottom. “Stephen”, who had FINALLY shown signs of completing work, looked up and shouted, “shut the fuck up” to Amanda.
I guess swearing really is more effective.
Amanda said nothing else.
I did.
I slammed my book down on the desk and watched as the entire class went from chaos to complete stillness. Literally, nobody moved. I’d feel confident in saying nobody breathed for a minute.
"Enough." I looked around the room as 15 sets of eyes gazed back at me. “You don’t have to LIKE each other, but when you step into this classroom, you WILL respect each other. If you want to go out to the cantine after class and have a go, that’s none of my business, but for the 80 minutes that you are sitting here, you will NOT treat each other like this. It’s rude to each other, and it’s rude to me, do you understand?” Everybody nodded.
Now, if you think I overreacted then so be it, but keep in mind I had firmly, but calmly asked the class several times if they would be respectful, and I will not tolerate derogatory remarks in my classroom. Period. The way I gained their attention was unfortunate in my eyes, and involved raising my voice which I rarely do. Actually, I wouldn’t even say “I can count the number of times I’ve raised my voice on one hand” because it happens that rarely. With that being said, I will never allow that kind of disrespect in my classroom. Every student has a right to walk into a classroom and feel safe and comfortable around their peers. That means if a student is calling another student a faggot, telling them to shut the fuck up, or telling them they have no friends, it is not only my job but it is my duty to put an end to it.
Comic relief was supplied 5 minutes after when I was looking for my Romeo and Juliet book and a student lightheartedly chimed, “its right here Miss! Where you last slammed it!” Again, the class laughed and it was back to my favorite sound.
~Carley B
Third period I had my year 9 class, freshmen as we would call them in the US. While they are not the most mature human beings, they are typically a fun class to work with. Half way through most classes I find myself needing some sort of energy shake because they are an excitable class, the slightest side comment could get them off track, but MOST days with some guidance they find their track again and we are back in business. Again, today was not one of those days either. Things started out alright. No class ever starts with “SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FAGGOT” or “YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS” but some classes certainly end that way. Today WAS one of those days.
The lesson was on word choice, specifically in Shakespeare, however the kids were having a bit of trouble with it and understandably, going through the motions of literary techniques and devices can be boring. I decided to try to get my year 9’s to connect on a more personal level of word choice by again relating it to music. I figured since 99.9% of my class comes in every day with their ipods in, that they must actually be LISTENING to something. First I wrote on the board “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.” I asked the class what it meant and they diligently decoded shakespearespeak into normal human talk. Then I asked the class “Well, why didn’t Shakespeare just say… “Yeah, Juliet is pretty hot” The class laughed, one of my favorite sounds. “Jake” a smart boy with a lot of potential, a charismatic personality, but a deep lazy streak replied, “…Because he was using specific words that would sound more interesting.” Bingo, nicely done “Jake”.
I asked the students to open their laptops and to spend the next 10 or so minutes thinking about a song that really grabs them lyrically. Then they were to type a few of the lyrics of the song that they felt spoke to them and write a brief 4-5 sentence response on who they felt the musician was speaking to, what they were trying to say, and why the words they chose were effective.
“Any song we want Miss?” Asked “Stephen”
“Yes Stephen, ANY song you want.” Stephen sat at his desk with a devious smirk on his face. Stephen doesn’t ever do his work. Actually, correction: Stephen isn’t USED to doing his work, but in my class, he will do it, even if it means altering the way I approach it with him, and even if it means I can only get him to connect for 15 minutes. I knew Stephen was going to choose an inappropriate song just to see what buttons he could push, and I also knew I had two choices: I could make him choose a different song, or I could take a gamble and work with what he choose. If you know me at all, you won’t have to ask which choice I sided with.
“So what do you have for me Stephen?”
“Fuck the police by NWA, but look I wrote it out like this.” Stephen pointed to his paper and on his paper he had written ‘f**k the police’, at least he was being courteous.
“Good Stephen.” Stephen looked at me a little confused. “I can’t tell you what music you listen to, and if this is what you listen to, let’s do something with it. Why would NWA say this?”
“I donno.” Stephen mumbled.
“You chose the song, you listen to it, what do you think it means?”
“I think it means he thinks the police are racist.” LIGHTBULB!!!!! I almost jumped up and down at the thought of Stephen connecting racism to a song about hating the police, by an early 90’s rap group. Ecstatic.
“Why do you think he uses the f-word? Why not just say he hates the police?”
“Because it’s more powerful, it makes a statement.” He replied. AGAIN, EUREKA!!! Stephen willingly wrote his answers down and when I went around the room to ask people to share, he voluntarily raised his hand, a gesture I’ve never seen from him.
You may be thinking geez, not such a bad day, but trust me I’ve been focusing on Stephen’s achievement all afternoon whenever I’ve had negative thoughts about what happened next.
-two girls had an altercation and “Amanda” yelled across the room to “Sharon” to shut up and that she had no friends
-“Mark” said the word “Faggot” approximately 30 times, and when I asked him politely to pick a different word he said “why miss, a faggot is a bundle of sticks according to the dictionary.”
