Trial and Error

The first year teacher's vision of his/her classroom so vividly captured on the front page of the NYtimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/education/11class.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

On my second snow day this week (Southerners are baffled by the snow) I picked up my NYtimes only to find this article on the front page. Although the students are younger, and the layout of the classroom is quite a bit different than mine, I could not help but feel that the life of a first year teacher was clearly painted out in this article. Just last week I found myself attempting to give directions to a chatty bunch of 6th graders only to start the music (my cue for them to work) and find that they were all still staring at me wondering what it was they should be doing.

This feeling of empathy, however, is not what inspired me to blog today, it was actually the idea of trial and error that the students featured in the article are subjected to on a daily basis. I think that there is a large part of teaching that is about trial and error, because you are constantly trying to figure out what really works for your students. Nevertheless there is also an element of consistency that is crucial to your students' learning. I think that it is really admirable that the people who started this school went out on a limb to give something new a try, but I also feel that it is not fair that the subject of the educational experiments that so often happen today always have to be the students.

In my own classroom there is an element of guilt that comes with my experiments. I worry that while I am still trying to figure out what really works student learning is not actually happening. Luckily, my most recent experiment has been somewhat of a success. My school sent me to a Peak training before break so that I could learn some new methods and bring them back to my classroom. One that seemed the easiest and most effective to implement immediately was the use of music in the classroom. I use music as a "launch pad," so I constantly say "When the music starts" while I am giving directions. The result is actually pretty great, I find that I am happier because there is music instead of screaming children filling the transitions and my students move more quickly from one task to the next.

In my trial and error I adapted something for my classroom that had proven success in classrooms of the same racial and ses make up as my students. In the article, however, their adaptation was from students of a completely different age group, and ses group. I worry that when we proceed with trial and error experiments like the example in the article we are actually harming our students' academic gains, because even if it works out in the end (5 or 6 years later) you still have students who have been part of the experiment and who have not been learning. There needs to be a way for educational reform never to produce any types of disadvantages for the students, even if some students may benefit at the end.

A Failure and A Success

Today my lesson was a failure. Sometimes we have to admit our failures, and I am learning to accept that. This is not to say that my day was a failure...just my lesson. I wanted students to have time to set up their blogs, so I broke students into three groups, they would be at the computers for 15 minutes each, and then they would switch. While students were at computers all other students were reading in pairs filling out a graphic organizer together... this did not work. It was chaos, mayhem, and my newest favorite expression: complete bananas. I accept this all and now it is time to charge head on towards tomorrow in order to overcome this chaotic day. Tomorrow students will not be in groups and they will have to be seated for much of the class time, we just need to regain some momentum in terms of our behavior. We are also going to do some positive fun activities in order to get our morale back on track.

Now for my success. At the end of today, I felt pretty under appreciated. I think that this was a result of my own low self esteem from being a new teacher and also from a chaotic day. As I was telling a friend about my day on the phone and strategizing for the next I found the note above. One of my students left that note somewhere on my desk under a binder instead of in the usual mail box. On the front it says "to: Miss Samuel from: u will never know..." and then on the inside there are all sorts of small words of encouragement. Every negative feeling that I had about today was erased because of that note. That note reminded me why I am here and why I am a teacher. I am here for the students.

Life and Classroom Updates

I find that as a teacher my life is now non-stop, even more so than before. Every moment of each day needs to be scheduled so that I get everything done. So I have tons of updates since my last post, despite the fact that it was only a few days ago.

Firstly, I finally got our class big goal poster up in the classroom. I made a poster of the big goal that I shared with all of you and I had all of the students sign it so that they were committing to our goal.

I've been having some frustrating car issues, and I got the car you see a picture of here for a rental car. This car is a

cross between a grandma's car and a gangster's car...I am embarrassed to be anywhere near it. I can't wait to get rid of it, but the jokes about my grand marquis don't seem to get old. For

example: last night I went out for Indian food with L, and they gave us an extra entree...we are pretty sure we can attribute that to the grand marquis.

I went on a baking and cooking rampage today to let off some steam and relax before grading and some yoga. As the weather cools off in Charlotte I can't help being excited for fall. I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies... a family favorite that reminds me of my sisters!

Lastly the classroom blog is going to be fully launched tomorrow! I posted our first post tonight. As I am trying to adapt technology into our classroom, I am always seeking out advice and ideas. so email me if you have ideas! My newest idea (thanks to a brilliant coworker) is that each of my students will actually have a personal blog that will be linked to our blog so that they can have an outlet to express themselves and explore their own interests. So check it out http://classroom432.edublogs.org/

Inspiration

First of all I would like to thank you all for your responses to my blog post and emails! Please wait patiently while I figure out all of the details. I did announce to the students today about this project and the excitement in the room was palpable. I used a few students as examples, because I've already found good matches for them and their faces lit up.

I find daily inspiration in my students, and I hope that as you all email and chat with them you will feel the same. As the southerners say, "I get chill bumps just thinking about it." This morning I downloaded Obama's back to school speech and listened to it on the way to work. I was moved to tears as I was driving for a few reasons: firstly because it took place at Masterman in Philadelphia so it really seemed like it was close to my life and second of all because it was all about goal setting just like we are doing in our classroom. He told the students of America that "the future is in your hands." So of course I wrote that on my board today and as I introduced our objective mastery tracking binder I made a direct relation to this quote (this is a little too complicated to explain through blog post, but of course email or call with questions).

