Where a kid can be a kid -- Kyle

Imagine a place where students actually perk up when they are asked to do something in class. Imagine a group of students who are so motivated to learn about seemingly boring texts like The Odyssey and Great Expectations that they finish their books weeks before the final reading is due. Imagine a classroom that is actively engaged for an entire ninety minutes in pursuit of an education based around discovering deep and influential meanings of literature. Now imagine that I have been given such a class for my student teaching experience.

Unbelievable, I know, yet I have proof! This Monday, obviously a day when students do not want to be awake at 7:20, let alone working, I taught a lesson on archetypal theory in The Odyssey. Archetypal theory is essentially the universal idea of the hero’s journey, which is wonderfully modeled by Odysseus’s quest to return to Ithaca. Needless to say, the ideas presented were highly sophisticated, and I worried that my students may be turned off by the difficult content on an unfortunate day. My worries proved groundless; the class jumped enthusiastically into my planned activities. To make the concepts easier, I presented the theory to them through “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strips, and my students immediately wanted to assume the roles of the precocious youngster and his imaginary, yet oh-so-real, stuffed tiger. When I introduced markers and chart paper, the lesson practically ran itself. They were even excited to stand in front of the class and present what they learned over the course of the day.

No one is more surprised than I to discover that teaching the 9th grade is a wonder and a delight. When I first engendered the idea of being a teacher, I wholeheartedly believed that only the upper echelons of the high school strata would do for me. I wanted to teach 11th or 12th grade literature because I was under the impression that those students were the only ones who could discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of the literary works that I studied in college. I am quickly discovering, however, that while my AP 12 class is challenging and exciting, I am having far too much fun with my 9th graders to dismiss them to the void of subjects that I will never teach.

I have found that 9th grade lies in that strange time between the social awkwardness of middle school and the stratified society of high school. As such, my students are willing to act like children, yet conduct themselves with a surprising sense of maturity. Because I myself am a child at heart, I await every 7:20 AM with great anticipation and excitement. That is the time that I am forever surprised and forever overjoyed that I find myself teaching the 9th grade.

Planning in a Pinch -- Bex

In my short time in the student teaching experience, I have fallen in love with teaching. I love seeing my students every day and planning for them in the evenings. I spend so much time thinking of ways to make the literature interesting and the activities engaging. I do not mind the time it takes to plan elaborate lessons, but I am often plagued by the idea that my careful work may have to be thrown away at the first technology glitch or unplanned fire drill.

I experienced such a moment this past Monday. I had carefully planned a reading quiz and discussion questions about The Great Gatsby. My students and I were going to explore the role of women in the text: how they act, how they dress, and how they are viewed by male characters. I wanted to show the opening scenes of the film version of the novel to reinforce the decadence of the Roaring ‘20s and the freedom of the flappers. I had found a great viewing guide online and made thirty-six copies (five pages each) for my students. On Monday morning I was so prepared and excited to teach. Then the blow came.

My cooperating teacher was unable to come to school. I was to teach the lesson without her guidance and more importantly, without her key to the cabinet where the film was stored. I immediately sat at her desk and began redesigning my plans. I created new activities and formed more discussion questions so we could use the extra twenty-five minutes constructively. In the meantime, I made frantic calls to the media center and various offices trying to locate a copy of the key.

In the end I was able to retrieve the film and show my students the wild behavior of modern women of the 1920’s, but this experience reinforced my understanding of the need to be flexible in my planning. I now over plan my lessons and make plans B and C just in case. In all of the madness of that Monday morning, I was able to remember that I was not just planning to fill up time, I was planning so that my students could meet the objectives I had laid out for them. Even when planning in a pinch my students are foremost in my mind.

Meta-Reflection--Clifton

In our classes in our teacher education program, we are constantly reminded of the value of reflection. Even when we are skeptical of its value, it is still something that we do, because it is required for our courses. But when do you reflect when you need all of your time to do something else? Time is something that, as Tom points out, we have too little of. When we are trying to focus on everything else that we need to do, it is very easy to lose track of the practice that our professors have been trying to hammer into our brains.

My cooperating teacher (CT) frequently asks me questions that sound rhetorical but are not. Or he will ask me a question that I think I can get out of by answering with a simple yes or no. He doesn't let me get away with a yes or no, and he presses me to elaborate and to give every little detail. "What weren't you happy about in that lesson?" is not a question that he allows me to answer with one or two sentences. I am very thankful that my CT is there to ask those questions. Like so many things, reflecting on your teaching is something that we need to make automatic.

Very soon we will be all but left to our own devices in the classroom. Once we finish our student teaching and have our own classroom, there will rarely be another adult in the classroom to ask us why we did something the way we did. Student teaching isn't the same thing as having your own classroom. It's a chance to hone those skills that we will have too little time to work on once we start teaching in our own classroom next year.

The Precious Commodity -- Tom

If there is one thing that I have taken away from my limited student teaching experiences thus far, it is how much more you begin to value your time.

How teachers spend their time each day is very important. The teaching profession demands many of those oh-so-precious hours each day. It starts with the instruction, which in my case will be four and a half hours a day. For every hour of teaching in the classroom there are numerous hours of work that go into supporting it. Not having taught a full load yet I cannot accurately guess how many additional hours go into supporting one hour of actual instruction. I think a conservative guess is three. Now that I have been doing the teacher routine for a few days I understand in a whole new light why my cooperating teacher is constantly muttering, "If we only had more time."

Time is also important when looking at instruction over the course of a school semester or year. I look at all the material we have to cover for state standards and wonder how it will fit into approximately 180 days. That does not even include all the other information I want to share with my students. This issue of coverage is particularly astute for history classes. I cannot think of another subject where new potential material is created as each day moves from the present into the past. Ten years ago history classes did not need to talk about 9-11 or the genocide in Darfur because those events had not happened yet. Now history classes are expected to discuss those items in addition to all the historical events they taught before, while the time frame in which to teach it remains constant. What it means is that things get cut from the curriculum or items get just a passing mention. Just the other day I lamented to a co-worker that the three greatest classical composers collectively got three minutes of time in a world history class. There is just not enough time for both depth and breadth of coverage in the classroom.

The issues surrounding time appear overwhelming, but there is hope. All I need to do is look at the example set by the teachers around me every day. They manage to find a way to fit it all in so they must be doing something right. I need to study what they do and learn from their example to find their secrets, their tricks, and their time saving tactics. They have learned to make the most out of a teacher's most precious commodity, time.