-“Amanda” then told “Stephen” to pull up his pants, because like every teenage boy he was wearing his pants below his bottom. “Stephen”, who had FINALLY shown signs of completing work, looked up and shouted, “shut the fuck up” to Amanda.
I guess swearing really is more effective.
Amanda said nothing else.
I did.
I slammed my book down on the desk and watched as the entire class went from chaos to complete stillness. Literally, nobody moved. I’d feel confident in saying nobody breathed for a minute.
"Enough." I looked around the room as 15 sets of eyes gazed back at me. “You don’t have to LIKE each other, but when you step into this classroom, you WILL respect each other. If you want to go out to the cantine after class and have a go, that’s none of my business, but for the 80 minutes that you are sitting here, you will NOT treat each other like this. It’s rude to each other, and it’s rude to me, do you understand?” Everybody nodded.
Now, if you think I overreacted then so be it, but keep in mind I had firmly, but calmly asked the class several times if they would be respectful, and I will not tolerate derogatory remarks in my classroom. Period. The way I gained their attention was unfortunate in my eyes, and involved raising my voice which I rarely do. Actually, I wouldn’t even say “I can count the number of times I’ve raised my voice on one hand” because it happens that rarely. With that being said, I will never allow that kind of disrespect in my classroom. Every student has a right to walk into a classroom and feel safe and comfortable around their peers. That means if a student is calling another student a faggot, telling them to shut the fuck up, or telling them they have no friends, it is not only my job but it is my duty to put an end to it.
Comic relief was supplied 5 minutes after when I was looking for my Romeo and Juliet book and a student lightheartedly chimed, “its right here Miss! Where you last slammed it!” Again, the class laughed and it was back to my favorite sound.
~Carley B
Friday, July 30, 2010
Rule Bender
Given the circumstances, having a class of kids who don’t usually want to learn, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with my year 11s. Don’t mistake what I’m saying to mean that my year 11 boys are perfect angels, they’re not. However, they keep me on my toes. They’re an interesting bunch. They are actually the first class I’ve come to know everybody’s names in, and half of this I believe is due to the fact that each student in the class is extremely different than the person next to them. There aren’t two personalities that are alike, and I think the mistake that many teachers have made with these boys, is that they assume they ARE all exactly alike, shove them all into the same category, and then dismiss them. I’ve found that positive reinforcement has been so successful with these boys, that you’d almost think I was faking it, but I’m not. I’m genuinely thrilled with them.
There are two boys in my year 11 class, “Allan” and “Jimmy” and I had been warned multiple times that these two boys can serve as the catalyst for an entire class disruption, and it’s 100% true. HOWEVER, I’ve also noticed that these boys seek attention, and that by giving them positive attention, they do not do negative things. I’m not giving them fake attention, or praising them for doing nothing, but let’s be logical for one second. As frustrating as it MAY seem to deal with misbehavior, set all the misbehavior aside and analyze it on a more basic level. Who really wants to listen to anybody yell? If someone looked at me and told me to “shut up and sit down” honestly, I’d feel like standing up and telling that person to go to hell. Nobody wants to be talked down to, and if you pose what you want from them in a more positive light, in most cases you will get positive results.
If you help a student to realize that you care about them, and that they too should care about themselves, it makes the work seem much more relevant. Here is my example from today with my year 11 boys. It clicked yesterday that not a whole lot of people have had high expectations of these boys when I handed out a packet I put together for the boys to fill out while watching a movie.
“Oi! Miss! You’re expecting way too much of us!” Allan groaned
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Well nobody ever really expects anything from us” he replied.
“Boys, I’m grading this” the whole class simultaneously protested “BECAUSE you can all get A’s on it, and believe it or not, I actually LIKE giving out A’s, and I’m giving you a chance to earn one while watching a movie that has all of the answers in it.” The class was silent for a minute and the protesting stopped. Suddenly it seemed easy to them.
A few times during the movie a few boys behind me became restless when they didn’t understand a question. They started saying things like I don’t wanna do this, I don’t get it. I moved myself to sit with these boys, reworded the questions, and they figured out the answers themselves. Perhaps these boys have been drilled so many times that it’s just easier to say “I don’t get it” than to actually critically think about something, but they DO get it. I whole heartedly believe that they WANT to get it, they just haven’t had many people show them that THEY want them to get it.
There are a few boys in the class I’ve been worried about when it comes to completing their final assessment for this unit, so I’m trying to stress to all of the boys that if they need help, or even just a few minutes to get organized, that at any of my breaks, during lunch, or after school I will set time aside to help them. Working with this class has really forced me to think deeply about this concept: Are students a product of their environment, or do they choose to not succeed? Everybody I’ve talked to thinks it’s one way or another, but I think it’s both. When I say product of their environment I don’t necessarily mean their home life. While some students may have rotten home lives, I am referring to their school environment. Sometimes all it takes is one person, at any point in one’s life, to make them feel inferior, and from then on they might actually believe it. I’m not saying this is the case for all of my students, but when the boys said nobody ever really had expectations of them, what I was hearing was “nobody has ever thought enough of us to expect anything great from us.” I’m looking forward to helping these boys learn over the next few months that they have been presented with every single great opportunity that everyone else has, they just have to learn how to use the tools they’ve been given. I’m hoping not to just teach these boys English, but to teach them a little bit of self control, manners, and a little bit about life in general. What I’m looking forward to even more, is watching them succeed, and watching myself learn from them. I think this class will end up teaching me quite a bit about myself.
