The wonderful adventures of Kate

Why are students treated so differently from the way adults treat each other?  Wouldn’t they know that they are being treated poorly?  The way some of the teachers at the school I teach speak to their students amazes me.  I would not speak of my enemies in the way that some of these teacher speak to their students.  How can you gain respect from someone who you obviously do not respect in anyway?  They try to force respect from their students.  Is that possible?  I feel like bitterness and becoming closed off and shut down are what will happen after this power play.  The student feels as though they are not respected as an individual.

Students will get lost in the sea of 8th grade if their teachers are not teaching towards the individual and only the group.   Talking with another teacher yesterday got me thinking about students and individuals.  Everyone is different, everyone has different interests, dislikes, senses of humor and backgrounds.  How can you teach someone if you are not paying attention to these things?  You would do the same amount of good doing that as if you were teaching a brick wall.  The students need to be able to personalize their learning.  Today my students did a map activity about Lewis and Clark.  They drew their own neighborhood, and we went through the map making steps together using their maps to show examples of what is needed in a map.  I had them engaged for almost the entire period.  Hopefully my afternoon classes will go just as well as the classes this morning.

I’ve had an awesome week with my kids so far, and I’ve received compliments from my cooperating teacher.  I feel as though I’m getting it.  Even thought this might be the case, I know there will always been new obstacles every day that I will have to overcome.   At the beginning of the Lewis and Clark Unit on Tuesday we looked at quotes that explorers have said to get students in the mindset for the following unit.  The quotes were:

Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go.  James Cook

Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. James Cook

I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. Daniel Boone

I was happy in the middle of dangers and inconveniences. Daniel Boone

While these quotes had meaning for my students, and their responses were WONDERFUL to listen to, the meaning that they had for me while I was choosing them was different.  I feel as though all of these quotes can be so easily related to every challenge in life, not just an exploration.  Maybe every challenge is an exploration, one of yourself.  This dive into the teaching career has been more of an exploration for me.  I think that is why I feel this unit and I are perfection at the moment.  I’m exploring the different philosophies of teaching, different methods and management that work for me.  This journey, conquest, expedition into teaching has become a growing experience unlike any other.  It has let me become more of an adult than I’ve ever seen in myself.  These kids have no idea how they will fit into my life forever.

I love my students.  I like to think of them first as people, then as young adults.  People all like to be treated the same, no matter what.   Take a second and think about what those quotes might mean to you and your students.

The entry I just posted was from yesterday.  I am sitting here after my seminar student teaching class, and I am angry.  Maybe it’s from my cooperating teacher (www.blogush.edublogs.org) or maybe it is me finally developing how I want to become as a teacher.  I haven’t decided yet, but I know how I want to be when I finally am able to teach my own class.   I want to engage the kids.  Maybe I don’t have behavior issues severely because I’ve gotten to know my kids.  I’ve built that buy in with them.  It could be because most of them are white middle class kids from healthy backgrounds, or maybe it’s me.  I don’t know yet, but I’m trying as hard as I can possibly try every day.

We had a seminar tonight about bad classroom experiences, kids that are talking in class, not paying attention.  I just wanted to scream at these people, YOUR LESSONS ARE BORING, THAT’S WHY THEY ARE TALKING.  If the kids are engaged in your lesson for the day, why would they be talking to their neighbors?  If you truly sucked them into what you are talking about, unless its time for them to discuss, why would they be talking?  I can tell the exact moment when I lose my kids in my lesson.  I know the group I’m having the most issues with is because I haven’t found that thing to engage them, and because I know them the least.  How can I get around that?  By working at it every day, trying new things, not saying the kids are rude and lazy.  All kids care about something, so I don’t want to hear one more jaded teacher tell me that their kids just DO NOT CARE.  You are full of it.  The kids care, you just have them after years of teachers telling them they aren’t going to get it, and they are failures.

Some kid yelled at me the other day, and the first thing I thought was I can’t believe he said that to me.  Today I’m thinking, what prompted that response?  Why did he talk back?  What might be going on at home?  Why does he feel the need to not respect me?  I’m sitting reflecting and planning my next move.  More discipline?  We will see how the next day goes.  Maybe he just needs a hug and doesn’t know how to ask for it.  I wear my emotions on my sleeve as my cooperating teacher likes to remind me, but I think I like it that way.  While yes, sometimes it can be overbearing, and can cause more stress than needed, I like to think it makes me a better person.   Maybe, just maybe when I get a full time position, I can be the person that shows them that I care.  Maybe I’ll be able to get those students who have given up, to care, just a little.  That will be my victory.

Reflective teacher? Maybe.  Caring teacher? I’m trying so hard it makes me sick.  The more you give a student rules, the more they rebel.  It’s proven in students and in adults.  Maybe the kid just wanted the attention he wasn’t getting at home by talking back to me?  I’m thinking about the small battles I’ve won compared to the other student teachers in my class.  I’m on my sixth week of student teaching, and they are only on their second.  Maybe they will wise up.  I hope so.

Teaching is a lonely profession, even though you deal with human being’s all day long.  When was the last time teachers got together for Professional Development and were open to criticism?  When did they not blame the students for their failed lesson plans?  When did they take the time to look at what they are doing right, wrong, and need to try again differently.  I’ve been told I was lucky in my student teaching placement, maybe it was fate.  Even on bad days like today, I love what I’m doing.