In addition to feeling inspired by my students' goals and aspirations today I was also impressed with their reading. TFA has us do all of these reflections that answer the question, "when you look forward to May on the last day of school what do you want your students to say to you, and how do you want it to feel?" I always talk about how my dream is that my students will all love reading and will feel that they have the tools they need to succeed in academics and life. Today my students loved reading. We read aloud by color (more on this later or email me for the strategy) and as we were reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and really getting into it I looked up at the clock and saw it was time to go. When I stopped the students in the middle of our read aloud I got responses such as awww man, and noooo it was just getting good. They love the book!!!!! I couldn't be more happy about this, especially since we have to get through all 200 pgs of it, and it is not easy for my little 6th graders. I hope this feeling will carry on throughout. Keep checking back because our classroom blog should be up and running soon!!!

Dear Mr. Rushdie

Yesterday I decided to put myself out on a limb and try to contact the author of my students' first novel. Our first novel is Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, so naturally I emailed Rushdie's agency. Much to my disbelief I got an email back this morning! The news, however, was not good, Rushdie I was told did not have enough time to write my students an email as he is deep in the writing process. I am not going to take no for answer so easily though. I emailed them again today with this African Proverb:

http://archive.uua.org/re/reach/fall00/social_justice/how_are_the_children.html

and asked that the agency asks one more time (or for the first time probably) and as they ask, they should consider themselves as people who are looking out for the children. So hopefully Rushdie will sign on, write me 6 sentences or less about why he wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories so that I can have a 1st person account to give my students Monday, and he will forever ask himself from now on "how are the children?"

On to Day 3!

I need to go to bed right now, but I wanted to write a quick post to say how wonderful my students are! I was just reading through all of their work and I came across something that I cannot keep to my self. Today my homeroom had a "do now" to write about "what makes a great teacher?" One of them (even though my students will always be anonymous I actually don't know who this one is, because I forgot to have them put their names on it...) finished early so she/he got to write about a favorite teacher that they've had. Here is what she/he wrote:

"My Favorite teacher"

My favorite teacher is Ms. (my last name, trying to be anonymous) she's always enthusiastic and she cares about us a lot. She doesn't fuss a lot and she always giving us positive thoughts. She believes in us.

What a compliment! That last sentence is exactly what I wanted students to say about me. I will take this with me forever.

Ok off to bed for my 5:30 wake up.

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

As the title says tomorrow is the big day! I am so excited to meet my students. I've planned planned planned but I don't think that anything can quite prepare me for tomorrow. Those of you who know me well, I am sure are rolling your eyes upon reading this. I feel like I've gone over just about everything, used my risk management skills to plan around any potential issues, but I still feel like I am missing things.

Tomorrow is mostly procedural and getting to know my students. They will get a tour of the school, fill out a facebook page, talk about the syllabus and our classroom systems. I can't wait to hear about my students. I am on the S.I.O.P. hall (more on what this means later) so I have all of the English Language Learners, and they are from so many nationalities. I am going to learn so much this year.

Can't wait to tell you all about tomorrow. Check back soon.

Saturday

Today my friends and I went off to the farmers market for the second week in a row. We found lots of yummy unique veggies, and I bought this beautiful bouquet for only $7! Below is an image of the market to give you all a sense of what it looks like.

I finished up in my classroom yesterday for the most part. I will add stuff as my students create exemplary work!
This is our big goal, not sure I am going to keep that, because it doesn't look great there.

The bulletin boards! I am quite proud of these. We will put vocab words that we master on the word wall.

And here is the calendar reinvented, and looking much better.

Last night 7 friends and I had one of our first potlucks! We all made delicious food and ate together before heading over to the all corps social. It was a really nice event and we hope to make it a weekly get together.

This weekend I am working on a project. I picked up an antique nightstand for about $25 and some paint and sandpaper and I am now in the process of painting it! I will post picture of the end result.

My Classroom

I think this is the moment you've all been waiting for...pictures of my classroom! So these are pictures I took to help me brainstorm ideas and I thought I would share them with all of you to see if you have any advice. I have to say that decorating my classroom really stresses me out. I really do not like tacky teacher paraphernalia so this does not help with my decorating skills. My vision is that my students will sit in a horse shoe shape so that I can walk around in front of them (I like to wander when I teach). I am worried that everything is looking a little claustrophobic right now though, and it's only going to get worse because I am getting ten computers soon and I have no idea where those are going. So take a look at these pictures and send me your advice! Tomorrow I begin new teacher training hooray!

Can I fit 120 binders for all the students in this space?

This is what I will see while I am teaching.

The sea of desks. That big bulletin board is now covered in blue chart paper and will have a border on it next time you see it. On the right I will put the behavior trackers I think.

That was my attempt at making a calendar out of painters tape (resourceful I know!). It looks awful no need to tell me...Friday it will become bigger squares, only school days, and four weeks long.

And this is what you see when you enter. That's my desk in the back. So send me ideas, thoughts, whatever!