For a change of pace I’ll talk about my advanced year 10 class. This is quite an opinionated class, as you may expect from an advanced class. Naturally, their opinions are often valid, but I taught a very important lesson yesterday on prejudice. We are reading a book called Deadly, Unna? It’s an Australian book about Rugby (footy). The book is based on a footy team where the Australians and the Aboriginals play together on the same team, and this is the only place in the community that the two groups of people interact. While most of the book revolves around footy, the underlying issue of the book is the prejudice that goes on in the town. I wanted the students to keep this in mind while we read the book, but I also wanted them to acknowledge their own prejudices. The word prejudice is a funny word. I think a lot of us stick our noses up at it and say that we aren’t, but the truth is we all have our own prejudices. It doesn’t make us bad people, it makes us human.
I wrote the word BRITISH on the board and I had the kids list every word, slang, slurr, and term they could think of for British people. The kids listed words such as “Pomme”, snobby, tea, the queen, and big ben. Then I wrote AMERICAN and I told the kids to do the same. Some of the words they yelled out were fat, stupid, McDonalds, gangster, school shootings, and Hollywood. Lastly I wrote the word AUSSIE on the board and the a student yelled out “best place ever” so I wrote that on the board. Then students said things like laid back, friendly, southern cross, Sydney harbor bridge, and kangaroos.
After we had the class lists on the board I went through with a different colored marker and circled specific words. Under BRITISH I circled “Pomme” which is an Australian slur for a British person. I also circled snobby and the queen. Under AMERICAN I circled all of the words. And under AUSSIE I circled best place ever, laid back, friendly, and kangaroos.
“The words I have circled are your prejudices on other countries, and how you people might think others view your country, what do you notice?” I asked.
“We think highly of our country” a girl named “Gwen” announced.
“And you also hold prejudices on other countries. For example, I am American but I’m not fat, I hope you don’t think I’m stupid, I don’t eat McDonalds, and I’m not from Hollywood it’s actually on the opposite side of the country.” A few people in the class apologized for what they had said and I told them not to apologize, I purposely asked them to unleash, but the point was that at the time they seemed proud of the slurs and slangs they were coming up with, but once they realized how many negative things they had to say about other countries, suddenly they didn’t seem like the “friendly” and “laid back” people they thought they were.
Yesterday was the kind of day that makes you realize how great being a teacher is. People often ask me, “Why would you ever want to be a teacher, the pay isn’t great, kids talk back to you, and you work long hours.” Yes, well the same can be said for being a parent, which I also hope to someday be. On the other hand, I have no interest in waking up in the middle of the night to change a stinky diaper. All I want to do now is help people think and create. Being an English teacher is so fantastic because I get to play with ideas and concepts that other subjects don’t get to play with. I have an entire dictionary and every word is part of my playground. I’ve always been a rule bender, and it’s exciting for me to be in a class and tell my students that for the 80 minutes that I have them, it is perfectly okay to bend the rules. What’s even more fantastic is you have the opportunity to see their lives changing right before your eyes, and at the end of the day all I can do is hope that they’ve become better people and better thinkers, even if just marginally, than when I first met them
There are two boys in my year 11 class, “Allan” and “Jimmy” and I had been warned multiple times that these two boys can serve as the catalyst for an entire class disruption, and it’s 100% true. HOWEVER, I’ve also noticed that these boys seek attention, and that by giving them positive attention, they do not do negative things. I’m not giving them fake attention, or praising them for doing nothing, but let’s be logical for one second. As frustrating as it MAY seem to deal with misbehavior, set all the misbehavior aside and analyze it on a more basic level. Who really wants to listen to anybody yell? If someone looked at me and told me to “shut up and sit down” honestly, I’d feel like standing up and telling that person to go to hell. Nobody wants to be talked down to, and if you pose what you want from them in a more positive light, in most cases you will get positive results.
If you help a student to realize that you care about them, and that they too should care about themselves, it makes the work seem much more relevant. Here is my example from today with my year 11 boys. It clicked yesterday that not a whole lot of people have had high expectations of these boys when I handed out a packet I put together for the boys to fill out while watching a movie.
“Oi! Miss! You’re expecting way too much of us!” Allan groaned
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Well nobody ever really expects anything from us” he replied.
“Boys, I’m grading this” the whole class simultaneously protested “BECAUSE you can all get A’s on it, and believe it or not, I actually LIKE giving out A’s, and I’m giving you a chance to earn one while watching a movie that has all of the answers in it.” The class was silent for a minute and the protesting stopped. Suddenly it seemed easy to them.
