I wanted to go to sleep on the early side tonight because I know have 4 lessons plans to write tomorrow but alas what is sleep when you have four weeks left of your senior year and nine projects and four exams within those four weeks...
Every time I tell people how stressed out I am people try to tell me that I will miss this once I have a full time job. They say I'll wish I had only nine projects to do when now I need to worry about grading homework, creating lessons plans on the weekends, teaching for seven hours, staying at school for another three prepping for tomorrow, creating bulletin board displays, working with parents, attending meetings, etc.
The truth is... I won't miss this feeling of worrying about my nine projects and four exams. I'll take that stress of the "big and scary full time job". Actually, lesson planning for my own class all weekend sounds fun! Bulletin board displays? I've got ideas already! Being a full time teacher? That's the only thing I want right now.
When I have thoughts like this, sometimes it scares me. When did I become so excited to grow up? I really don't know.... but it makes me feel good. Everyday I spend in my practicum classrooms I leave with a smile because something awesome always happens.
One time it was because a student told me they wrote a story about me as the main character. Another time it was because a student told me skip counting was too hard and he could never do it skip counted by 2's, 5's, AND 10's after a math lesson with me. All of these little moments remind me that I have so many more awesome experiences ahead of me. I cannot think of a better career for myself than teaching. I think the best feeling in the world is when you're working with students and you see the "light bulbs go off". I am SO lucky to be finishing off a degree in something I am truly passionate about.
I could rant for days about why I think teaching is one of the best professions in the world. But I've also had days where I ran out of the school because of how poorly my lesson went. Right when I get upset I remember that this is all an experience. As much as I can plan for what I will be teaching that day, something will change in an instant. That's just how school works! Teachers alone makes hundreds of decisions on the spot everyday. If I spend too much time worrying about everything going according to plan, I will drive myself crazy! It just won't happen.
"The only source of knowledge is experience." Albert Einstein
This quote not only applies to students but it also applies to teachers. Students need to experience things for themselves to truly learn. This is one of my teaching beliefs! A teacher cannot just spew information and expect learning to occur. Students need to be apart of their learning process.
Teachers need to have experiences as well to really learn something. If I didn't have lesson plans go poorly, how would I ever learn to deal with failure in teaching? If all my students behaved and followed directions, how would I learn how to deal with a child who just couldn't sit still during school?
Experiences we have teach us more than anyone else could. I believe this because when you experience something for yourself, you remember how it felt emotionally and physically... and then you really learn something.
Let's think about writing in schools.
This past week I gave a writing assessment (along with a partner) to five kindergarteners and five second graders. We both taught mini lessons about sequences in stories. This included having stories which include a beginning, middle, and end. Along with a problem in the story and a resolution to that problem. After teaching the mini lesson we helped the students through templates which had them think about writing a story which included all of those components. Finally, they were asked to write their own story including all the sequencing events we had been discussing.
Between the two grade levels there were some consistent trends. One being that almost all the students masted the idea of organizing their story with a beginning, middle, and end. This is great! Having a logical flow to a story is something that tends to be complicated for younger writers often times because they have so much to say!
Something else that was a trend was that the idea of presenting a problem within a story was not very clear to students. Along with that resolving that problem and having a clear ending was also difficult.
Was their stories lacking something because they missed those components? No, not at all. In fact I read some beyond creative stories that demonstrated more understandings beyond what we taught. I saw students using quotation marks, having titles, character names, establishing locations, etc. These were not things we asked for, they just did them.
So yes, they didn't all exactly achieve the learning objectives. That is okay! Learning is an experience, you can only learn as much as you try. I feel like this holds especially true while teaching writing. It would be an disservice to the students to tell them they needed to write in a specific way. Every student is an individual and should be treated as so. (Another one of my teaching beliefs!) We need to let them EXPERIENCE writing in their own way. Let them try a writing style and realize they don't like it and then let them try another one that works really well for them.
If I learned anything from giving a writing assessment it was the following:
1. Assessing writing is difficult and seems unfair.
How can I say that student A wrote something better than student B? They didn't turn in the same story... how can I ever fairly put a number or grade on that? This is going to be a tough dilemma in my future...
2. Students deserve to write what they want to say in the way they want to say it.
I can expect a general form of writing to be done such as asking for a narrative or a persuasive essay. But I cannot tell them in what words they will chose to express themselves and in what format they chose to actually create their piece of writing.
3. Writing is an experience, it cannot be taught and be expected to be demonstrated immediately.
Okay, I just taught kindergartens how to write with a beginning, middle, and end. Fair enough, they can try that. I also taught them how to include a problem and solution to that problem.
Problem: We forgot popcorn at the movies
Solution: I bought popcorn
Seems like a GREAT effort to me for someone who has NEVER done this before. Gosh, we should probably let them have time to try this before we assess it huh?
Experience seemed to be the theme of todays blog post. When teaching gets crazy and stressful I just need to remember that this is all an experience, a learning experience at that. I wouldn't have come to this realization if it wasn't for the writing analysis assignment. This should also remind me that everything I will be doing in the next four weeks has a purpose and I will learn something from it.
Except for my geometry class... I'm still not sure about that one.
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