Today I am wearing my favorite pair of heels to teach in.  They are dark silver pumps with 2.5 inch heels.  I feel good in these shoes.  I feel like because of the long weekend, the day so far and these shoes that NOTHING can get me down.  Maybe I need to wear these shoes more often.  I was so perky with my classes this morning, and I can totally see how it helped the mood.

The lessons went by fast today, too fast almost.  I savored each moment with my classes.  It was a feeling that I haven’t had before.  Watching them leaving to go to their other classes was a sad moment, but also extremely happy.  Usually my first day of the week is not nearly as happy.  I missed my students this weekend, thought of them when I was sick on Friday.

Today I gave the class a quick writing assignment about how I’ve been doing so far this year.  I’m only giving it to the students who I have had since day one.  I wanted them to write down what they have liked and disliked, assignments that they have liked and disliked, and a suggestion for me.  During team meeting time, which was completely worthless, I read all the likes and dislikes.  It made me happy to understand where I need to go to make them happy, and it told me that I was doing a pretty good job.  No one will like everything, and I can’t make every student happy with every assignment.  I know where I want to go with this unit, and where my next unit is going.  My lesson planning muse is back, and hopefully this week will go well with projects.

I got told today by a student that I was not mean enough in class. I need to work on that.  I’m not a mean person in general, so it is hard for me to get upset.  I need to work on it because my students are starting to walk over me.  They are testing me, and now it’s time to test them back.  We shall see who wins this war.

While I don’t know if i’m this upset, because I’m sick, or because I’m exhausted.  Maybe a bit of both.  I had such a good week, even though there was a wake and funeral thrown in there.  I really love my kids.  I just feel so pressured to come up with the most amazing lesson plans that are interesting and creative, that it’s almost hindering my ability to make any at all.  I hear all these stories about how teachers were so traditional at first, and then evolved.  When do I get to evolve?  During student teaching?  I’m barely grasping the material.  How am I supposed to do this in 10 weeks?  It is not NEARLY enough time.  Projects, presentations, classroom management, discipline or lack there of.   Why was I given tests constantly?  Why did I never get the option of fun projects?  How come my teachers never listened to me or cared?  I’m trying so hard, and I’m trying to communicate to my students that I care.

How does that actually work in an environment where they know I’m leaving?

I’m a long term substitute that doesn’t really know what the hell she is doing.   I know that everything that I’m learning in my cooperating teacher’s classroom will help me in the long run, but I’m slightly jealous of the fact that my fellow student teachers can lecture, and make tests.  The lesson plans they write are so easy.  I know I’m just complaining because I’m tired of working so hard.

If it wasnt for my kids, putting up funny sticky notes around my desk, saying funny things about miley cyrus’ butt, or just cracking me up in general.  I would have quit.  But I love these kids.  I care about them more than they prolly realize.  I need to show them more.  I have my gameplan set for Tuesday.

5 hours later:

I wrote that, then had to go out with a friend to help me lesson plan, and boy did my day turn around.  I feel like I’ve gotten my muse back, my creativity back. Tomorrow, when I feel better,  I will start anew.  Student teaching has definately taught me that each day is new.  Another valuable learning experiance.

This weeks theme song, Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus with bonus comments by the students of 8 -2.   Turning on the radio recently has made me so happy, because of those kids.

I have never been one to boast that I am a creative person.  Nope, not me.  Give me a knitting pattern, and some yarn and I can make you something beautiful.  But writing out a beautiful pattern?  Nothing that I’ve ever been able to do.  But hearing it today being told back to me, after working my tail off just hurt.  I’ve been trying so hard to make this stuff interesting to the kids.  Maybe if I wasn’t exhausted, maybe if I hadn’t been trying with everything I have every day.  Maybe if I didn’t get to have my flaws pointed out to me by myself and others constantly I’d take this better.  Just once I’d like to hear my cooperating teacher say, you did a really good job today and not because I asked him.  Utterly depressing.

I feel like a frustrated child.  A frustrated student, and I’m asking for help.  I thought this week went well and I don’t know if I should feel upset or happy at the moment.  I don’t know if I can be in a profession where I constantly feel like I’m never achieving my best.  I know understand how special education kids feel when they believe they FINALLY achieved something only to be shot down, one more time.  I understand the frustration, if mine is only slight compared to theirs. I really wish my kids knew how hard I am trying, how hard most teachers are trying day to day.

I have a really bad feeling about next week.  I feel like my students aren’t getting it, I feel like I’m giving it my all and it’s not good enough.  I’ve been told for the past 22 years to stop being creative and play the school game.  In a period where I’m going through an epic amount of stress, I don’t know if I can learn to play a new game at the moment.  I’m scared.

I don’t know how to be creative, and it hurts.  I like learning history, for history’s sake.  I’m not an actor, I’m not a improviser, I’m a crappy story teller, and I don’t know where to begin to fix it.  I want to fix myself.  But not for me, I want to fix this for kids I BARELY KNOW.  Kids that I don’t know if they care or not, but I really want that change. I feel like I’m hoping for change that can only happen after years of experience.  Sometimes I think being a progressive teacher would be more rewarding, for me and the students, but being a traditional teacher might save my sanity.  I hate feeling like everything I’m doing is wrong.

I’m trying to remember the laughs of the beginning of the week.  A student using the word facetious constantly, listening to music with a few girls, joking around with the students.  I need to remember the smiles to get through this feeling.