A few times during the movie a few boys behind me became restless when they didn’t understand a question. They started saying things like I don’t wanna do this, I don’t get it. I moved myself to sit with these boys, reworded the questions, and they figured out the answers themselves. Perhaps these boys have been drilled so many times that it’s just easier to say “I don’t get it” than to actually critically think about something, but they DO get it. I whole heartedly believe that they WANT to get it, they just haven’t had many people show them that THEY want them to get it.
There are a few boys in the class I’ve been worried about when it comes to completing their final assessment for this unit, so I’m trying to stress to all of the boys that if they need help, or even just a few minutes to get organized, that at any of my breaks, during lunch, or after school I will set time aside to help them. Working with this class has really forced me to think deeply about this concept: Are students a product of their environment, or do they choose to not succeed? Everybody I’ve talked to thinks it’s one way or another, but I think it’s both. When I say product of their environment I don’t necessarily mean their home life. While some students may have rotten home lives, I am referring to their school environment. Sometimes all it takes is one person, at any point in one’s life, to make them feel inferior, and from then on they might actually believe it. I’m not saying this is the case for all of my students, but when the boys said nobody ever really had expectations of them, what I was hearing was “nobody has ever thought enough of us to expect anything great from us.” I’m looking forward to helping these boys learn over the next few months that they have been presented with every single great opportunity that everyone else has, they just have to learn how to use the tools they’ve been given. I’m hoping not to just teach these boys English, but to teach them a little bit of self control, manners, and a little bit about life in general. What I’m looking forward to even more, is watching them succeed, and watching myself learn from them. I think this class will end up teaching me quite a bit about myself.
For a change of pace I’ll talk about my advanced year 10 class. This is quite an opinionated class, as you may expect from an advanced class. Naturally, their opinions are often valid, but I taught a very important lesson yesterday on prejudice. We are reading a book called Deadly, Unna? It’s an Australian book about Rugby (footy). The book is based on a footy team where the Australians and the Aboriginals play together on the same team, and this is the only place in the community that the two groups of people interact. While most of the book revolves around footy, the underlying issue of the book is the prejudice that goes on in the town. I wanted the students to keep this in mind while we read the book, but I also wanted them to acknowledge their own prejudices. The word prejudice is a funny word. I think a lot of us stick our noses up at it and say that we aren’t, but the truth is we all have our own prejudices. It doesn’t make us bad people, it makes us human.
I wrote the word BRITISH on the board and I had the kids list every word, slang, slurr, and term they could think of for British people. The kids listed words such as “Pomme”, snobby, tea, the queen, and big ben. Then I wrote AMERICAN and I told the kids to do the same. Some of the words they yelled out were fat, stupid, McDonalds, gangster, school shootings, and Hollywood. Lastly I wrote the word AUSSIE on the board and the a student yelled out “best place ever” so I wrote that on the board. Then students said things like laid back, friendly, southern cross, Sydney harbor bridge, and kangaroos.
After we had the class lists on the board I went through with a different colored marker and circled specific words. Under BRITISH I circled “Pomme” which is an Australian slur for a British person. I also circled snobby and the queen. Under AMERICAN I circled all of the words. And under AUSSIE I circled best place ever, laid back, friendly, and kangaroos.
“The words I have circled are your prejudices on other countries, and how you people might think others view your country, what do you notice?” I asked.
“We think highly of our country” a girl named “Gwen” announced.
“And you also hold prejudices on other countries. For example, I am American but I’m not fat, I hope you don’t think I’m stupid, I don’t eat McDonalds, and I’m not from Hollywood it’s actually on the opposite side of the country.” A few people in the class apologized for what they had said and I told them not to apologize, I purposely asked them to unleash, but the point was that at the time they seemed proud of the slurs and slangs they were coming up with, but once they realized how many negative things they had to say about other countries, suddenly they didn’t seem like the “friendly” and “laid back” people they thought they were.
Yesterday was the kind of day that makes you realize how great being a teacher is. People often ask me, “Why would you ever want to be a teacher, the pay isn’t great, kids talk back to you, and you work long hours.” Yes, well the same can be said for being a parent, which I also hope to someday be. On the other hand, I have no interest in waking up in the middle of the night to change a stinky diaper. All I want to do now is help people think and create. Being an English teacher is so fantastic because I get to play with ideas and concepts that other subjects don’t get to play with. I have an entire dictionary and every word is part of my playground. I’ve always been a rule bender, and it’s exciting for me to be in a class and tell my students that for the 80 minutes that I have them, it is perfectly okay to bend the rules. What’s even more fantastic is you have the opportunity to see their lives changing right before your eyes, and at the end of the day all I can do is hope that they’ve become better people and better thinkers, even if just marginally, than when I first met them
Monday, July 26, 2010
Music in the classroom
Following up on my earlier post about music, ironically the next day I had a long chat with my class about music. We were all outside taking a break when a few of my students and I began a great discussion about how your mood can truly affect the music you listen to and the same can be said about music affecting your mood. My students asked me if I would post a song of the day every day on the board and I agreed, deciding this would be a fun way for all of us to start class, and for the students to learn about me. I remember when I was a high school student the idea of teachers being "normal people" was such a distant concept, that it made it hard to relate to them. I think it's important to show your students snippets of who you are, whether it's music, interests, or passions, because they will look at you more like a human being and less like the person who merely marks down whether or not they are absent. I also believe that if you show your students personal investment you will have a much better day to day interaction with them. In fact, I recommended a band called "The Middle East" to a student in my class and they rushed into class early first thing to show me that they went home and downloaded the entire album off itunes. It made me smile.
What I've agreed to is at the start of each class period I will write a few lyrics to a song that is stuck in my head, fits my mood, or just something I've been jamming to lately on the board. The first student to guess the song gets a treat! I have a bag of lollies (sweets) in my desk and I bring one piece in a day for the person who guesses the song correctly. To be fair, they can either guess the name of the song or the artist. I have an erratic taste of music, so at some point everyone will have a chance to guess the song. I'm not going to lie one bit, some days I'm in an extremely corny mood and I wouldn't put it past me to post a throwback NSYNC song.
My inspiration for my first "song of the day" did not come from the original artist, however their version is mindblowing and deserves all the credit in the world and then some.
"Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart."
Those were the lyrics I wrote on the board and within seconds somebody guessed correctly that the song was "The Scientist" by Coldplay.
I said the initial reason this song was stuck in my head all day had nothing to do with the actual band Coldplay, although I do respect and love the original version of the song. I was hypnotized by his cover, and most of his other covers as well. If you get the chance check him out on youtube --He is truly talented and you can tell that he puts passion into what he does. It also just so happens that he's Australian, which fits quite nicely with the theme of this blog. Here is the cover to his version of The Scientist, which thanks to him, was my first, very successful, song of the day with my year 9 class.
Enjoy.
What I've agreed to is at the start of each class period I will write a few lyrics to a song that is stuck in my head, fits my mood, or just something I've been jamming to lately on the board. The first student to guess the song gets a treat! I have a bag of lollies (sweets) in my desk and I bring one piece in a day for the person who guesses the song correctly. To be fair, they can either guess the name of the song or the artist. I have an erratic taste of music, so at some point everyone will have a chance to guess the song. I'm not going to lie one bit, some days I'm in an extremely corny mood and I wouldn't put it past me to post a throwback NSYNC song.
My inspiration for my first "song of the day" did not come from the original artist, however their version is mindblowing and deserves all the credit in the world and then some.
"Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart."
Those were the lyrics I wrote on the board and within seconds somebody guessed correctly that the song was "The Scientist" by Coldplay.
I said the initial reason this song was stuck in my head all day had nothing to do with the actual band Coldplay, although I do respect and love the original version of the song. I was hypnotized by his cover, and most of his other covers as well. If you get the chance check him out on youtube --He is truly talented and you can tell that he puts passion into what he does. It also just so happens that he's Australian, which fits quite nicely with the theme of this blog. Here is the cover to his version of The Scientist, which thanks to him, was my first, very successful, song of the day with my year 9 class.
Enjoy.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
FAIR DINKUM
NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED
I had been warned that my year 11 class would be unruly, obnoxious, and down right rude at times. I was given the impression that they were incapable and somewhat miserable. That’s what every teacher wants to hear first thing in the morning on the very first day student teaching right? On day one my co teacher, we’ll call him Mr. X, and I co taught. He introduced me to my class, which I could immediately see consisted of about twenty-two 17 year old boys and perhaps five girls. This was going to be interesting.
“Class, this is Miss Barton, she’ll be interning here and taking over the class eventually this semester.” The class snickered a bit. I heard a discreet wolf call from the back of the room. “She’s travelled all the way from America.” The class fell silent.
“I’m alright with that!” One of the boys exclaimed.
“I’m SURE you are” Mr. X replied sarcastically. The student winked at me, which Mr. X did not witness, but I decided to pick my battles and not say anything about it. The first half of the class I observed each student two or three minutes to see exactly what I would be dealing with. A few students stood out. “Scott” sat in the back, a heavy set boy, tall, with sandy brownish hair and a bit of a crooked smile. His voice was loud and boisterous and his comments always seemed off topic and inappropriate. “Derek” was blonde, very blonde. His hair had clearly just been bleached, and his personality seemed to feed off of whatever “Scott” was doing or saying. “Lenny” sat in the front and he was very quiet. He looked polite, but it was almost this secretive, sarcastic polite which made you think he could be paying attention or he could be thinking about how much he hated your guts. “Adam” sat next to “Lenny” and he was clearly a bright young boy, with spiky hair and an inquisitive face. He always looked like he had a question to ask. “Onnie” and Lindsy” sat side by side, two of the overachieving girls in the class. The smiled at me, sat straight up, and seemed fascinated with my accent, and always did what they did what they were told.
During the next half of the class Mr. X and I split the class up to discuss the video we had just watched. Before the video the kids took a survey on the capabilities of the handicapped. Then the kids watched a video about the Paralympics and were to be split up into two groups to discuss if their opinions had changed before writing a response paper. Mr. X took “the bad boys” and I was given “the good girls” and “the smart boys.” (Mr. X did not put it this way, but it was clear that he had taken on the troubled students courteously to probably prevent me from pulling my hair out on the first day of school.) Everything ran smoothly and my group all seemed to agree on everything. I hated it. I wanted argument, disagreement, conflict, and questions. This would have to change, but for now I got through the lesson with no complications.
Back in the staff room I sat at a table with the other English student teachers and they shared stories about the disruptive and difficult students in their classes, and I was JEALOUS! These are the students that make you think, and make you push yourself, and make you frustrated because you know they are capable of so much more and it’s your job to show them that! I stormed out of the room to track down Mr. X. When I found him, he was in a rush doing a million things at once. He told me to follow him, to walk and talk. I began blubbering, my mind coming up with a million different ideas, and I stumbled over them as I spouted them out too quickly for my mouth and brain to coincide.
“Mr. X…I…well I have this idea…but…ok well I have a really great idea for a lesson…I think the boys would love it…but it would just be easier..ok well…”
“Carley, do you want to teach the whole class tomorrow?”
“I would love to!” I sighed in relief, and scurried back to the faculty lounge to plan my lesson. The lesson for the next day would be on the effectiveness speeches. Rugby is a large sport here, and I had come across a motivational speech given by a man named Glenn, we’ll keep his last name out of the story for now. Glenn was an AFL rugby player (equivalent to our professional Football sports leagues in the United States).
Class the next day started out the same as the day before, except for one minor change, Mr. X was out sick. In true Aussie fashion I adopted their saying “no worries” and carried on. A “casual teacher” subbed into the class just in case I needed the help. The boys were causing a ruckus while deviously eyeing me as I stood at the front of the class and waited for everyone to be quiet, assuming they would if they saw me standing there. They kept talking. I cleared my throat hoping they would pick up on the social queue. They did not. I began writing on the board and the class gradually quieted down as I wrote in big capital letters: FAIR DINKUM. Fair Dinkum is an Australian term for being true or genuine.
“Who looks in the mirror in the morning?” I asked. Nobody raised their hand. “Come on, who wakes up and looks in the mirror while they are in the bathroom in the morning?” I raised my hand and hands began popping up. “Who likes what they see?” A few hands went up, but not all. “Who in here has ever made a mistake?” I raised my hand. “Who can tell me what FAIR DINKUM means?” I asked.
“A good Aussie!” One of the boys shouted. I wrote the words true to yourself under FAIR DINKUM.
“Who in here thinks they are a FAIR DINKUM Aussie?” I asked. All of the boys and a few of the girls raised their hands. That was my gateway, I introduced the video to the boys, after some minor technological problems which surprisingly the boys handled alright. We had to switch classrooms a few times because the video was not playing on the computer which was hooked up to the projector. Technology always fails when you need it the most. Finally I was able to get the video to play. The boys sat and watched the tall, dashing, dark haired, badass man on the screen talk about how much he loved drinking and fighting. The boys laughed at all the appropriate times in the speech and I could see the thought process going on inside the boys heads “drinking and fighting, this is bloody awesome!”
You see Glenn, the sports star in the video, goes on to explain in his motivational speech to a group of high school boys, that he eventually became heavily involved with alcohol and fighting. During one fight in particular he shattered his elbow through a glass window and tore his elbow basically in half. At the hospital, intoxicated, passed out, covered in blood, he woke up to the doctor who nonchalantly explained to him all of the physical therapy he would have to go through to even turn a door knob again. However, before leaving the room he looked and Glenn and said “I think you’re a joke. You’re not your own person. You need to recover who you are.” Glenn woke up every morning from then on, and as he lifted his arm to put gel in his hair, he had to stand face to face with the scar that ran all the way down his elbow and arm. He was forced to face his scar, and himself. He looked in the mirror, and asked himself one question: “Am I fair dinkum?”
As the video ended the class didn’t budge. Every set of eyes remained on the screen, and nobody spoke. I turned the video off and the class remained silently still. Finally one boy spoke.
“Is it over?”
“Yes it is”
“But, I want to hear more” The rest of the video was just question and answer with the audience and was irrelevant to the class, so I shut the video off. We moved to the computer lab where I asked the class to write a letter to Glenn about how the motivational speech affected them, what it meant to them, and how they could relate to it. I also told the kids that I researched Glenn a little and came across his website where I found his email address.
“Oi! He’s NOT going to want to hear from a bunch of kids!” A student exclaimed.
I walked around the class observing the boys as they wrote and helping when I was asked. The layout of the letters for some of the boys was all wrong, but the emotions and ideas that the boys were putting on paper were exactly right. I was thrilled. These are boys, who I was told on a GOOD day would perhaps write a sentence IF they felt like it, were each writing excellent ideas about how inspirational the speech was and how it made them think twice about fighting. These letters might not have seemed like that much, but it was a start. I didn’t want the students to write pages of perfect, professional, letter writing. I just wanted them to think and react according to their own feelings and experiences. “Derek” amazed me the most. I stood behind him while I helped “Scott” his counterpart, but out of the corner of my eye I watched “Derek” focusing on putting his thoughts into words. I started to walk away…
“Miss wait!” Derek shouted after me. I whipped around.
“Whats up?”
“Is this okay so far?” His response was both thoughtful and honest, but what shocked me the most was that he actually cared whether or not I approved.
Later that day I wrote to Glenn introducing myself as an American student teacher, telling him a little about my class, and letting him know that the students really enjoyed his speech and that they really looked up to him. Glenn lived in Melbourne and had probably never heard of Newcastle High School. I told him he was probably a busy man and if he didn’t respond I understood, but I just wanted him to know how that the kids in my class really connected. The next day in the faculty lounge I received a phone call from the main office. They had put somebody through for me. I answered the phone, and it was Glenn. Half in shock I may have initially sounded like an idiot. He looked up the high school and found the main office number. He told me it was good to hear my voice, and that he just wanted to tell me it was great what I had done with the kids, thanking me, and that he really enjoyed the letters.
This was my first experience teaching at Newcastle High School. I wasn’t going into it expecting to hear back from a major athlete, I just wanted to do something that would make the kids think outside the box and realize how capable they are and how much they can accomplish if they put their minds to it. The kids wrote the letters, I did not, and the kids are the reason Glenn called me. I am so excited to share the news with the class tomorrow that I received a personal phone call from Glenn himself. It’s very important to me that my students trust that when I say I’m going to do something, I follow through. It’s made me realize that I always need to be dependable and follow through. If I am asking my students to be dependable with assignments, I also have to be dependable. As I said, I was not writing to Glenn for attention, or to hear back from a big sports star, I simply wrote to him because I told my students that I would send their letters.
~Carley B
SG3VY7Z74RNP
I had been warned that my year 11 class would be unruly, obnoxious, and down right rude at times. I was given the impression that they were incapable and somewhat miserable. That’s what every teacher wants to hear first thing in the morning on the very first day student teaching right? On day one my co teacher, we’ll call him Mr. X, and I co taught. He introduced me to my class, which I could immediately see consisted of about twenty-two 17 year old boys and perhaps five girls. This was going to be interesting.
“Class, this is Miss Barton, she’ll be interning here and taking over the class eventually this semester.” The class snickered a bit. I heard a discreet wolf call from the back of the room. “She’s travelled all the way from America.” The class fell silent.
“I’m alright with that!” One of the boys exclaimed.
“I’m SURE you are” Mr. X replied sarcastically. The student winked at me, which Mr. X did not witness, but I decided to pick my battles and not say anything about it. The first half of the class I observed each student two or three minutes to see exactly what I would be dealing with. A few students stood out. “Scott” sat in the back, a heavy set boy, tall, with sandy brownish hair and a bit of a crooked smile. His voice was loud and boisterous and his comments always seemed off topic and inappropriate. “Derek” was blonde, very blonde. His hair had clearly just been bleached, and his personality seemed to feed off of whatever “Scott” was doing or saying. “Lenny” sat in the front and he was very quiet. He looked polite, but it was almost this secretive, sarcastic polite which made you think he could be paying attention or he could be thinking about how much he hated your guts. “Adam” sat next to “Lenny” and he was clearly a bright young boy, with spiky hair and an inquisitive face. He always looked like he had a question to ask. “Onnie” and Lindsy” sat side by side, two of the overachieving girls in the class. The smiled at me, sat straight up, and seemed fascinated with my accent, and always did what they did what they were told.
During the next half of the class Mr. X and I split the class up to discuss the video we had just watched. Before the video the kids took a survey on the capabilities of the handicapped. Then the kids watched a video about the Paralympics and were to be split up into two groups to discuss if their opinions had changed before writing a response paper. Mr. X took “the bad boys” and I was given “the good girls” and “the smart boys.” (Mr. X did not put it this way, but it was clear that he had taken on the troubled students courteously to probably prevent me from pulling my hair out on the first day of school.) Everything ran smoothly and my group all seemed to agree on everything. I hated it. I wanted argument, disagreement, conflict, and questions. This would have to change, but for now I got through the lesson with no complications.
Back in the staff room I sat at a table with the other English student teachers and they shared stories about the disruptive and difficult students in their classes, and I was JEALOUS! These are the students that make you think, and make you push yourself, and make you frustrated because you know they are capable of so much more and it’s your job to show them that! I stormed out of the room to track down Mr. X. When I found him, he was in a rush doing a million things at once. He told me to follow him, to walk and talk. I began blubbering, my mind coming up with a million different ideas, and I stumbled over them as I spouted them out too quickly for my mouth and brain to coincide.
“Mr. X…I…well I have this idea…but…ok well I have a really great idea for a lesson…I think the boys would love it…but it would just be easier..ok well…”
“Carley, do you want to teach the whole class tomorrow?”
“I would love to!” I sighed in relief, and scurried back to the faculty lounge to plan my lesson. The lesson for the next day would be on the effectiveness speeches. Rugby is a large sport here, and I had come across a motivational speech given by a man named Glenn, we’ll keep his last name out of the story for now. Glenn was an AFL rugby player (equivalent to our professional Football sports leagues in the United States).
Class the next day started out the same as the day before, except for one minor change, Mr. X was out sick. In true Aussie fashion I adopted their saying “no worries” and carried on. A “casual teacher” subbed into the class just in case I needed the help. The boys were causing a ruckus while deviously eyeing me as I stood at the front of the class and waited for everyone to be quiet, assuming they would if they saw me standing there. They kept talking. I cleared my throat hoping they would pick up on the social queue. They did not. I began writing on the board and the class gradually quieted down as I wrote in big capital letters: FAIR DINKUM. Fair Dinkum is an Australian term for being true or genuine.
“Who looks in the mirror in the morning?” I asked. Nobody raised their hand. “Come on, who wakes up and looks in the mirror while they are in the bathroom in the morning?” I raised my hand and hands began popping up. “Who likes what they see?” A few hands went up, but not all. “Who in here has ever made a mistake?” I raised my hand. “Who can tell me what FAIR DINKUM means?” I asked.
“A good Aussie!” One of the boys shouted. I wrote the words true to yourself under FAIR DINKUM.
“Who in here thinks they are a FAIR DINKUM Aussie?” I asked. All of the boys and a few of the girls raised their hands. That was my gateway, I introduced the video to the boys, after some minor technological problems which surprisingly the boys handled alright. We had to switch classrooms a few times because the video was not playing on the computer which was hooked up to the projector. Technology always fails when you need it the most. Finally I was able to get the video to play. The boys sat and watched the tall, dashing, dark haired, badass man on the screen talk about how much he loved drinking and fighting. The boys laughed at all the appropriate times in the speech and I could see the thought process going on inside the boys heads “drinking and fighting, this is bloody awesome!”
You see Glenn, the sports star in the video, goes on to explain in his motivational speech to a group of high school boys, that he eventually became heavily involved with alcohol and fighting. During one fight in particular he shattered his elbow through a glass window and tore his elbow basically in half. At the hospital, intoxicated, passed out, covered in blood, he woke up to the doctor who nonchalantly explained to him all of the physical therapy he would have to go through to even turn a door knob again. However, before leaving the room he looked and Glenn and said “I think you’re a joke. You’re not your own person. You need to recover who you are.” Glenn woke up every morning from then on, and as he lifted his arm to put gel in his hair, he had to stand face to face with the scar that ran all the way down his elbow and arm. He was forced to face his scar, and himself. He looked in the mirror, and asked himself one question: “Am I fair dinkum?”
As the video ended the class didn’t budge. Every set of eyes remained on the screen, and nobody spoke. I turned the video off and the class remained silently still. Finally one boy spoke.
“Is it over?”
“Yes it is”
“But, I want to hear more” The rest of the video was just question and answer with the audience and was irrelevant to the class, so I shut the video off. We moved to the computer lab where I asked the class to write a letter to Glenn about how the motivational speech affected them, what it meant to them, and how they could relate to it. I also told the kids that I researched Glenn a little and came across his website where I found his email address.
“Oi! He’s NOT going to want to hear from a bunch of kids!” A student exclaimed.
I walked around the class observing the boys as they wrote and helping when I was asked. The layout of the letters for some of the boys was all wrong, but the emotions and ideas that the boys were putting on paper were exactly right. I was thrilled. These are boys, who I was told on a GOOD day would perhaps write a sentence IF they felt like it, were each writing excellent ideas about how inspirational the speech was and how it made them think twice about fighting. These letters might not have seemed like that much, but it was a start. I didn’t want the students to write pages of perfect, professional, letter writing. I just wanted them to think and react according to their own feelings and experiences. “Derek” amazed me the most. I stood behind him while I helped “Scott” his counterpart, but out of the corner of my eye I watched “Derek” focusing on putting his thoughts into words. I started to walk away…
“Miss wait!” Derek shouted after me. I whipped around.
“Whats up?”
“Is this okay so far?” His response was both thoughtful and honest, but what shocked me the most was that he actually cared whether or not I approved.
Later that day I wrote to Glenn introducing myself as an American student teacher, telling him a little about my class, and letting him know that the students really enjoyed his speech and that they really looked up to him. Glenn lived in Melbourne and had probably never heard of Newcastle High School. I told him he was probably a busy man and if he didn’t respond I understood, but I just wanted him to know how that the kids in my class really connected. The next day in the faculty lounge I received a phone call from the main office. They had put somebody through for me. I answered the phone, and it was Glenn. Half in shock I may have initially sounded like an idiot. He looked up the high school and found the main office number. He told me it was good to hear my voice, and that he just wanted to tell me it was great what I had done with the kids, thanking me, and that he really enjoyed the letters.
This was my first experience teaching at Newcastle High School. I wasn’t going into it expecting to hear back from a major athlete, I just wanted to do something that would make the kids think outside the box and realize how capable they are and how much they can accomplish if they put their minds to it. The kids wrote the letters, I did not, and the kids are the reason Glenn called me. I am so excited to share the news with the class tomorrow that I received a personal phone call from Glenn himself. It’s very important to me that my students trust that when I say I’m going to do something, I follow through. It’s made me realize that I always need to be dependable and follow through. If I am asking my students to be dependable with assignments, I also have to be dependable. As I said, I was not writing to Glenn for attention, or to hear back from a big sports star, I simply wrote to him because I told my students that I would send their letters.
~Carley B
SG3VY7Z74RNP
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